Santo Niño Leicester

Diaspora and Diversity – a potential action research project

Diaspora communities and BAME individuals make up a significant proportion of Catholic parishes.  Some diaspora communities have developed social capital in distinctive devotional and charitable networks, sometimes linked to an official ethnic chaplaincy.  In some parishes a particular ethnic group may gravitate towards Sunday Mass at a particular time or indeed in their own language.

More details at Caritas Discovery workshops (click hyperlink)

More Information

Nottingham Diocese is blessed with some of the most diverse parishes in the UK - and that diversity is an asset that can be overlooked.  At Together, we are Caritas on 7 November, we were aware that there is some work to do to ensure everyone feels included, but also that there is much to celebrate.

Diaspora and Diversity will be an opportunity to:

• learn about the challenges faced by people from minority backgrounds, especially during the pandemic
• explore how to go further in mutual understanding, fellowship and shared mission
• help Caritas enable everyone, whatever their background, to share in the ministry of charity.

Action research projects

• Focus groups: Diaspora communities in the Catholic Church in England offer a form of social capital which partly compensates for poor access to public services.  However their needs and assets are not well understood. The project could engage diaspora communities in parishes in Nottingham Diocese in ethnographic and attitude research, to better understand their social capital and their contribution (actual and potential) to pastoral care, social ministries and mission
• Food outreach: BAME households have been hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and yet foodbanks, crisis advice services and healthy eating promotions find them harder to reach.  The project could recruit trusted intermediaries from parishes to reach BAME households facing hunger and isolation with culturally-significant foodstuffs, and broker advice and health promotions.
• Climate justice: Climate change is caused mostly by rich countries and impacts most on poorer countries.  The UK presidency of the COP26 negotiations in November 2021 highlights the connection between carbon emissions and climate justice.  The project could raise awareness of the need for urgent UK climate action by documenting accounts of the impacts of climate change on diaspora communities’ countries of origin.
• ESOL conversation: Teaching of English as a second language (ESOL) has been largely suspended during the pandemic, depriving many people of the capacity to access basic services. As places of encounter between diaspora and host communities, parishes are well-placed to supplement formal ESOL learning with conversation, benefiting language skills and meeting many other needs.  The project could develop a model for parish-based ESOL conversation, integrated with and complementary to formal learning.

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