Survival

The St James Advice and Community Centre has a new name; it is now called CAN DO 4:13. The new name refers to the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13: “There is nothing I cannot do in the One who strengthens me.”

The new new name does not mean that the Centre is full of confidence and making a new start. It rather means that the Centre acknowledges that it needs lots of help from Above in order to survive and to overcome its difficulties.

Funding is at the heart of the problem. In the course of its long existence of over thirty years the Centre had become more dependent on the financial support it received from  Birmingham City Council, roughly 75%, but this source of funds has now dried up.  There had been some hope that a new application would be favourably received. It involved moving away from advice on migration matters to advice on debt problems, as the Council demanded, but this change was not enough to get a slice of the new funding.

The Centre is still operating but at much lower levels of activity. It involved the painful process of making some staff members redundant and giving debt advice training to the remaining ones.

Will the Centre survive? The change of name is intended to make this possible. It makes of the Centre a charity in its own right,  no longer under the umbrella of the Parish of Aston. It is hoped that this change makes it easier for foundations and trusts to contribute to the funding of the Centre, especially those that shy away from religious institutions. After all the Centre makes a social contribution, even though the motive behind it is that of Christian service.

Ton