St Barnabas
In the parish of St Barnabas, we have been exploring the stories of the church’s people. Through our listening to the church’s elders and storytelling at the launch of neighbourhood organising in the area, we relished the riches of their stories and life experiences here in St Barnabas and Walthamstow at large. This led to a Stories of St Barnabas project that captures the unique stories of the people of St Barnabas.
We also developing the use of the church hall for the community through the warm welcome initiative. This has enabled her to start a food pantry that has an Asian spin to cater to the community and give diversity across the foodshare initiatives. Through our neighbourhood mapping, we are developing connections and listening to the community and will continue to build relationships and connections for future partnerships.
Home-for-home action
In March of 2024, asylum seekers who many of our church institutions worked with were unexpectedly asked to leave their hotel accommodation in Walthamstow and were threatened to be moved anywhere in the UK. CTC, along with our strategic partners at Citizens UK, organised an action where over 400 member organisations across the country and in the borough came together. With faith leaders and local residents a peaceful action calling Clearsprings Ready Homes CEO Graham King to extend people’s stay at the hotel to at least the original date of April 2024. There was a lot of media coverage, and whilst residents did get moved, most were moved locally and not outside of London.