Community projects across South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire have been using the inspiration of the Rio Olympics and Paralympics to bring communities together this summer.
The Yorkshire Sport Foundation Community Games fund has awarded £20,000 worth of grants to a wide variety of community events combining sporting and cultural activities.
Funding was given to develop new or existing events that bring communities together with a particular focus on family activities.
Across the two counties, 4,500 people attended 39 Community Games events with 600 volunteers making them happen.
A multi-sport competition in Batley attracted 50 women and included an Olympics inspired opening ceremony. The event was organised by Ready Steady Active, a social enterprise that brings physical activity and sports opportunities to people of all ages, experience and background.
Rashida Salloo, founder of Ready Steady Active, said:
It was amazing to see so many women and girls come together from all backgrounds and ages to play in the tournament, which had a lovely community feel to it.
There was some brilliant competition amongst the girls and it was great to see people from different communities getting on so well with each other and building new friendships.
To see so many Muslim women playing sport is great in breaking down perceptions and barriers within the community. It just shows that given the right opportunity these girls do want to play sport.
In Rotherham, a Community Games funded Eastwood Cultural Day at Eastwood Adventure Place has led to a weekly family walking group for eastern European families to get the whole community out and about this summer.
Parveen Qureshi MBE, Managing Director of United Multicultural Centre, who ran the event, said:
It is great to be able to run a Community Games event to bring the everyone together and celebrate all that is great about our local area.
There has been tension locally between the sections of the community, but being able to bring them together in an event like this is a great way help break down these barriers.
Nigel Harrison, CEO of Yorkshire Sport Foundation, added:
“The Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games were great spectacles and we wanted to use the inspiration of those events to get communities active.
The Community Games fund attracted a great variety of applications and we were delighted to be able to support so many projects.”
To read more about the Community Games Programme