Diageo Northern Ireland has teamed up with Belfast Street Pastors, who are part of a UK wide Christian voluntary organisation, that is providing help and assistance to people on a night out in Belfast, to support its drive to recruit much needed volunteers and grow the scheme’s expansion in Belfast.

The Inter-Church based scheme provides invaluable services to the local community by working on the streets of Belfast at night to care, listen and help people get home safe after a night out and ease the burden on the emergency services.   Diageo is providing funding and resources to support the drive to recruit new volunteers for Street Pastors which works in partnership with the PSNI, Belfast City Council and Belfast City Centre Management.

The organisation which started 10 years ago in London, now has over 250 schemes in place and over 11,000 volunteers across the UK and Ireland.  However according to Andrew Irvine, Belfast Street Pastors, the local team is becoming increasingly stretched and is in vital need of new volunteers from churches to support the organisation’s existing work and to expand.

Andrew Irvine said, “Each Street Pastors initiative works in partnership with their local Council and Police.  Belfast City Council and the PSNI have been both impressed and delighted by the calming effect brought by our Street Pastors.  In the last 12 months we have provided over 1,400 volunteering hours on the streets on Friday and Saturday nights, removed nearly 5,000 discarded bottles and glasses, issued over 400 pairs of flip flops, helped to settle 68 potential arguments and provided a listening ear to thousands of revellers.

“Each Street Pastor receives 50 hours of training and is backed up by a national organisation with exemplary governance and management structures.

“We are warmly welcomed by the revellers in the city, we love what we do, and we have the blessings of seeing what a difference we make.”

Gemma Bell,  Diageo Northern Ireland said, “We are delighted to support the work of Street Pastors who every weekend in life give of their time to ensure that people who are enjoying a night out do so in a safe and secure environment.  At Diageo we are proud to have consistently led the industry and develop programmes in promoting responsible drinking and we are committed to supporting initiatives that address the misuse of alcohol.”

If you are interested in getting involved with Belfast Street Pastors there are a number of training sessions taking place in Belfast from 9.30am-4.00pm on Saturday 14th & 28th September,  12th & 26th October and 9th & 23rd November. For further information contact belfast@streetpastors.org.uk

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