Call for more Government funding for churches

A University of Ulster researcher has called for more Government funding to be made available to churches and other community-based organisations to help tackle social need and improve community development.

Derek Bacon, a research officer at the University’s Centre for Voluntary Action Studies, issued his plea in a new book 'Communities, Churches and Social Capital in Northern Ireland', which studied the work of 12 faith-based organisations located in cities and towns across in Northern Ireland and representing the main denominations.

These ranged from large bodies such as the Flax Trust based in the Ardoyne area of Belfast and the cross-denominational YMCA to parish based organisations in Derry, Omagh, Enniskillen and Lurgan and a new non-denominational church.

Mr Bacon said that both the policy makers and the churches themselves often undervalued the very significant contribution, and the potential, of the churches in working for the good of their communities.

Mr Bacon said: “This study demonstrates that the organisations studied have the potential to be significant generators of social capital for the wider community. The report seeks both to stimulate Churches in Northern Ireland to further develop their capacity for community engagement and to challenge policy-makers to value faith communities as contributors to neighbourhood regeneration and trust building”.

He pointed out that churches and faith-based organisations elsewhere in the UK already co-operate much more closely with local authorities. However in Northern Ireland the policy makers, while they have a broad awareness of the social action dimension to the work of the province’s churches, have little or no detailed knowledge of the contribution that churches and faith-based organisations make to meeting social need or to community development.

“This report identifies and assesses the public benefit work of 12 organisations that both respond to human need and contribute to the building of a more inclusive society. In doing so, it demonstrates that further and fuller investigation into the impact of faith-based organisations is imperative," he concluded.

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