From Sudan to Southmead

BY: MUNA TALHA

Iwas born in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, where there was no difference between Chris�ans and Muslims - we celebrate all the religions. This is in-line with the core values of Islam - to believe in all prophets and messengers and that they all come from the same Good.

Christmas is a public celebra�on and public holiday where Muslims alongside Chris�ans celebrate the birthday of Eisa (Jesus). Christmas lights and par�es are common and everyone joins in.

In Eid Aladha you can see Chris�ans celebrate alongside Muslims and visit each other to exchange gree�ngs and gi�s.

In Bristol I really enjoy the vibrant and cheering celebra�ons at Christmas and as a family we decorate our home and exchange cards and gi�s with neighbours and friends. My kids asked if we could invite our family for Christmas and we used to spend Christmas with rela�ves in London, as we do not have an extended family in Bristol, un�l one day my husband came up with a very good proposal to form a social ac�on group with Muslims of different backgrounds and named it Muslims 4Bristol, with the core aim to celebrate community togetherness across faiths.

The idea is to go out on Christmas day to share a meal and spend the day with our unfortunate Bristol ci�zens who happen to be with no family or who are homeless on Christmas day. We prepare food, hot drinks and dessert and tour the streets of Bristol sharing food and company.

The core vision is to ensure unfortunate homeless fellow ci�zens celebrate Christmas with us as one big family. So for the past eight years we go out and celebrate the day in the streets of Bristol with other hundreds of fellow Muslims and Chris�ans together. Many Muslim families are Sudanese, Somalian, Arabian and Asian, and with their children join in and bring food and desserts.

Many fellow Bristolians were surprised when they saw Muslim people wearing Christmas clothes and elf hats, sharing meals and celebra�ng. Few people know that Islam celebrates and cherishes Jesus or Eisa and that there is several men�ons of Jesus as prophet in Islam and a whole chapter in The Quran en�tled ‘Mary’ which talks about the birth of Jesus Christ and the life of his mother.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our Southmead Communi�es a Merry Christmas and Happy New year and if you want to be part of our Christmas day celebra�on please do get in touch.

email: munatalha@gmail.com

WE NEED YOUR EXPERIENCE!

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Here at Badock's Wood E-ACT Academy we are looking for support from people within our community, and beyond, to visit our school and hold career sessions with our children. Every term, each class have a number of careers linked in with their curriculum from Christmas Tree Farmers to Youth Workers, and Wind Turbine Technicians to Marine Engineers.

We also want to invite people from different cultures and religions into school to spend �me with our children, educa�ng them on what their culture and religion means to them, as this cannot be taught from a book. We want to promote the culture of learning from one another and those within our community.

If you would like to pop by for a visit then please do get in touch,

email: hannah.green@bdw.e-act.org.uk tel: 0117 903 0050.