Bradford 2025 and Creative Lives support over 50 local organisations through the Do Your Thing Awards

Bradford 2025 and Creative Lives are pleased to announce the recipients of Do Your Thing micro-awards. As part of the UK City of Culture programme, the two organisations teamed up to support the delivery of community-driven creative projects across the district to celebrate the everyday creativity of Bradford’s residents.

Over 50 grassroots creative groups have been selected to receive a share of just over £20,000 to open-up opportunities for cultural participation in a multitude of ways. Successful applicants include:

• The City Gent, the fanzine for Bradford City FC, will host an exhibition in Heaton celebrating 40 years as the oldest surviving football fanzine.
• Denholme Shared Church will create an installation of ‘Peace Doves’.
• Equity Partnership are putting on a LGBTQ+ History month event that will feature ‘Queerobics with Brinny’, a fun engaging aerobics class in Cartwright Hall to encourage fitness and wellbeing.
• Ilkley Players will run a new play writing competition with winning plays performed and produced at the Playhouse later in the year.
• ISSE (Inspire Support Sports Empower) will work with The Baji Bantams – Bradford City’s first fans group for South Asian women, to bring the community together with cultural music at the Bradford City Community Foundation.
• Lister Community Action Group will host art trails showcasing artwork by current and former residents and celebrating the community’s creativity and heritage.
• SEND Salaam will hold a sensory art session for children with special educational needs and disabilities in the Girlington area, working with Summat Creative.
• Topic Folk Club will run a song-writing workshop bringing Bradford based people together to write songs to contribute to Topic’s “Songs with a Bradford Accent” project.

Rhiannon Hannon, Bradford 2025’s Director of Creative Engagement says “We had an incredible number of applications, and we’re ever inspired and impressed by the creativity taking place every day in every area of our district. Bradford 2025 is all about making culture more available and accessible all across Bradford, and these organisations are showing how this can be done every day.”  

Robin Simpson, Chief Executive of Creative Lives adds “Creative Lives was thrilled to receive an incredible 161 applications from local creative groups across Bradford, demonstrating the amazing breadth and diversity of grassroots creativity happening in communities throughout the district. We are delighted to be able to support 54 groups through ‘Do Your Thing’ micro-awards, but the quality and ambition shown by all applicants was truly inspiring and we hope all the groups will stay connected with Creative Lives as we continue our commitment to championing community-led creative activity in Bradford during 2025 and beyond.”

Steve Mason from Ilkley Playhouse said “Ilkley Playhouse is delighted to receive a Do Your Thing award. This will maximise our impact in encouraging new writing and writers, and creating lasting legacies of memories and new work for those involved and the community. Ilkley Playhouse is thrilled to help in bringing Bradford 2025 to the entire Bradford area.” 

Mahum Fatima from SEND Salaam states “We’re really happy to have been selected as one of the recipients of Do Your Thing. We want to show Bradford how amazing and talented our young SEND children are! This award will enable us to raise awareness around hidden disabilities and help make art accessible to the local community.” 

Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford Council said “Engaging all our communities and supporting grass roots organisations like these is a big part of what our bid to be UK City of Culture 2025 was all about. It’s good to see another round of grants being awarded and further supporting, at a local level, the creativity and ingenuity that Bradford is famous for.” 

This news follows the recent Bradford 2025 announcement of Our Patch, a large-scale district-wide programme in collaboration with local artists, community organisations and residents, breaking down barriers to cultural participation by bringing the arts right to the community’s doorstep.

Find out more on how Bradford 2025 is putting local people at the heart of the UK City of Culture at bradford2025.co.uk/take-part and more on the work of Creative Lives at creative-lives.org