Based on one of London’s most iconic streets – Brick Lane – the People’s Palladium is an exciting and dynamic theatre group. It was set up in 2008 with the aim of creating a ‘Theatre of Ideas’ – to provoke local people to think about morality, human relations and history.

Those of all backgrounds are welcomed as performers and audience members. The group says its founding principle was ‘equality of opportunity’ while suggesting that “diversity is a core asset providing creative energy to make play and pleasure the hallmark of The People’s Palladium.”

The People’s Palladium began its life with a production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’, a play of love and passion which was well received by the audience at the Departure Arts Centre in Limehouse. The company’s next production was ‘From Here’ which consisted of more than ten different individual stories told simultaneously in a participatory style. It was presented to a full house in Whitechapel.

The most recent performance was another Federico Garcia Lorca classic titled ‘Yerma’. The play deals with themes of isolation, passion and frustration, as well as nature, marriage and friendship. Yerma’ also played to a full house.

As well as bigger productions, the group also puts on workshops which are open to anyone in the local community who wants to come and join in. A good example of this is the recent ‘Scenes for a Spring Evening’ series. These open workshops gave the chance for members of the local community to come and take part in classic plays as actors, production team members or simply by watching.

The People’s Palladium is now looking to the future to further opportunities throughout 2012 and beyond. A grant from Near Neighbours is being put towards an exciting production. The aim is to bring together a group of local young people of different faiths and ethnicities and work with them on a show to be performed at Limehouse Town Hall.  Beginning in January 2012 the young people are taking part in drama workshops and will stage a selection of ‘scenes from world theatre’. They’ll also work together building props and staging. It’s hoped this will lead to lasting friendships.

If you want to find out more about the People’s Palladium, there are many ways to get in touch. You can visit the website: peoplespalladium.com, visit the facebook page or even follow on twitter.

2012 is now upon us and all of the team at Near Neighbours would like to with you a very happy and joyful new year. 2012 is, of course, a very significant year for the areas we cover. The world’s attention will be on Eastern London when the Olympic and Paralympic Games come to town this summer. What an opportunity for us to show why this is one of the best places in the world to live!

We’ve got many different ethnicities, nationalities and faiths living together to make up one of the most diverse communities anywhere on the planet. We’re delighted to be supporting grass roots community projects which help to encourage people from all kinds of different backgrounds to meet, deepen their relationships and take part in great community activities together.

We would love to hear from you if you’re involved in a project, or you’d like to start one that Near Neighbours may be able to support. For more information, simply click on the ‘About’ button above.

Over the next couple of weeks this blog will be profiling some of the organisations which are already benefitting from Near Neighbours grant funding and support. Watch this space…

Richard Dawkins guest-edited the Christmas edition of the New Statesman – beginning with an open letter to the Prime Minister attackng faith schools, and calling for governmental “neutrality” on religious matters.  In this festive blog, Centre Director Angus Ritchie offers a response.

Dear Professor Dawkins

Merry Christmas to you too! I hope the authorship of this letter isn’t too big a disappointment. When you write to the P.M., you don’t expect the reply to be written by a cleric.

(Just to be clear, I have no authority – or desire – to speak on behalf of David Cameron. The views here are very much my own.)

Time is short.  It seems we both have carol services to attend! So let me cut to the chase. Your letter to calls for “state neutrality” on matters of religion, and an end to any government support for faith schools.  I think your position is anything but neutral.

You imply that the “neutral” way to bring up children is to avoid religious practice until they can decide for themselves. Hence your analogy with economics. We don’t bring up children as Keynesians or monetarists; we let them decide which to be when they are old enough to grasp the arguments. You think we should do the same with religion.

But you can’t bring up children “neutrally”. The economics analogy doesn’t really work. Long before they are able to evaluate the arguments for and against our view of the world, we have to bring children up according to some norms. We teach them by word and deed, what kinds of things are right and wrong, what they should value and what they should dismiss. Some of those norms will have religious, or atheistic, implications. We either bring them up as if God is a living reality, worthy of gratitude and worship, or we don’t. If (as I believe) there is a God, then it is the most natural and right thing in the world to pray to him from the earliest age. If (as you believe) there isn’t, then such a practice is worse than a waste of time.  Neither choice is “neutral”.

“Neutral” parenting cannot be expected of anyone. Some parents will pray with their children, and will also take them to church, and even send them to religious schools.  While we can’t demand “neutrality” from parents or from schools, there are some things we should expect. Every parent and school should bring children up with an openness to other worldviews – and, as they get older, the freedom to draw their own conclusions.

Let’s turn to the wider issue of governmental “neutrality” on matters of religion. You and I agree that the state should not impose atheism or religion on its citizens. But government policy is inevitably, and rightly, shaped by values. That’s something we need more of – now more than ever.

Politics is about how we build a common life, and discern a common good. You can’t expect me to participate in that without bringing my faith to bear. It is the foundation of my convictions about what is good and just. You will have different foundations (a matter to which we must return if this correspondence continues).

Christianity is a holistic view of the world, not a detachable set of private convictions. For a Christian, the nature of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ have implications for economic policy as much as ‘private’ ethical choices. The recent statements by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the financial crisis are a case in point.  That’s why churches are at the forefront of both the Jubilee 2000 campaign (on international debt), and Citizens UK’s Nehemiah 5 Campaign (against exploitative lending). The very names of the campaigns are revealing.

Of course, if Christians are to turn their ideas into reality, they need to win support from others. This involves making arguments that appeal to non-Christians. There’s nothing underhand about that; building coalitions across differences is central to all democratic politics. Whatever your worldview, turning your convictions into government policy involves two things.  Firstly, you try to persuade people of the truth of your worldview. Secondly, you build alliances with those who remain unconvinced. So, in the Nehemiah 5 Challenge, churches advance some reasons for public policy which are distinctively Christian, and some which are not. As part of Citizens UK, they work with mosques and trade unions, tenants associations and student unions, on this and many other issues. (These include the Living Wage Campaign – with deep roots in Catholic Social Teaching – which has now won £70 million for low-paid workers in London alone.)

Of course, Christians disagree amongst themselves – on economics as much as anything else. How to understand and apply the teachings of Scripture and Church is a matter for discussion. That’s one reason we have departments of Theology as well as Religious Studies in our universities (just as we have departments which reflect on moral and political issues without reference to God).

You may ask: “Why should I be forced to live with an economic system shaped by your religious views?” A good question! To which I would answer: “That’s the price of living in a pluralist democracy. I’m forced to live with a system shaped in part by the moral convictions of atheists, and you’re forced to live with a system shaped in part by the convictions of Christians.”  Neither of us is “imposing” our worldview on the other.  What we’re doing is negotiating a common life in the midst of deep ethical and religious disagreement. That’s the challenge, and the joy, of politics.

The elephant in the room – in your letter and in my reply – is whether religious views can ever be reasoned and reasonable.  In the end, your desire to relegate religion to the private sphere is anything but neutral.  It only makes sense if you believe religion has no rational foundations.

If you are willing to engage in this correspondence, I’d love to move on to a more detailed examination of this elephant. There’s a lot more to be said.

In the meantime, this comes with my best wishes to you and your family for a happy Christmas,

Angus Ritchie

The Centre has begun a research partnership with The Children’s Society on child poverty, theology and inequality.  So we are especially pleased to publicise their 2012 Edward Rudolf Lecture by the Archbishop of York.  The event will launch the Good Childhood Report 2012 – with empirical research which complements and informs our ongoing programme of theological reflection on the issue

The Children’s Society invite you to join us and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, in a presentation of our groundbreaking Good Childhood Report 2012 on 12 January 2012 in Church House, Westminster SW1P 3NZ.

The Good Childhood Report, based on the views of 25,000 children and young people, contains compelling evidence on the factors that affect the well-being of children.

 The evening will be an engaging exploration of the ingredients of a happy childhood, consisting of a presentation of the report followed by a lecture by the Archbishop of York, who has been an outspoken advocate for young people in the UK for many years.

 The writers of the report as well as the Archbishop will interact with the audience in a Q&A session following the lecture. Registration opens at 5.30 pm and all are invited to the post-lecture reception lasting until 8.30 pm.

To attend, please email conferences@childrenssociety.org.uk or telephone The Children’s Society’s Supporter Care Team on 0300-303-7000.

As part of our series of posts from the recent theological consultation with The Children’s Society, here is a reflection by CTC’s Adam Atkinson and Angus Ritchie (both priests at St Peter’s, Bethnal Green)

‘The world as it should be’ preoccupies many of us.  It can be a distraction as well as an inspiration.  Our contexts is Bethnal Green, aka ‘the world as it is’.  If you stand on the steps of our parish strip club on Hackney Road and pointed out a mile radius – the context of that area is not just cultural creatives, Tec city entrepreneurs, boutiques and nightlife.  It is also 40% unemployment and 54% child poverty.

As Anglican priests in Bethnal Green we are living, working and praying for transformation: for the spiritual, social and cultural transformation that the Gospel brings, as the Kingdom of God comes near in the person of Jesus.  We lead an institution that is trying to love God and love neighbour, faithfully and effectively.

Soon after arriving as yet another immigrant to East London (albeit a new-wave middle class one), Adam was introduced to a community organiser.  They spoke about addressing the social need of the city and the organiser asked Adam why he was here.  Adam replied: ‘To be a voice for the voiceless.’  The organiser shot back “Why do they need you to speak for them?  How about helping them to have a voice?’

The voice of the poor has to be at the heart of social transformation.  This Consultation has explored the gap between rhetoric and reality on issues of poverty and inequality.  We hear a great many words – from politicians of all stripes – about the excessive gap between rich and poor.  Indeed, we have an unprecedented political consensus on the urgency of tackling domestic as well as global poverty.  And yet the gap between rich and poor gets wider.  This isn’t a party political point: both the last government and this one fall short of the agreed targets for cutting child poverty.  Lots of edifying words: but few of them becoming flesh in Bethnal Green.

Time and again, we find the redistribution of power is the essential prelude to real change.  ‘Being a voice for the voiceless’ is not enough.  Is the voiceless who feel the urgency of poverty most keenly. It is when they find their voice and build their power that change becomes possible. That’s why The Children’s Society is so committed to including young people in this conversation.  It is also why community organising – the systematic building of power among the poor – has a crucial role to play in closing the gap between rhetoric and reality on the issue of child poverty.

What is power?  The best definition we know is this: ‘the ability to act’.  Power is not good or bad.  That depends on how you use it, and to what ends. We are familiar with different types of power: Positional power – where a leader operates through the mandate given to them by an office of some sort, a Mayor, a Bishop, a boss in an office hierarchy.  Often people with such positions of power confess that they don’t feel that they really do have much power.  Ironically people without positional power often assume that they need to achieve the position before they can really affect change for the better.

There’s financial power – we’d all quite like more of that.  Indeed the ebbing tide of financial power in families as well as in governments is causing much anguish.  A growing – and painful – inability to act.

As Christians, we share a real and dynamic notion of spiritual power.  We pray, things happen.  It is borne out by our experience and by that of the church.
 There is also such a thing as relational power.  Indeed, relational power when combined with any of the above renders them especially potent.  But it is potent on its own.  Relational power is what community organizing works with.  Relational power really is powerful, it is also something we all need but it happens to be freely available.

 At its heart community organising is about the building of these relationships.  Relationships within and between ‘institutions’: organizations of free association, places that have a life of their own where people gather such as churches, schools, mosques, TRAs, community groups.  These institutions then decide to work together for the common good.

Relational power – sometimes referred to as ‘relational capacity’ – is built through one-to-one conversations.  If I want to build relational power I need to create, develop and keep good relationships.  Again, this is an astonishingly simple idea but often more honoured in the breach that in the observance. 
 A simple personal calendar test will suffice to see if this is something we really do prioritise.  Ask how I spent my time in the last week or month and you will get a fairly clear idea of my priorities.  How many times did I meet with people simply to get to know them, to find out what makes them tick, to build a relationship?

A Catholic priest friend of ours has put three one to one conversations in his calendar every week for the last three years.  As a consequence he can say that he has built a relational culture, where people have followed his lead and carried out one-to-ones themselves, where he certainly knows and is known as a person not just as the parish priest, and where people’s gifts and passions are uncovered and therefore stand more of a chance of being fulfilled.

‘Community organising’ sounds like something new.  With the rise of Barack Obama, it has come (no doubt fleetingly) into fashion.  In fact, it calls us back to some traditions the church has forgotten, as it has followed the wider culture in becoming more project-driven and less relational.  The importance of relationships to young people’s wellbeing, and the pressures in modern life which lead less time to be invested in them, is well documented The Children’s Society’s own Good Childhood Inquiry.  As John Milbank has reminded us, the Church is called to embody – as well as to promote – true reciprocity and society.  And as he suggests, practicing what we preach is central to authentic and effective evangelism.

Community organising is not a distraction from the church’s central task.  Rather, it recalls to a more faithful embodiment and proclamation of the Gospel.  In so doing, it builds the power of our poorest neighbourhoods: enabling the vision of society we have shared at this Consultation to move from the ‘world as it should be’ into the ‘world as it is’.

So what does a Near Neighbours project actually look like? Well, no two projects are the same, but we can safely say that they’re all making fantastic progress in bringing together people of different backgrounds who may never otherwise have met. If you’d like to find out more, or make an application for funding, click the ‘about’ button above. Here’s a list of the projects being supported so far:

The Pembroke Settlement/St Christopher’s Church

Located at the end of East Street (Walworth Road) this church has a long, proud history of engagement with the local community and is supported by Pembroke College, Cambridge. The church has just been awarded a Near Neighbours grant to link its predominantly Nigerian congregation with the White and Latin local community and to engage with the local Mosque. This is a very exciting project taking place over six months or more. The grant will partly fund a worker who’ll also be accommodated in the ‘settlement house’ on site. Using our expanding networks we’ve found an excellent young man with NGO and community development experience who is exploring the possibility of being that worker.

South Bank University
Until the arrival of Revd Howard Woolsey a few months ago, chaplaincy provision at South Bank was limited, despite it being one of the most diverse universities in the country. Howard has just received a Near Neighbours grant to assist a group of students from varied backgrounds in the ‘Conversations of the Soul’ project (emerging from St Ethelburga’s interfaith centre). This will enable deep relationships to form between the students and Howard will build on this to form a University Faith Forum.

David Idowu Choir

When Grace Idowu’s son was murdered in 2008 she began a remarkable journey. She has since met David’s murderer and forgiven him. She’s now made it her life’s mission to bring young people in her community together to prevent future attacks. The choir is being partially funded by a grant from the Near Neighbours programme. It’s been set up to provide local communities with the resources they need to bring together teenagers of different faiths and none, as well as those of different ethnic backgrounds. The choir is now singing in a number of prestigious locations in South London.

The David Idowu Choir

St Paul’s Shadwell

This lively Anglican church has received assistance from Near Neighbours to build a community vegetable garden. With the help of volunteers from the church and people of other faiths from the community, this is an opportunity to build lasting relationships. The church is working closely with the Darul Ummah Jamme Mosque. The project has been awarded £4,000 to publicise the garden. The grant will also help to buy seeds, plants, tools, gloves and compost. The genius of this project is that the food grown is going to be donated to Tower Hamlets Foodbank (another project supported by the Contextual Theology Centre, where Near Neighbours is based).

Curbs – Energize4Girlz Project

Energize4Girlz will run holiday activities for local girls 8 – 15 yrs of different faiths.  The church wants to enable the girls to develop deep relationships with each other. Curbs is a Christian based charity located at St Mary’s Cable Street, a church in the heart of a very multi-cultural community. The holiday clubs will take place in school holidays. There is a theme for each club – in Summer 2012 the girls will look identity and will enjoy poetry and cultural trips, while in October 2012 they will be exploring ideas of citizenship, race and faith in their local community.

Clapton Park Community Gardening

On Clapton Marsh estate a gardening project brought people of different faiths together to change a neglected and derelict area blighted by antisocial behaviour into a community garden. The project is being supported by All Souls Church Clapton which has now been awarded £5,000 by Near Neighbours to develop in the coming year. Volunteers have already established flower beds but needed a place to store tools as well as funds to buy more equipment and plants. The church will also use the grant to draw in more local families – each will have a small plot and friendly rivalry will be encouraged over who can grow the best veg. The local youth club and older people’s club will also enjoy the new garden.

Waltham Forest Faith Forum

Waltham Forest Faith Forum was keen to gather people from different backgrounds to learn about Near Neighbours. A small grant of £260 enabled the crowd to gather in a great venue where the Eastern London Near Neighbours Coordinator explained the programme and answered questions.  This was vital for several groups considering making further grant applications to Near Neighbours. As a result of the meeting three were submitted and others are now thinking about an application.

Trinity Community Garden Project

This Leytonstone group will work with young people marginalised from society through offending, homelessness or unemployment. Young people of different faiths will work together to establish a garden around the Trinity Community Centre.  There will be a strong training element to this project with young people receiving tuition in landscaping and growing plants.

Women Beyond Borders
Based in Forest Gate, this organisation is a Refugee and Migrant Project supporting women of different faiths. A grant of £500 will provide a Christmas party for the children of these women who come from many different backgrounds. The group is so organic and ground-level that it didn’t have a bank account to receive the grant. This is a perfect example of the sort of project Near Neighbours wants to support – this group is free of the usual organisational structures associated with many bigger community groups, but is doing great work.

Young people in Stratford

A diverse group of young people put together a grant application to enable them to explore how the media portrays religion and faith. They also want to find out what triggers religious stereotypes through group discussions. They will create performance pieces which will consolidate their learning – these will be recorded and made available to other groups.  The young people will be encouraged by education and theatre specialists.

DIVA Women’s Group

This group of women in Bethnal Green began meeting together for Zumba dance classes. At the beginning they were all Muslim women, but the group was determined to reach out to others in their area. They advertised the classes and began to draw in others. They’ve since organised parties for the women’s children and Eid and Christmas events for the women themselves. The Near Neighbours grant they’ve been given has enabled them to deepen their relationships and community outreach. The money has helped to pay for workshops on issues of concern to the members of the group, while outings for the children are also planned to get a new generation growing up together.

People’s Palladium
This small voluntary theatre company will bring together a group of local young people of different faiths and ethnicities and work with them on a show to be performed at Limehouse Town Hall.  Beginning in January 2012 the young people will take part in drama workshops and stage a selection of ‘scenes from world theatre’. They’ll also work together building props and staging. It’s hoped this will lead to lasting friendships.

The People's Palladium

Belief In Bow

A series of three free world music concerts is to be held at St Barnabus church. Local people of diverse faiths are putting on the concerts which will include the opportunity to share food. A Musicologist from a top London University will introduce the concerts to increase the understanding of music within each of the three faiths involved. The aim is that the audience will be comprised of people drawn from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities and beyond.

St Barnabus church, Bow

Two thought-provoking papers on theology, poverty and inequality are now online – from our Will the first be last? consultation with The Children’s Society.

Michael Ipgrave’s paper opened the discussion, setting out some conceptual and existential questions relating to poverty and inequality.  It is an excellent starting-point for theological reflection on these issues.

John Milbank’s paper argues for a distinctive Christian commitment to  ‘the social’ as distinct from the State and the market.  He explores the implications of this for effective ways to address child poverty.  The paper is a powerful example of the distinctive contribution theology can make to these debates; providing far more than a religious gloss on pre-existing political positions and commitments.