I recently had the pleasure of meeting Church Related Community Worker (CRCW) Simon Loveitt at Brockley tube station on a wet, grey, and blustery day in March.
The kind of day where you get soaked through 鈥� despite every effort to keep dry! Not long after leaving the station we saw the impressive church building that is St. Andrews URC, a 140-year-old, Grade II listed Victorian Church and Community Centre. The Church has played an important role in its community for many years. It is home to a successful nursery, which has been operating for 40 years, running its in-house after school clubs and playschemes, as well as community rooms let out for local groups to use.
St. Andrew’s Church is also home to a special stained-glass window, a New Cross Fire memorial. It was installed in 2002 by Lewisham Council, in memory of the 14 young people who died in the fire on 18 January 1981, and where many of the young people attended the youth club at the church.
We continued our walk towards New Cross to visit St. Michael鈥檚 Church & Centre. Both churches are involved in the Brockley and New Cross CRCW project and the contrast in their appearance is quite stark. St. Michael鈥檚 Church, a key community space, is like the Tardis in Dr Who, small and unassuming from the outside but unexpectedly large on the inside and full of potential. It is in urgent need of renovation in places, but improvements and repairs will take place slowly, with each new funding target met. Four organisations are now leasing rooms within the building: Deptford Reach, 鈥楰iddies Place鈥� and CAC (an independent Church) and are bringing much needed life and revenue back into the building.
On entering St Michael鈥檚, I met John whose solicitor鈥檚 office has been within the entrance of the building for the past 28 years. He has witnessed and been impressed by the effort that Simon and the Trustees of the St. Michael鈥檚 Community Centre have put into the project and extended a warm welcome to me. Whilst walking round, dodging the odd drip of water from the leaky roof (scheduled to be repaired in the summer) and side-stepping debris yet to be cleared (with just a couple more rooms left to sort through and empty) Simon and I discussed the work he has been doing over the past 18 months, since he joined the project. At this stage, his role has focused on reaching out to partner organisations and building strong links within the Borough of Lewisham, as well as listening to the needs of those within his local community. Simon currently works with organisations, including Lewisham Foodbank, Lewisham Plus Credit Union and Deptford Reach (a community advice service supporting people affected by homelessness) as well as Asylum and Refugee charities.
Issues of poverty and the cost-of-living crisis are the two most pressing issues affecting the local neighbourhood and these are area鈥檚 Simon and the LSG seek to address. For Simon, highlights up to now have been working with the local foodbank and credit union, organisations that Simon has a lot of experience with. He often acts as delivery driver, picking up two tonnes of supplies each week and delivering them to the venue for distribution. He finds it a physically demanding role but likes getting stuck in, supporting colleagues, and serving his community. Staggeringly, this foodbank is one of 50 Foodbanks, Food Pantries and Social Supermarkets in Lewisham alone. The credit union serves around 16,000 people in the local neighbourhood and provides essential financial support to those on the lowest incomes.
I noticed the area around St, Andrews URC, while walking towards New Cross appeared quite affluent at first glance and has become rather gentrified in places, with trendy coffee bars and fancy wine shops popping up but it hides the divide between local people struggling to make ends meet and wealthier people moving into the area and pushing up house prices. Even those with good salaries are struggling to find affordable housing. The focus of the CRCW project is to be a catalyst for change and to try and address these issues by establishing effective connections with partner organisations, providing support to those organisations by taking on active roles within them and by enabling and encouraging church members to participate in their wider community. I very much look forward to seeing how this project makes an impact over the next few years and perhaps I can visit again, ideally on a much drier and brighter day.
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