Meet Javed Bashir, a man committed to bringing communities together in Bradford and Keighley

It was that motivation which, in the aftermath of the 2001 Bradford riots, led him to invite people from all backgrounds, cultures and faiths to come together for a free meal.

That same drive saw him set up an initiative to help elderly and vulnerable people during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic; and it was one which, too, inspired him to launch the Professional Muslims Institute, dedicated to the achievement and advancement of professional Muslims across the UK.

It is now also guiding him in his latest appointment, as the cultural, heritage and diversity lead with arts charity and community hub Keighley Creative, in the town which Javed calls home.

He has already begun his work to increase people’s involvement in the activities of the charity, which is based in the former Sunwin House department store on Hanover Street and is home to artist studios, a gallery and education space. “All my life I’ve been trying to bring different communities together,” Javed says.

“And this project is a good opportunity now to bring different communities on board and to work together – that’s what we need in Keighley.”

Keighley Creative hosts various groups and events and is behind the annual Keighley Arts and Film Festival. Javed explains how his role is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to get involved in the arts and cultural programme in the town.

Particularly important to him is bringing together Keighley’s diverse groups of people and he shares Keighley Creative’s aims of developing people’s artistic talents and supporting them to follow careers in the creative industries.

“Keighley is a place with quite a diverse population and there isn’t really anywhere people can come together,” the father-of-four says. “People often live in their own communities and there’s little mixing between them.

“Arts is a way people can come together, appreciate and celebrate each other’s heritage and culture, and share and develop skills, interests and ideas as well. Hopefully it will be a good platform for developing cohesion in the town too.”

He adds: “We need to be inclusive, ensuring everyone gets the opportunity to be part and parcel of this. Keighley Creative is a platform with which to promote talent.

“My job is to ensure new people can access this opportunity and they are represented on this platform as well.

“It’s also about helping people to understand the importance of art...we need to get communities working together, appreciating and understanding each other’s cultures.”

Javed says he wants the people of the town to have pride in Keighley, and the arts are an ideal means to achieve that.

He views his appointment as a way of contributing to his home town after working across the country and abroad.

Javed arrived in the Keighley from Pakistan with his mum and two sisters at the age of ten. They joined his father, who moved to the town in 1962 to work in the local textile industry.

Javed’s first job after leaving education was as a community development officer with Bradford Council, where he worked to empower ‘hard-to-reach’ communities, building aspiration and confidence. He also worked for a number of years in education, supporting young people through mentoring programmes.

Javed also worked in the restaurant trade in a business partnership in Bradford and it was whilst doing this that he felt inspired to help local communities in the wake of the 2001 Bradford riots.Shortly after the violence, a report published by Lord Herman Ouseley, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, criticised divisions which had been allowed to build up between groups in the city.

The study, completed before the rioting, was commissioned to examine why the community was fragmenting along social, cultural, ethnic and religious lines, and to recommend ways of promoting race relations and equal opportunities.

“Something needed to be done to improve this situation,” Javed says. “So I invited people from all backgrounds, cultures and faiths for a free meal in the condition that they sat together and spoke with one another. I was driven by a will to bring about change and cohesion in the aftermath of the riots.”

In 2015, Javed received an honorary fellowship from the University of Bradford for his contribution to racial harmony and charitable work in the district and Yorkshire region.

He has more recently received an honorary doctorate from the university, for his service to the community during the Covid-19 pandemic and his ‘unstinting’ support to the higher education establishment with which he has worked on community engagement and programmes to widen university participation.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Javed teamed up with different faith communities to set up the Volunteering Interfaith Partnership in collaboration with Age UK Bradford and District and Strengthening Faith Institutions (SFI), the latter a programme which works to create stronger, healthier, integrated and accessible places of worship across the UK for everyone.

Together they responded to the urgent needs of elderly, vulnerable and isolated people by providing hot meals, welfare packs, help with shopping and collecting prescriptions and also provided food to the NHS working on the frontline.

Javed is also a safeguarding consultant for SFI, helping faith institutions in Bradford and other areas to make sure that they have everything in place to keep children safe at their premises. He also works with them to promote community cohesion by opening their doors and helping those in need.

The University of Bradford paid tribute to Javed’s work when it announced his honorary doctorate, describing how he had played “a pivotal role in promoting better understanding, integration and community cohesion in the city for many years”.

He joins Keighley Creative with more than three decades of experience working with communities.

“I’ve worked in Bradford, Peterborough, Walthamstow, Blackburn, and I’ve also done some work in Pakistan and Kashmir, the Middle East, so I thought it was about time to put something back into Keighley,” he says.

“I am proud of putting something back in the community and that is what drives me,” he adds. “It makes me very happy and satisfied when I help others. I encourage others to do the same as this is the only way we can bring about a real change and live in peace and harmony.”

Visit keighleycreative.org