Grand Iftar College Green event aims to bring the city together
THIS year’s Grand Iftar will celebrate Bristol as a city that has been welcoming to refugee and migrant communities. Although an Iftar gathering will still take place on St Marks Road, Easton, as has been tradition in recent years, the main event this year will take place at College Green with a capacity for 1,000 people.
For the first time this year, there will be two Grand Iftar events, the St Marks Road Grand Iftar on April 6 and the College Green Iftar on April 13, but tickets are already all sold out.
In 2019 the St Marks Road Grand Iftar in Easton attracted national attention as 6,000 came together for an evening meal during Ramadan. But following the pandemic the organisers lack the capacity to cater to such large numbers and decided that a College Green event would make it easier for people to attend from all over Bristol.
Working with Bridges For Communities, Bristol City Council and the Bristol Cathedral, the organisers hope they can bring people to
the event who have never attended an Iftar or had social interaction with those practising the Muslim faith.
Abdul Ahmed, chair of Bristol Somali Forum and part of the Iftar organising team, hopes that bringing the gathering to College Green will help promote community cohesion. He said: “We want to bring people here who are least likely to come. Bristol is a very divided city, we have affluent areas and then places where there are a lot of people who are on low
incomes. We want to bridge that gap so they can see each other as humans and learn from each other.”
Tahira Dar, also on the organising team, added: “We try to bring people together, it doesn’t matter what religion they are, what community they are.”
The team behind the Iftar, are part of Muslims 4 Bristol, a local charity which was set up to deliver food to homeless people in Bristol during Christmas. Muna Talha found that these community initiatives have helped change perceptions people have about Muslims.
Muna recalls meeting a woman who was frightened when she saw the group volunteering during Christmas. “I spoke to a woman who was frightened and wanted to know what we were doing, when I told her it changed her perception”, she added.
Dan Green, managing director of Bridges For Communities said: “We are delighted to have been invited to partner in the Grand Iftar on College Green, and to play a small part in helping to facilitate this event. Bringing people together from different communities, cultures and faiths in order to build understanding and trust is something that is much needed in our world today.”
Prior to the pandemic, the Grand Iftar had been a street gathering on St Marks Road where people could turn up without having to book.
While this year the St Marks Road Iftar, which is now fully booked, will have capacity for 500 people, organisers have said that they hope to cater for bigger numbers on St Mark’s Road next year.