Green Links continue between Bradford and the Dales

December 17, 2013

In a small Quaker meeting house in Malhamdale, a group of Muslim women from Bradford and women from Malhamdale were, for the second year running, spending a day together having fun whilst making Christingles in preparation for the Christingle service the following day.

This is an initiative which has grown out of Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust’s outreach programme ‘People and the DALES’ which has impacted on the lives of over 4000 people since it began in 2009 thanks to funding from  Natural England’s Access to Nature programme (£197,000 was awarded as part of the Big Lottery Fund’s
Changing Spaces programme).

Making Christingles

It may all seem a little incongruous, but it is just one of a number of creative activities that have taken place thanks to the enthusiasm and determination of a small group of women in Malhamdale and a similar group in Bradford who are keen to learn first-hand about the lives that each community lives.

Christingle-making introduces the women from Bradford to the traditions of Christmas in a rural, white community and in turn they explain the customs of their own religious celebrations. Last year this same group of women spent a day in Bradford, visiting an Asian bazaar and taking a tour of a local mosque, as well as attending a retreat weekend together in a bunk barn in the Yorkshire Dales.

Through the project friendships have developed between the members of the two communities and along the way there has been a lot of fun and laughter, none more so than whilst carol singing in the church in Kirkby Malham when a few Dales women confused friends from Bradford with a high descant rendition to ‘Hark the Herald’!

Festive fun!