Plans have been announced for St Pauls Carnival 2025, with a renewed focus on activism, heritage and education. The 'Back A Yard' programme will replace the full street parade for a second year running, marking a significant shift from the large-scale celebration that once drew over one hundred and twenty thousand people
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00:00The St Paul's Carnival has been going on for over 60 years and this year's programme
00:09is really to kind of I guess both commemorate the kind of 60 years of the Race Relations Act
00:16and the kind of special people like Paul Stevenson and Owen Henry that have kind of really
00:23I guess driven forward race relations in the country but more specifically about
00:27the kind of importance of the carnival and the kind of diaspora that is so.
00:32Plans have been announced for St Paul's Carnival 2025 with a renewed focus on activism, heritage and
00:39education. The Backyard Programme will replace the Full Street Parade for a second year running,
00:47marking a significant shift from the large-scale celebrations that once drew over 120,000 people.
00:56This year's theme, Roots of Resistance, ties in with the 60th anniversary of the Race Relations Act,
01:03the UK's first legislation to outlaw racial discrimination. Organisers say that the
01:08carnival will return to its activist roots and reflect on the community's role in pushing for
01:13change to Bristol and beyond. The carnival's been going for many years and we've had a number of
01:19different iterations of the carnival so full-scale carnival back in 2023 and more recently we've
01:26looked at like a more scaled back version and that's been linked to the concept of back a yard so
01:32essentially you know Caribbean and African people kind of reflecting on home and that kind of sits
01:41quite nicely with kind of the unique space that St Paul's Carnival sits within Bristol. Despite its
01:49cultural and economic value estimated to bring in over nine million pounds in a typical year the future
01:56of St Paul's Carnival remains uncertain. Organisers say that the cost of putting on the full street
02:02event is more now than half a million pounds and fundraising efforts are ongoing to ensure a full
02:08scale return by 2026. This year's programme although reduced in size is part of that effort with paid for
02:16events helping to fund the long-term future of one of Bristol's most iconic celebrations but with local
02:23authority budgets stretched and reliance on community donations questions remain about the sustainability of
02:31this important event. So um sort of building on um that kind of 60 years of kind of like heritage that
02:39have gone before um and the diaspora it serves we're just trying to focus on like different sections of
02:46the community so this year we've um got a young people's programme and obviously the educational programme
02:53is like a long um has been historically a piece of uh the programme for the carnival.