Our Work
Explore our current projects, events, and partnerships aimed at strengthening community ties across Burnley’s diverse faiths and cultures.
Refugee Week
In Burnley, we celebrated Refugee Week with the theme "Community as a Superpower"
As part of the Burnley City of Sanctuary steering group, we had the honour of co-judging some beautiful artwork and writing by students from Wellfield Primary School and St John the Baptist Primary School. Every student went above and beyond in creating their pieces — it was incredibly difficult to choose the winners.
Following this, New Neighbours Together hosted a community lunch on Tuesday 17th June, with several local organisations in attendance. NNT gave a powerful presentation, and the students’ work was proudly displayed around the hall, alongside a commissioned piece of art by local artist Rizwan Iqbal — Faces of Burnley — supported by Burnley Council.
Throughout the afternoon, we had the invaluable opportunity to speak with people who have lived experience as refugees. Volunteers, members, and staff from NNT prepared and served food from around the world — Kurdish, Pakistani, English, Ethiopian, Iranian — all absolutely delicious. The afternoon ended with dancing and traditional music from many cultures and countries. I even had the joy of learning a traditional Kurdish dance!
A huge thank you to all the staff, volunteers, and community members at NNT for welcoming us so warmly and reminding us that in Burnley, community truly is our superpower.
Burnley Youth Theatre Project
Burnley Youth Theatre, in partnership with Building Bridges Burnley, are delivering a school diversity and community cohesion project, engaging a small group of pupils from each of the following schools; Blessed Trinity, Sir John Thursby and Burnley High. The pupils are working with a professional drama practitioner and member of Building Bridges for 6 weeks, starting on Wednesday 14th May 2025.
The aim of the project is for the pupils to take on the role of 'Unity Ambassadors', enabling the pupils to lead and encourage change within their schools and local communities, promoting cohesion and championing diversity. Each session utilises drama and creative arts to create an open dialogue around racism, hate, hate crime, diversity and stereotypes. It will enable the pupils to positively explore key issues within their school, community/town, country and the wider world. The project will provide 'a voice' to the pupils around these difficult topics.
Following these 6 sessions, the pupils will work with a professional filmmaker to create a film, containing the key messages and learning from the project. The film will be delivered, alongside a resource pack, to each school from September 2025. In addition to this, Burnley Youth Theatre will have scope to provide, to each school, a drama practitioner for a day who will deliver workshops to raise awareness of the issues highlighted within the film. This phase of the project seeks to promote the film to the wider school, making it accessible to all pupils and enabling the teachers to utilise it as a resource to generate their own conversations with the pupils to promote cohesion and diversity across their school long after the project has concluded.