Glasgow and Bethlehem have had a formal friendship agreement since 1992 which became a recognised “twinning” in 2007. However, the twinning is not well known in Glasgow which also has another nine ‘twins’.
Glasgow Bethlehem Twinning Association (GBTA), an independent voluntary organisation, was established in 2024 to support the Council’s twinning with Bethlehem. It has received widespread support from Councillors and officials.
While GBTA is still very much in its infancy, it has identified four areas of work:
Education: To make the twinning known and understood as widely as possible throughout Glasgow. To enable the people of Glasgow to understand and identify with the people of Bethlehem in their daily lives.
Advocacy: To make contact between the community, civic and faith leaders of both cities. To provide resource and information as required for them to be advocates for the twinning in their own organisations
Hospitality: Visitors to Bethlehem are always made very welcome. GBTA seeks to reciprocate by providing hospitality to any Bethlehemites visiting Glasgow. Such hospitality ranging from simple welcome through to meals and or home stays.
Challenge: To rebut erroneous information about Bethlehem and its people.
Activities to date have included all of the above and a programme is being developed for the year ahead. A special project this year is an effort to bring to Glasgow two Bethlehem Special Needs teachers to share good practice with Glasgow colleagues.
In the summer of 2025, GBTA became aware of DNTA’s photographic exhibition. Some talk about something similar for Glasgow foundered, realising GBTA simply does not have the depth of history of DNTA. However, it was recognised that Glasgow could learn from the DNTA experience and hence the request to tour the exhibition in Glasgow. Many Glasgow organisations were approached informally seeking display space. Many were positive. DNTA were contacted and a loan was agreed. In hindsight, the loan period in November and December was not ideal. Quite a few organisations already had other exhibitions, not least those with a Christmas connection.
However, there were many successes. Unite the Union hosted the exhibition at their training centre and it was viewed and discussed by many. There were similar displays in churches and community venues including during the PalCafé pop-up Hadeel Products shop which raised around £20,000 in sales. It also had an outing at a large outdoor Palestine event which attracted over 1000 visitors. The exhibition was displayed at the venue of the STUC St Andrew’s Day anti-racism rally. Again, viewed by a good number including John Swinney and Anas Sarwar, both of whom spent time viewing the exhibition and asking questions.
Was it worth it? A resounding yes. While the timing was problematic and some venues didn’t go ahead because of the seasonal activities, the benefits were still considerable. We learned a lot and had many conversations that would not have taken place otherwise.
A huge thanks to all at DNTA for facilitating the loan. It was most appreciated.
Click here to receive the 6 times a year news update or info@gbta.scot for more info.
David Myles, GBTA