Canon Alma Servant and Parish Volunteer Mycah represented St Chrysostom’s at an event at the Manchester Cathedral which addressed Manchester’s growing response to end hate crime. Mycah writes …
A wide variety of groups were represented at the event, from different Faiths and also LGBTQ+ groups. Activities or presentations included, a group helps support local young LGBTQ+ people who are homeless, a station encouraging making a ‘fanzine-style’ magazine that would be put together and handed out at the end of the afternoon, a pop up art gallery from local churches and a beautifully calligraphy wedding certificate from the Jewish museum.
St Chrysostoms added a piece to the art gallery that show cased our outward inclusivity of LGBTQ+ peoples by creating a banner based on the posters we held at the Manchester Pride Parade last August.
Throughout the event, Manchester Police served tea and coffee to people who came through. In the afternoon we heard from Police Commissioner Nigel Murphy and Interim Mayor Tony Lloyd.
Tony Lloyd, in his speech, encouraged us to ‘Challenge hate crime not only in our own comfortable group of people here who already agree that it is wrong, but out there on the streets.’
The day ended with food from Mowgli – A nearby street food vendor – and uplifting singing about unity.
The thought that I took away as I left the Cathedral that day was that there was such a strong sense of community between everyone represented, and if that could spread from each of those people from there, how great Greater Manchester would grow to be.
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