Faith communities - part of the solution

With concern growing about the increasing racial and religious segregation in Britain, is there a role for faith-based community development?

Two new publications, launched last week by the Faith Based Regeneration Network, demonstrate the value of faiths in community development. In a period where the need for community cohesion is greater than ever, these two guides illustrate how faith communities can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Keeping It Together is a toolkit produced for faith based community development practitioners. The toolkit does not offer a series of ‘off the shelf’ solutions - instead it encourages readers to consider a number of ideas and to draw on a diverse range of experiences from the wider community development sector. 

Accompanying the toolkit is Priceless, Unmeasureable? It explores the economic and human value of faiths in community development which is ‘unmeasureable’ by government standards and ‘priceless’ by the standards of human experience.

These timely publications resulted from a partnership between CDX (Community Development Exchange), Faith Based Regeneration Network UK, the Faiths and Civil Society Unit at Anglia Ruskin University and the Churches’ Community Work Alliance.

Amanda Inverarity, Chief Executive of CDX said, “We believe that Keeping It Together and Priceless, Unmeasureable?will be valuable resources showing how faiths and faith-based groups can play a role in developing community cohesion and community engagement. Whilst we are aware that there are issues that can divide opinion from across faiths we wanted to highlight the positive contributions made by faiths to community development and cohesion.”

Both are available from FbRN UK