Skip to main content

Andy Burnham: ‘everyday support’ needs to come from churches and charities

Author: Hazel Southam, 22 June 2022

Share this:

Churches and community groups need to provide ‘everyday support’ for people as they await help from either the health service, mental health or other government services, said Andy Burnham yesterday. 

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, and former Health Secretary, was speaking at the Gather Movement Summit, whose aim is to see the transformation of Britain’s cities.

He said that Britain faced ‘a decade of really challenging recovery’ as it emerged from the pandemic and faced the cost-of-living crisis.

‘We need to get support around people who are waiting for help, who are in limbo,’ he said. ‘That’s really important. How do we lift people’s spirits every day while they wait?’ That, he said, was where everyone attending the conference, from community groups, churches and charities, could help.

Mr Burnham added that the country needed ‘unity’ and needed to recover a ‘sense of pulling together’ that had been found in the early days of the pandemic. 

He called on those attending the conference to build networks in their communities to meet local needs, work with other faiths, and with politicians. Churches, charities and activists should also ‘be more ambitious’ in what they felt they could achieve locally, he said. 


Watch the Gather highlights now.


Share this:

What else we're up to

Gangs, drugs and Jesus

Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America, with 3,500 violent deaths each year, mainly through gang activity and drug trafficking disputes. Perhaps that’s why so many children and young people there...

A 100-year Bible dream comes true in China

We visited the East Lisu minority community in China to see how they are getting on with the Bible that, thanks to Bible Society supporters, was translated into their dialect for the first time.

Change a child's life with the Bible

Abused girls in Guatemala need your help. Will you share God’s word and give hope to a girl today?
Read the Bible icon Read the Bible
Open the full Bible