The Faith Dividend benefits all communities

This article was submitted to us by Pete Holley

 

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Written by Alistair Beattie

The people of South Gloucestershire benefit to the tune of over £2.5m annually in terms of support they receive from their local faith group. That’s the equivalent of 2 people working full-time in every council ward. Volunteers provide nearly £2M of support, a few figure which increase even more when you count the contribution of paid staff.

How did this come about? and how do we know?

For the past 6 months, the South Gloucestershire Faith & Belief Forum has been carrying out an audit to discover exactly what the spectrum of faith groups across the area contribute to their communities.

As you might expect, they use their buildings and volunteers to support mother and toddler groups and Fairtrade initiatives. But did you also know that they provide debt counselling advice? work with the Probation Service, schools and nursing homes – to name but a few?

The launch of the 2009 Faith Audit took place on Wednesday 10 June.

You can download a copy of the report here.

 

 

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For more information, contact Alistair Beattie at Faithnetsouthwest on 0117-304 2298 or alistair a_t faithnetssouthwest d_o_t org d_o_t uk