Preston City Council says engaging with community groups and faith leaders has been key to the fight against coronavirus in the city.

At the beginning of the pandemic ‘Preston Together’, a community hub providing food, vital supplies and a signposting/advice service, was established. Preston City Council teamed up with faith and community led initiatives throughout the city to supplement their work and provide resources and logistical support.

This work has led to an average of 1440 families being supported every week with 47520 food parcels and 570240 meals provided so far.

Councillor Matthew Brown, Leader of Preston City Council, said: “Preston’s diverse communities add so much to our city’s rich history and exciting future. However, the disproportionate effect of the virus on minority communities highlights a deep inequality in our society.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic we recognised the importance of working directly with communities who are often overlooked by national health messages.

“We have worked hard to foster strong relationships with community leaders to better understand the challenges they face by speaking directly with faith leaders and visiting places of worship and community groups.

“This has helped us to tailor our approach to providing support and communicating health messages.”

Councillor Nweeda Khan, Cabinet Member for Communities and Social Justice for the Council explained the importance of working with existing faith and community groups to ensure vulnerable people receive the help and support they need, “In Preston we are fortunate to have so many faith and community groups led by individuals who work hard every day to serve their communities.

“These groups had been operating prior to the pandemic, but as the effects of the virus and subsequent lockdown worsened their work became ever more important.

“This goes beyond simply providing food and supplies. By working with established community and faith groups whom vulnerable people know and trust, we’ve been able to carry out welfare checks, provide information on what support is available and help people better understand the complex and ever changing rules and requirements that have followed since Preston became an area of increased intervention.

“These connections were especially important in promoting our community testing sites and overcoming some of the aversion to testing that were a barrier to communities identifying new cases and stopping the spread among households.”

Key to this work was the production of printed leaflets and information videos explaining the new measures affecting residents in the city as well as practical guidance on how to get tested a community testing site in their community.

These resources were translated into a range of languages including Urdu, Punjabi, Guajarati, Polish which was key in helping community teams from Preston City Council reach out to residents for whom English is not their first language.

This work is ongoing with more publications in production outlining updated restrictions as a result of the city being declared a ‘Tier 3’ very high risk area, a status that highlights the continued need to work with communities and stop the increased spread of the virus.

Councillor Brown added: “The fight against this virus is far from over, and we’re seeing a deeply troubling rise in cases both in Preston and across Lancashire. “Now more than ever it’s imperative that our work with communities continues so that residents across the city understand what they must do to stop the spread and help us to return to normal as soon as possible.

“But it’s important we retain an eye on the future and on building back better. Community Wealth Building provides a model to do this and we’re working on some exciting projects with diverse communities to provide skills and business opportunities to BAME groups in the city.

“We’ve so far provided training for 19 volunteers from community food hubs to receive a Level 2 Food Hygiene qualification through online learning. As well as this we’ve launched an exciting project to help provide training and support for Asian women to become taxi drivers.”

Preston City Council has also commissioned a wider piece of work with development co-operative ‘Stir to Action’ providing targeted support for BAME organisations in the city, stimulating cultural awareness and interest in worker-owned business.

Councillor Brown added: “I’m very excited by some of the work going on with BAME communities who have been unfairly impacted by the virus to provide business opportunities and training that had previously been hard to access. We will be sharing more information about this soon.

“In the mean time we all have a part to play in stopping the spread of the virus and returning to normal as soon as possible. But with the passion and dedication of our community and faith groups I am confident we are in a good positon to beat this virus.”