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Looking at your Community
Baby boomers reach 60 Stratford upon Avon: where there’s a whole lot of Shakin’ goin’ on It makes sense to help prisoners’ families Links between faiths are being strengthened If you want a wild flower meadow…. Reject assisted suicide for better palliative care, says new alliance
Baby boomers reach 60
With this year a new demographic era has dawned. The first of the baby boomers are turning 60.
Ever since the end of the second world war and the following surge in birth rates, the baby-boomers have been on the march – through schools, universities and work-places. They have made history: their sheer weight of numbers putting them in the vanguard of sweeping economic and social change.
Baby boomers invented youth culture and have been doing their best to reinvent middle age. But with 2006 the first of that big generation born during the two decades after the war – are turning 60.
Individuals will celebrate, but not their governments. Baby boomers were good news in the 1960s, when they began working. They boosted growth and paid for the welfare state. But now they are on the march again – out of work and into retirement… and economic dependency. Governments get headaches when they think about it: baby boomers will be the biggest generation of old people in history, as well as the healthiest and longest-living. Who will pay for them?
Stratford upon Avon: where there’s a whole lot of Shakin’ goin’ on
It is THE theatrical experience of 2006: the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works Festival begins this month (April) and will include performances of all 37 of the Bard’s plays, as well as songs, sonnets, other poems and apocrypha, plus numerous spin-off events. The Festival will last for a year.
In case you think Shakespeare is irrelevant for our times, how about these:
On terrorism: “I find the people strangely fantasied…Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.”
On health: “I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.”
On employment: “What! A young knave, and begging! Is there not wars?”
On judicial reform: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
On all night opening for pubs: “Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?”
The Complete Works Festival will be the first time anyone has put on all of Shakespeare in a single season. It is expected to draw an extra 100,000 visitors to Stratford this year. families
It makes sense to help prisoners’ families
If a member of your family was sent to prison, how would you feel? A prison sentence can be devastating for all family members, yet prisoners’ families are a socially excluded group that is difficult to reach through mainstream support services.
Over forty UK prisons responded last autumn to the Family Friendly Prison Challenge, organised by the charity Action for Prisoners’ Families (APF). The challenge only required prisons to make an effort to improve family contact for one day (it could be anything that improved the time prisoners spent with their children). For many of the prisons taking part it was the first time they had ever held a family or children’s event. After seeing the benefits, most have indicated that they intend to hold family visits on a more regular basis.
At HMP Bristol, for example, their family day involved 26 adults including two prisoners’ mums and 26 children ranging from 18 months to 11 years of age. To make the event stand out from the normal experience of visiting, various activities included a children’s entertainer who performed several sessions during the day. There was also face-painting for the children – and several prisoners had their faces painted by their children!
At Thorn Cross young offenders’ institution, the chaplain, Rev. Stephen McKevitt, joined families on a visit to a local farm.
“The response to our challenge was a good first step,” says Lucy Gampell, Director of APF, “but to instigate real change prisons must introduce sustainable initiatives that make a tangible difference to family contact.”
APF co-ordinates a national helpline (0808 808 2003) for anyone with a relative or friend in prison and has published a series of children’s story-books dealing with issues affecting children with a parent in prison. Issues covered include fear of stigma, being lied to by parents, and coping with anger and embarrassment.
One reader, a boy aged ten, wrote to say “I wish these books had been around when my mum went to prison. It would have helped me to know it wasn’t just me.”
Volunteers are needed to help man the helpline. APF can be contacted at Unit 21, Carlson Court, 116 Putney Bridge Road, London SW15 2NQ (Tel. 020 8812 3600). Email: info@actionpf.org.uk
Links between faiths are being strengthened
National and local inter-faith groups have been around for a long time (over a hundred now belong to the Inter-Faith Network for the UK, founded 20 years ago) but recent events have led to greater recognition of their value. Speaking at the launch in Lambeth Palace of the Christian-Muslim Forum, Tony Blair said that dialogue between faiths had never been more vital. Shortly after, the government announced a £7.5 million fund that will be shared among the various faiths for projects promoting “community cohesion”.
One of the best-known UK groups is the Three Faiths Forum, founded in 1997 by Sir Sigmund Sternberg together with the late Sheikh Zaki Badawi and the Rev. Marcus Braybrooke, an Anglican vicar who has been involved in this field for over 35 years.
Sir Sigmund, a businessman, is President of the Reformed Synagogues of Great Britain. Marcus Braybrooke is Joint President of the World Congress of Faiths.
People sometimes ask “why the Three Faiths Forum and not, say, five, six or seven faiths?” Sidney Shipton OBE, co-odinator of the Forum, explains that Muslims, Christians and Jews are the three Abrahamic and monotheistic (one-god) faiths and have a common background in the Hebrew scriptures – the Old Testament. Also, many of the problems faced by the Muslim community were faced by Jews a generation ago. By bringing together the Abrahamic faiths, the forum acts as a catalyst for wider interfaith work as well.
The Forum has inspired similar link-ups in other countries. One of its recent activities was to host a dialogue between a prominent Israeli rabbi and a founder and former member of Hamas.
There have been 578 successful applications to the new Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund and more money will be made available in 2007/2008. A new bidding round will be launched later this year.
Home office Minister Paul Goggins said: “Faith organisations play a key role in our communities – providing leadership and bringing people from different cultures together. They help find ways to enhance understanding and develop practical solutions, including new social enterprises, jobs and learning opportunities.”
An assessment panel made up of representatives from Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian communities, as well as inter-faith bodies, recommended the projects to be approved (from over 2,100 submitted). For further information, contact the Community Development Foundation on 01223 400341.
If you want a wild flower meadow….
If you want to create a wild flower meadow, establish a new woodland, or use wild seed on your farm, then Flora locale has just the event for you.
This year Flora locale has 25 training and demonstration events across England, Wales and Scotland covering a wide range of topics including: How to use wild plants in new developments Wild flowers for village greens and urban spaces Creating and restoring wildflower meadows on the farm
Flora locale is a charity which encourages the wise use of British and Irish flora for planting schemes that have wildlife in mind.
For more on the Flora locale 2006 Events Programme: call 01488 680457 or visit www.floralocale.org
Reject assisted suicide for better palliative care, says new alliance
The recently formed Care Not Killing Alliance has called for the government to reject assisted suicide and instead move to improve palliative care across the nation.
Care not Killing is a new UK-based alliance bringing together human rights groups, healthcare groups, palliative care groups, faith-based organisations and concerned individuals. It will oppose Lord Joffe’s Bill on euthanasia and all other attempts to legalise physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally ill in the UK.
On a newly launched website¸ www.carenotkilling.org.uk, explains that its aims are to promote more and better palliative care, ensure that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed, and to inform public opinion.
Care not Killing includes The Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland, the British Council of Disabled People, RADAR, the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Medical Ethics Alliance. 18 organizations have already joined the alliance with a further 20 expressing interest.
Baroness Finlay, Professor of Palliative Medicine in Cardiff, a member of the Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, says: “I fully support this initiative. The UK has led the world in the provision of palliative care which strives for true dignity in dying. We need to promote better understanding of the process.”
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