£4.3 Million Funds to Support Faith Organisations with Community Cohesion Work

Communities Minister Phil Woolas announced Wednesday that grants totalling more than £4.3 million will be offered to more than 300 faith organisations to promote a common sense of citizenship.

The funds are being offered to 343 faith organisations to further support them in the unique role they are playing in the creation of a multicultural Britain and the promotion of understanding between different social and faith groups.

Yesterday's announcement particularly recommends funding groups which already offer practical solutions to enable them to better support inter-faith work by expanding their existing work among faith communities.

Just some of the groups to benefit from the funds include Across Communities: The Young People's Project North East, which will use the grant to hold conferences and workshops offering training in faith, cultural awareness and diversity issues to young people to help them understand different faiths and cultures.

The Generator citizenship camp run by Global Generation, London, will also benefit from funds. The camp has follow-up workshops for young people primarily from a Muslim school, a Church of England youth group and the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and the programme draws on faith-based values and experiences to understand the role of citizens. It explores in particular the strength of coming together to tackle environmental issues.

The announcement of the grants follows bids from more than 1,200 organisations to the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund and the latest grants are the second round of a £13.8 million fund to help organisations promote community cohesion and shared citizenship at a local community level.

Mr Woolas said: "This demonstrates how we are stepping-up work in communities to promote understanding and cohesion by effectively engaging women, young people and hard to reach groups. We must continue to emphasise our sense of Britishness and the shared values which hold us together.

"Faith organisations play an important role in our communities and know their communities well. We want to draw on the expertise of faith, interfaith and non faith based community groups and do all we can to support them.

Mr Woolas said the use of the grants was a "local approach" to community cohesion which he hoped would "reach directly into communities to promote shared citizenship and integration".

"It is vital that we find ways of bringing people from different faiths and cultures together to understand their differences and celebrate their shared experiences," he said.

He said the programme had already made a significant impact where projects are already up and running. "I am certain we can build on this to develop practical solutions to promote community cohesion."

Applications came from a wide range of faith, interfaith and non-faith based community groups and the Community Development Foundation (CDF) has been commissioned by communities and local government to administer the distribution of funds.

An assessment panel made up of representatives from Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian communities, as well as interfaith bodies, recommended the projects to be approved.