If 2020 was the Year of Covid, 2021 looks set to be the ‘Year of the COP*’. It may sound like a bad Police Academy remake, but our planetary health depends on three international gatherings convening over the next six months, two of them here in Britain. The lesser touted Biodiversity COP was scheduled for this week, but has been pushed back to October in China, achingly close to November’s Climate COP, where all eyes will be on Glasgow as the world holds it breath to see what agreements are made. The COP agenda will be decided at the G7 Summit in Cornwall next month, and the race for a platform to engage world leaders has begun, with this fabulous Sir Tim Rice song of 10,000 children’s voices, led by Truro Cathedral choir, in the lead. Any children’s choir can record the song and be part of the message. Young Christians Climate Network (YCCN) are walking a relay from Cornwall to Glasgow to highlight the devastation climate is having on vulnerable world communities and the Winchester to Reading leg will be close enough for many of us to join in. There is a real momentum to show ‘The Earth is the Lord’s, and all that’s in it’. Just as the writer of Psalm 24 knew, a simple truth well told can resonate down the centuries, and a commitment from a congregation in their Climate Sunday service could be as powerful as 10,000 voices. God is calling to us through all these myriad endeavours to respond to the heartache of vulnerable communities suffering climate injustice, and to make that response in whatever way we can. How beautiful, after the ravages of COVID, if we made 2021 a year of heartfelt responses.*COP refers to the decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
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A youth project that has provided support in one of the country's most deprived areas during the pandemic has marked almost five decades of success.Established in 1972, through the initiative of St John and St Stephen’s Church, Grimsby, the Shalom Youth Project (known as Shal) has been providing a second home for the area’s children and young people, welcoming more than 100 on an average evening. It has helped almost 5,000 to date. The ages attending range from primary school children to 18 year-olds.“If the Church doesn’t make a difference, what’s it there for?” said founder Canon John Ellis. During the pandemic, outreach work has continued to help prevent local children from being drawn into the county lines drug trade. The youth centre’s ethos is focused on character building and developing young people within the community. Shal, he says, has become “a place of belonging, a place of safety” for generations of children. One of them is 48-year-old Kayla, now Shal’s Operations Manager, who joined as a five-year-old child. “It has made a massive difference to my life,” she said.“They have supported me through a lot of things and a lot of traumas.“Our dad was a drinker. It was awful.” Shal, Kayla said, “made me believe in myself."Another is 44-year-old Sarah. She started attending Shal when she was six or seven, drifting away as a young adult. But during the pandemic, she said she “felt God tugging at me” and began attending the Cyber Church run by the Shal team. Sarah is one of more than 200 people who attend the online services. “When I started going back to church, I didn’t have any faith”, Sarah explained.“But this has been drip-feeding my faith. It has given me hope. “It’s quite a deprived area. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s a bit of a light in the community.”
