A three-year £7.5 million interfaith project that will put Jewish communities throughout England into closer contact with other faith groups has been launched by Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears.
Framework for Partnership will bring faiths together at regional and local level to enhance services to their communities.
Among organisations involved is the Board of Deputies, which has already created a number of regional bodies that will feed into the government’s regional development agencies. It will also link them to regional faith forums established through the framework.
Ms Blears told interfaith workers at Central Hall, Westminster, on Monday: “We are working with faith groups and funding bodies to ensure that... faith groups providing services do so in a non-discriminatory way to the whole community.”
She thanked Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks for inspiring the framework’s “Face to Face and Side By Side” theme.
One example of a framework was a “Meet Your Neighbours” project in Blackburn bringing together boys from Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and secular schools for a weekend in the Lake District.
