Events
Over the last year of working together as a faithgroup in conjunction with others we have identified the following areas for potential partnership and project developement.
1. Debt Counselling Service for East Northants.
We have contacted Christians Against Poverty - the leading debt counselling service from a faith based background. We are aiming to gain sufficient support from member churches to operating a fully supportive debt counselling service in our area. For more information on Christians against poverty please click here.
As a Faith group we have set ourselves a target to formulate enough local support to be able to enter into a partnership agreement with Christians Against Poverty to bring the best quality debt counselling service right here into East Northamptonshire.
The challenge is to raise £15,000 each year as our contribution to the overall cost of implementing such a program. This may sound a big amount and a big step of faith, but if 20 of our Faith group member agencies would commit to support this program, this would average out at only £750 per church per year. Still a lot for smaller or more rural churches. But if in each of these groups, 6 people would commit to give £10 per month then with gift aid money on top, the average amount of £750 per group could be easily achieved. See the CAP web page for up to date details of the whole program.
2. Street Pastors Community Safety Initiative.
Street Pastors is a community safety initiative. It involves churches working together with the local police and council to develop a partnership of involvement and engagement to support the placement of trained and supported volunteers to work on the streets in a community safety program. As the ENFG we are hoping to gain enough local support to provide the core group of 12 volunteers who will commit themselves to a 1 year training program of one training event per month over the year. This will then provide us with a core team of trained workers to represent the faith groups on the streets as part of a wider crime reducing and safety strategy. Please check out the Street Pastors web page and contact
Mark Lees for more details on how you can get involved.
http://www.streetpastors.org.uk/
3. Homelessness Project.
As part of our interaction as a faith group with other agencies and bodies, we have recently joined the local council sponsored homeless families. Arising out of this contact, we have conducted a number of small surveys to help identify the need in our area. Mark Lees the development worker for ENFG has comitted his church to a project that will establish a temporary emergency homeless shelter in Rushden. It is hoped that this project will be up and running by the winter of 2006 with support from Anglian Water and other local businesses and partner churches. Please contact Mark Lees for more details.
4. Housing Developement.
As a faith group we are working together with the North Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit to provide strategic input into housing plans for our region. We have participated in a number of consultation events and liaised with Bob Purser who is the churches liason officer based at North Northants planning unit.
5. Youth Issues.
As faith groups we provide the backbone of the voluntary sectors youth services accross our region following recent witdrawal of local authority youth services. This has made the faith groups impact even more relevant and vital.
We are seeking to work towards common programming and support to the youth work in our region.
We are concerned at the ENFG with recent local developments and losses in the statutory youth sector. We recognise this places more responsibility on the Voluntary sector involving the whole network of Church groups active in our region. But we must see this as an opportunity to raise our game and step forward into to breach. As the ENFG we are seeking to support and co-ordinate activities carried out by our member agencies in partnership with others. Local contact on youth related issues can be found on the following sites or by contacting the following people:
Rushden Area Christian Youth (RACY) - A collaborative network which coordinates much of the youth activitiy in the south of our region
www.racy.org.uk They also work with to support Passion & Glory, a united churches once per month Youth event that is proving to be very popular in the Rushden area.
Nic Shaw has just begun work as the new Youth Community worker for
Oundle and the surrounding district. Nic is based at St Peters Church in Oundle and will be a key worker for the northern part of our district.
www.ocya.org.uk
For information on all aspects of youth service provision please contact:
Andrew Presland - ENFG Treasurer, fount of all knowledge and information regarding youth events and news.
Paul Wilcox - The East Northamptonshire District Council Youth
Co-ordinator.
