This year, at the Jo Cox Foundation, we wanted to support a group of participants in Batley and Spen to explore what belonging means to them. The learning and outcomes of these conversations would inspire the group to collectively and collaboratively design, organise and deliver an event as part of the Great Get Together weekend – by the community, for the community.

The Belonging Project workshops were designed to encourage meaningful connections between local people from different backgrounds and help foster belonging. By recruiting individuals who have struggled with belonging in their area, the workshops were intended to spark change within their lives and empower them to become more involved within their communities.

And so, seven community members came together for an eight-week journey exploring what it means to belong. The participants weren’t the usual suspects that often travel from workshop to workshop. They varied in age, race, skills and event planning experience.

Each person, at some point in their lives struggled with belonging in a place, culture, or family. During the first session, they shared their stories and feelings. It was a light-bulb moment for each of them as they finally found parallels to their own struggles around belonging. As one of the participants said: “All this time, I thought it was only me who was different.”

Each week the connection between participants strengthened. Their experiences and words became woven into the fabric of the event they were planning. They carefully considered how they could place inclusivity at its heart, providing others in the local community with a sense of belonging.

As the Great Get Together weekend crept closer, the participants decided on a name for their event: The Great Create Together. Borne out of the creative vein that ran through the group, it was a free, inclusive and friendly event filled with activities from face painting and balloon modelling, to cross-stitching and printmaking.

To share the importance of belonging throughout the community long after the event and workshops finished, the group created an activity called ‘In Our Hands’. This was designed to involve everyone who came to The Great Create Together by drawing around their hand and decorating it with a message of hope. The hands were then hung on a rotary washing line and are being exhibited in different Kirklees Libraries to promote belonging, hope, and commonality throughout the community.

On the day itself, everything was set up with making meaningful connections in mind. A mother attended with three children, who enjoyed printmaking while she chatted to a participant about her ideas to create a new playground on a derelict site near their home, and they ended up swapping contact details. An elderly neighbour had a long conversation with a participant and found out about the other activities available to him at the community centre, which he was visiting for the first time.

While we at the Jo Cox Foundation supported the group with some logistics, the participants made each and every decision. Unlike many planning committees, this one didn’t involve a chair or hierarchical structure. By the end of the series of workshops, participants felt they had found people and a place where they belonged. Although the sessions had ended, social connections had been made, with participants exchanging contact information and planning on staying in touch.

This community workshop project has highlighted how people across West Yorkshire have, or are, experiencing barriers to feeling like they belong to a community, place or space.

People are disconnected and socially isolated. Community members, including young people, are pushed apart and marginalised. Projects and events like the Great Get Together can help build trust and facilitate communication between people.

My final question I want to leave you with is: where have you felt like you belong? And how will you help foster and cultivate spaces and places where people can feel like they belong?

Hafeezah Soni is Yorkshire Programme Manager at the Jo Cox Foundation.

Building a sense of belonging in our communities is important - Hafeezah Soni, the Jo Cox Foundation