Caritas Westminster launched its first social action Hub for the Watford and St Albans Deaneries on 11 
February 2015. The event was held at Our Lady and St Michael's Catholic Church, Garston, with the kind support of Fr David Barrow, the Parish Priest.
This first Hub is being established to support and encourage the 27 parishes within the two deaneries to tackle issues such as social isolation, youth exclusion and intellectual disability at the grassroots level. Another Hub has been established recently in East London and another will follow shortly in North London.
As well as raising awareness for the Hub and explaining its purpose, the evening also highlighted the work already ongoing in the area. A variety of groups were present with stands, including DENS (Dacorum Emergency Night Shelter), the SVP (Saint Vincent de Paul Society), Justice and Peace, Watford and St Albans Credit Unions, Contact the Elderly, the Catholic Worker Farm, the St Albans Living Room, local foodbanks, and many others such as the New Hope project, Westminster Youth Ministry and Catholic Women's League, local schools, parishes and diocesan agencies.
The event was also an opportunity to talk about Caritas Westminster's new Catholic Social Teaching resource, Love in Action, which explains the spiritual underpinnings of Caritas' involvement in social action. This resource will help interested groups decide how best they could be extending their reach to those in poverty or social isolation and is available to parishes, schools and groups that would find it useful.
The launch event was well attended with talks by Bishop John Sherrington, the bishop with pastoral oversight of Hertfordshire, John Coleby, Director of Caritas Westminster, Edward de Quay, the Development Worker for the Hub, and Jackie Tominey, Caritas Westminster Policy Officer.
Bishop John said at the event:
'This is a special evening of celebration and sharing of the gifts and social outreach of our Catholic community in the west of Hertfordshire. I look forward to working with Caritas to develop new social action projects to help meet new and ongoing needs in our area.'
John Coleby said:
'There are several groups in the community who are working hard to address various aspects of social deprivation. We know how daunting it can seem when one small group of people attempts to tackle a sizable task. Our goal is to help connect these groups with each other, and to raise awareness so that others who are looking for opportunities to get involved can join them. We're also here to help them with training and support for the work they do.'
