Faith Together In Leeds 11

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Faith Together in Leeds 11 is a unique grass roots partnership of Christian Churches, and Muslim and community organisations, which came together in 1997 to promote regeneration in Leeds 11. In 2001 we won a national award from Muslim News for excellence in community relations, which was sponsored by the Cabinet Office. This was presented at an event where Tony Blair gave the keynote speech.

The picture shows Helen Bishop, the Building Blocks Centre Co-ordinator, Bob Shaw, Vicar of Holy Spirit Church and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors, and Arshed Lhodi, on eof the staff of the Hamara Centre. The photograph comes from the cover of a new book, 'Faith as Social Capital', published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Please click on the picture for a closer look.

The partners are:

• The Asha Neighbourhood Project,

• The Bangladeshi Muslim Welfare Association

• The Building Blocks Centre

• Holy Spirit Parish Church

• Leeds (South) Methodist Circuit

• The Leeds 11 Muslim Association

• Hamara

• Trinity Methodist Church

• Vera Media.

We believe that networking through one large partnership creates better opportunities to provide and develop services and share and develop resources, in particular the redevelopment of land and buildings for the benefit of the whole community.

From the beginning we felt that strengthening this partnership across religious and ethnic divides was a desirable outcome in itself and could potentially contribute to the regeneration of the local area.

Many of the partners have a substantial track record of working together based on their shared use of Trinity Methodist Church, which was the only sizeable community facility in this area until its redevelopment in 2004 as part of the Faith Together in Leeds 11 project.

Through existing work with local residents, research, public consultation and liaison with other stakeholders, including voluntary organisations and the statutory sector, we have identified several key groups as requiring new or additional services in the Beeston Hill and Holbeck areas in Leeds 11. These are:

• Asian elders and their carers

• Young parents and carers of pre-school children

• Private nursery care

• crèche support for FE courses in the community

• Bengali women for whom Sylheti is their first or only language

• Local residents

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