History of CCWA in Northern Ireland
The Churches’ Community Work Alliance (CCWA) was founded by the churches in the four nations of the UK, including the four largest Northern Ireland denominations founded in 1991. At that time, its purpose was to promote faith-based community development work through providing support, training, advice, advocacy, information and resource services to those interested in and/ or are engaged in community work as an expression of the Church’s mission. This remains its core concern today.
In 1995 an initiative was undertaken regarding deprivation in Protestant areas in Belfast. As a result of its findings, funding was made available to establish a Belfast Churches’ Urban Development Committee and appoint a Development Officer. The Irish Council of Churches agreed to be the employing body. A key priority of the Committee was to encourage government to recognize the important contribution that churches made in urban areas and to have this reflected in government thinking and policy.
In keeping with this concern, the Committee published, ‘Protestant Churches in Areas of Disadvantage: A Series of Case Studies in Belfast’ (2000). The report contained further evidence of the church’s impact in socially deprived areas. This was able to be used in discussions, with the Department of Social Development, focused on considering how this impact could be further enhanced, both in urban and rural settings, through the support of government.
During this time, new partnerships were forged between ICC and CCWA. Eventually the Belfast Churches Urban Development Committee joined as a third partner to strengthen the work and make full use of the resources available for supporting churches in their community engagement work.
This eventually resulted in a CCWA (NI) Reference Group being established, under the UK Trustees, in 2002. A first successful bid to government for core funding support was also made.
A further CCWA report on the contribution of faith based groups to communities marked by high levels of poverty, inequality and marginalisation was published in 2004. ‘Acting in Good Faith’ is widely acknowledged as a unique contribution to church based community development work in Northern Ireland. The report was followed up with a significant conference, in October 2005, jointly promoted by CCWA along with the Department for Social Development. The event explored the issue of how Churches and Government might better work together to improve life within communities. The ‘Faith and Neighbourhood’ conference set the agenda for further development work by CCWA and government both individually and together in partnership.
In Spring 2009, the Churches’ Community Work Alliance (Northern Ireland) was reconstituted locally to better support faith-based and church-related community development work throughout Northern Ireland.