Double celebration for Faith in Families as it marks anniversary
It has been serving our hardest hit communities throughout the darkest days of the pandemic but now there's a double celebration for Faith in Families this week.
The charity is marking its 21st anniversary of serving the community with a special online party later this week - a celebration which was originally planned for last night April.
And today it has announced it has been awarded a contract by Swansea Council to deliver family centre services to help individuals, families and communities in the city for the next six years, helping to secure its future.
Faith in Families CEO Cherrie Bija said: “At a time where opportunities for us all are limited and challenges greater than some of us have seen before it is fabulous that we have been able to secure funding and a longer term partnership with Swansea Council.
“We will be able to provide the support through our Swansea centres to children and families that deserve the possibility of better prospects.”
Faith in Families, which is part of the diocese’s Board for Social Responsibility, runs three family centres in Swansea and the St John’s Centre in Brecon and has been working with some of Wales’ most deprived communities for more than two decades.
The past year, however, has proved to have been one of its most challenging times as it dealt with the effects of Covid-19 on families.
“Nobody could have anticipated what was about to happen, no plans could have had us ready for a pandemic that was extremely messy, stressful and, for some, fatal. Yet in such time our focus continued to be to support the children and families in our communities as we all went through extraordinary times,” Cherrie said.
“Our teams flexed to meet the need, taking activities online and investing time and resources into different approaches.
“And, while we can now look further into the future than ever before with a longer term contract, it is now that our communities need us more than ever before and it is tremendous that we can concentrate on our work with a degree of security that will enable us to enrich the lives of individuals, families and communities.”
Faith in Families staff delivered hundreds of food parcels and care packs, provided hundreds of online activities, delivered prescriptions and distributed toys and iPads to families in need.
It also joined forces with the Evening Post’s Everyone Deserves A Christmas appeal and Carolyn Harris, the MP for Swansea East, to distribute hundreds of hampers to families across the city.
The charity will be marking those achievements – and many more – throughout this anniversary week on its social media channels.
As well as sharing its success stories, there are videos and messages from supporters and the celebration will end with an online party marking its 21 years.
“It would be great if you could join us,” Cherrie said. “The event is being run through our Twitter and Facebook pages and via Zoom, until we can share cake together.”
You can join the celebrations at facebook.com/FaithInFamiliesSwansea and twitter.com/Faithinfamilies. Details about how to join the online party on March 26 are available on the website faithinfamilies.wales