Our September 2021 Launch

We had an amazing time meeting with the Just Love Brum Community and reflecting on our vision for social justice for the upcoming academic year this October.

The evening was led by our two co-presidents, Ella and Will, there was worship, refreshments and reflection time, as well us a chance to hear from each member of our committee on the plans they had for the new term.

Our amazing Midlands coordinator Sienna also spoke on how her experiences on Just Love committee have shaped her faith and view on social justice since graduating and the Switch Campaign which she has set up as a result. In brief terms the Switch Campaign is a movement of students who are campaigning for UK banks to shift to more ethical banking practices, if this is something you want to find out more about then click the button below!

More information on the Switch Campaign

To give a full run-down of everything that was spoken on at the launch would take hours to read so here are some of the highlights and some exciting sneak peeks on what we have planned this coming term....

Global Stream

We can't start the new term without first celebrating the incredible fundraising target our community achieved last term! After a fab in person raffle and social, as well as walking 1118 kilometres over the Summer, we raised a whopping total of £1250 for the Amani Family Centre in Uganda. This money will be used to pay the salary of a new doctor at the centre for a year! Taking their level of care to a whole new level and reliving the workload of the midwives a little.

Thankyou so much to everyone who prayed and got involved with this campaign, as you can see every pound raised will have a lasting impact on the mothers and children who rely on the centre.

And now for this term, the focus for the global stream will be sustainability and specifically the COP 26 UN Climate Conference which world Leaders are meeting for in November. It will be a critical moment for Climate Change and the fate of our world and whether we can do enough in the next 6 years to reverse the effects of global emissions and prevent temperature rising by more than 1.5 degrees.

We will be exploring how we can live more sustainably as stewards of this earth by ending the year with a sustainable Christmas Secret Santa Social where the only rule is that your gift has to recycled or from a charity shop.

We’ll be running a charity shop trip in November or early December for this in case you need help hunting for a gift and it will also be a chance to just chill and get to know more of the Just Love Brum community. So keep you eyes peeled on our socials for a confirmed date nearer the time!

Local Stream

Over the last term and summer we have clocked an insane number of volunteer hours with our friends at New Bigin House and Let's Feed Brum. The working relationships and impact that has been built up is really amazing so thankyou to everyone who volunteered, but we're not stopping there....This term we have even more opportunities for you to get involved with, all outlined below.

At New Bigin House, Handsworth:

• Tutoring - Wednesdays 3.30-5pm

• Kids Club - Thursdays 2.30-5.30pm

Lets Feed Brum, Digbeth and City Centre:

• Monday afternoons, breakfast prep at the warehouse in Digbeth

• Thursday breakfast session 9.30am-12pm at St Philips Cathedral Colmore Row

Please get in touch with Jess our local coordinator if you would be interested in volunteering at any of these sessions, you don't have to commit to coming every week, just when you can.

Personal Stream

Last term we did a wonderful series of sustainable living videos with members of our community, exploring ways we can live with a more conscientious attitude towards the world and its climate and suggesting tips on how to do this within different areas of our life. From ethical banking to eco-bricking the series covered some amazing content, if you would like to look back on the series then check out our Instagram or the Sustainability section of this website.

This term however, the personal stream is shifting its attention towards another big topic: mental health. We all have mental health, whether good or bad, everyone has had experiences and events in their life, or the lives of those they love, that they've needed to cope with.

Since joining committee, Rebecca, our personal coordinator, has had it on her heart to run an event where we can open up honest conversations about our wellbeing and how this relates to our church and student life. So we are planning a mental health event to kickstart these conversations and give space to reflect and support one another within their mental health and faith.

There will be more information to come on this soon, but we have some amazing speakers lined up, prayer and reflection stations as well as a informative support resource pack.

Keep a look out for the confirmed details and location coming soon as we would love you all to be there!

Theology and Prayer Stream

And finally, what do we have planned for our Theology and Prayer stream? Well we are setting up a series caller Prayer and Practices, an informal group who will be meeting on Saturdays fortnightly to look at the intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines we should live our lives by as individual Christians and in community.

The sessions will be designed with the aim to unite our community around justice in order to help us become people of God's justice, both in behaviour and in character. It will also highlight that our faith is not an abstract ideal behind our justice work, instead it is linked and directly fuels it!

We will be looking at 5 key areas practices, focusing on a specific one each session. These will be the Lord's Prayer, Intercession, Simplicity, Sabbath and Hospitality. Its going to be so good to go deeper in our faith together and pursue God's specific call to social justice within our lives so please come along! It doesn't matter if you know nothing about these 5 areas as we will be delving into this and learning together.

The first session will at 11am on Saturday 23rd October, location is TBC!

That's all that went down at our launch night, but as you can see we have got so much in store for this upcoming year and we are super excited to see where it takes us!

Hopefully something caught you interest in this post, if that's the case get involved! Get in contact with our social media or come along to one of our events, we would love to meet you :))