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The review has laid out a set of recommendations for the government, among them that it should expand the role of the prime minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief to include the UK.

Children’s commissioner backs religious education

RELIGIOUS education needs better support in schools, said the children’s commissioner for England when she spoke at a 50th anniversary celebration of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales, held in London.

According to a report by the Premier Christian News website, Dame Rachel de Souza said that RE allows young people to discuss ‘important and exciting philosophical, religious and moral conundrums’ in a safe space.

She said: ‘Children have told me that they want school to be the place where they can learn about life skills, relationships, and how to set themselves up for the future. The RE curriculum is the one place that children can learn these important things.

Presenter felt God’s peace during ‘hell’ of loss

TELEVISION presenter Simon Thomas has spoken of how he felt God was with him after his wife Gemma passed away unexpectedly in 2017. Speaking on an episode of evangelist J John’s YouTube series Facing the Canon, Simon recalled the pain of losing his wife and the mother of their eight-year-old son to acute myeloid leukaemia just three days after her diagnosis.

He described that time as ‘hell’, saying that ‘it was a battle on lots of different fronts’. But he remembered how he felt God’s ‘remarkable peace’ during the crematorium service after a friend prayed for him. Since then, he has remarried and now has a young daughter. Looking back on the past five years, he added that he could now see how God had always been with him. ‘I felt at times he’d gone, but he hadn’t,’ he said. ‘He was always there, walking sometimes quietly, but every step of the way, he walked me through.’

Free cuts help as costs rise

Disability group aims to draw on power of music

A LEARNING disability-friendly music group is being launched by The Salvation Army in Lancashire next month.

The new regional group of the Music Man Project, a music education charity for children and adults with learning disabilities and their carers, will be hosted by The Salvation Army’s centre in Clitheroe. Monthly drop-in sessions will encourage participants to sing, use Makaton signing and play instruments.

Daniel Elson, music and creative arts outreach mission partner for the UK Salvation Army, says: ‘At our Music Man Project groups in other parts of the country we have seen people who are non-verbal find a new way of expressing themselves, people who were socially isolated gain confidence and people who have experienced all kinds of barriers finding opportunities to develop relationships through the power of music.’

A SALVATION Army community centre teamed up with a hairdressing college to offer free haircuts to people who can no longer afford them because of the rising cost of living.

Horden Salvation Army centre in Co Durham saw that people often give up trips to the barbers when they tighten their budgets. So it collaborated with Bella Marie Training Academy in nearby Seaham to offer haircuts and hot shaves at its community drop-in. The services were provided by the academy’s students, who benefited from gaining experience.

Angela Denton, community mission facilitator at Horden Salvation Army, said: ‘The clients were over the moon. When you look smart, you feel smarter in yourself and that’s good for your self-esteem.’