Everyone is welcome to a free family event ‘Celebrating All Our Communities’ to be held between 11am and 3pm on Saturday 1st November 2025 at the YMCA in Barnsley town centre. This will be a fun day bringing all communities together in the town demonstrating welcome for all. The event aims to bring people together from different communities, sharing ways to collaborate and work together and help foster a wider sense of community and belonging.
There will be food and music from different cultures, craft activities, games, entertainment, facepainting and Zumba dancing. This is a drop in event for everyone -why not come along for an hour or stay for the day? Children are welcome to attend if accompanied by their parents.
Stalls
The Mayor will open the event at 11am. At 12 noon, live music to dance to will be provided by the fantastic band ‘A Time For Love’. Food will be available to try from 1pm from the following communities: Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Botswana, Jordan, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Poland, Palestine and UK.
The YMCA building is at 1 Blucher Street in Barnsley and the postcode is S70 1AP.
Celebrating All Our Communities 2024
100 people attended our family event ‘Celebrating Our Communities’ to Saturday 30th November 2024 at St George’s Church Hall The event was a fun afternoon supporting refugees and asylum seekers and working together to counter racism, organised in partnership with Barnsley Stand Up to Racism and Refugee Council.
The event was opened by Cllr Wendy Cain, Barnsley Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Health and Communities.
Food, live music, craft activities, stalls and workshops were all enjoyed. Workshops were held:
a)Streams of Sanctuary Workshop
There was a lot of enthusiasm expressed for both Schools and Libraries of Sanctuary. Barnsley Libraries are close to certification. St Johns Primary School in Penistone are in the final stages of being accredited and Horizon, Barnsley and Northern College are now showing considerable interest.
b) Myth buster Workshop
Attendees of the workshop did not think a leaflet was the way forward but more focus should be on social media.
c) Love Music Hate Racism Workshop
The three fantastic singer songwriters who performed at the event attended this workshop. A LMHR WhatsApp group has been created to organise a music event at the end of March 2025
