Speeches: STUART ETHERINGTON

Stuart Etherington

Chief Executive National Council for Voluntary Organisations
(this link enables you to access video highlights and to download the full version of Stuart Etherington’s speech)

Summary

Conferences like this are a valuable opportunity for us to get together, to celebrate our achievements, to share our experiences, to learn from each other, to inspire each other. That is also what FbRN does on a daily basis, bringing people together to share and learn.

The value of faith based organisations
In 2007 the Charity Commission registered more than 10,000 faith based charities with a combined income of nearly £3.5 billion

Religious buildings have always been a centre of, and for, the community.

Faith based organisations are rooted in their communities, reaching and caring for vulnerable groups and individuals. Many campaign, for example, on  action to address climate change and Make Poverty History.

Faith based organisations have much in common with the rest of the Voluntary and Community Sector and we need to consider how to learn from and support each other, without losing our distinctiveness. Faith Based Organisations can use the resources and capacity building support offered by NCVO and other mainstream infrastructure bodies. We should co-operate to build capacity and strengthen grass root organisations and communities.

Looking to the future
We should work together to address issues such as recession, climate change, street crime and anti-social behaviour. We need to continue to focus on regenerating and revitalising local areas, promoting the long term financial security of local people and the grass roots organisations/networks that sustain them, ensuring that such challenges are not divisive but are opportunities to work together to shape our common futures.

Civil Society Framework
NCVO’s Civil Society Framework for Action was launched in April 2009.
It sets out a vision of a strong and vibrant civil society, where people were inspired to make a positive difference to their communities. Key issues are:

• building a more cohesive society enabling people from different communities and faiths to engage with each other; and, for civil society to flourish, people need to be able to influence decisions that affect them
• the future of welfare; partnership is the only way forward to transform public services
• encouraging civil society organisations to play a crucial role in ensuring that climate change becomes a social, economic and political issue, as well as an environmental one

• helping communities and the organisations that work with them to become, and stay, financially secure

This is an ambitious agenda, and we want to work with all who share our vision so that we can create a fairer and more sustainable world where economic prosperity goes hand-in-hand with social justice.