First Kurdish Centre opens in Leeds after seven years of fundraising

A Kurdish Community Centre, thought to be the first in Yorkshire has opened in Leeds after a seven year fundraising campaign.

The centre on Beeston Road in the city was set up by Kurdish House Leeds as a hub to bring Kurds across the city together.

There are around 3,000 Kurds living in Leeds, the largest population of Kurds in Yorkshire.

KHL was founded in 2018 and is made up of Kurds from across Leeds, but is particularly centred around Beeston and Hunslet Moor.

For the past seven years they have been fundraising to try and find a permanent centre for the community. Initially they launched a bid to buy a former Beeston school building, but that fell through.

But two years later they managed to buy the former Golden Lion Pub and convert that into a permanent hub.

Abdul Dastyar from KHL said: "It's means a lot. We worked hard to establish this. It's going to be a place for our community to gather, to help Kurdish people to save their heritage. Also it will help people who need our, there are a lot of Kurdish people who don't know where to go and we can be that point of contact.

We will also be hosting our school Nawroz School here which teaches children our history and language."

Kashan Ali added: "We all have a different nationality but if we come together to bring all the cultures together, we can understand each other, destroy the racists and we can make a safe society for everyone and better society for our future."