West Midlands Police has teamed up with 14 members of the local community and religious institutions to establish ‘Faith Watch’ patrols in the Washwood Heath ward.
As the neighbourhood police sergeant Richard Evans explains,
the initiative aims to harness well-respected members of the local community to
walk around their area and pre-empt potential incidents of low-level disorder.
“It’s a
coining of Street Watch...we have such a really strong community, and if we can
get the religious community involved that might act as a strong cohesive unit”.
The
name ‘Faith Watch’ reflects the inter-faith work done by the local police in
recent years, building on the contacts made by John Bradley, one of the local
Police and Community Support Officers:
“It’s
almost like an outreach, Faith Watch, understanding that actually we haven’t
just got the one faith, although the area is predominantly Muslim, we’ve got
multi-faiths in here. So, ‘let’s get you all working together’ which will
improve the cohesive nature of the area, and then hopefully everyone will see,
and it sounds quite cheesy, but it’s almost quite harmonious. If the leaders
can do it, then the members of the public can do it.”
The members of Faith Watch devote at least two hours a month to their patrols, guided by advice from the police on where to focus.
Sergeant Evans emphasised the role of the Faith Watch
members in helping to address the long-standing local concern about litter:
“It’s also about empowering the members of the community to
take a pride in their own area. It’s not just about anti-social
behaviour...there’s a litter thing – A couple of the members are so good, they will knock on
doors and say, ‘Is that your rubbish? Who’s responsible for this?’ And that’s
so powerful. If we did it, sometimes we might just get lip service. It’s about
the community, there’s more respect there, because they’ve lived there for a
long time”.
Faith Watch began in March and
Sergeant Evans is pleased with its progress so far. For him the spirit of the
initiative is to say to people: “Go out there and be the eyes and ears of your
community, and make a difference in your community. The enthusiasm of some of
the group is infectious, it really is great to see, and I wish I’d started this
years ago. Because to harness that positive attitude about the community and
about their own area, it’s been great.”
“I have a passion for this area because I think
it’s a close-knit community, but there’s a large proportion of people who want
to make a difference. I’m fed up of seeing negative stuff about Alum Rock, it’s
nice to see the positives because there are lots of them.”To find out more about Faith Watch contact the Washwood Heath Neighbourhood Police Team via
