Here are the article and photo sent today to the Leicester Mercury. There's time for these to appear in either the Friday or Saturday edition and still be relevant.
Council of Faiths supports Census
With the Census almost upon us, representatives of the eight religions on Leicester Council of Faiths have come together to urge members of the different communities in the city to fill in the forms.
Census Day, when households across the country are asked to provide a snapshot of their circumstances, is this Sunday (27 March). Householders can return their forms by post or online.
Councillor Manjula Sood, Chair of the Council of Faiths, said: “Leicester is a diverse city which people of many different faiths – or none – are proud to call home.
“We’ve come together today to encourage people to support the Census and remember to fill in their forms, because the results of the Census are used to determine how much funding the city gets for local services in the future.
“It’s important we all join together to give a true picture of our city’s diversity on the census forms – in this way, we will ensure that the services we get in the future are tailored to the needs of the people who live here.”
Leicester Council of Faiths especially wants to encourage people to complete the voluntary question (number 20) that asks about religion. There are boxes to tick for Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh. There’s also space to write in any other religion not listed (that’s how you’d show you’re Bahá'í or Jain for example). And of course there’s also a box for “No religion”. The Census can give an accurate and up-to-date picture of how we live in our city and country today, providing statistics used to make decisions about our collective future. Census Day is one of those special occasions when we get the opportunity to affect those decisions, even in areas that might normally seem beyond the average person’s influence, like the place of religion in our national life.
No comments:
Post a Comment