The role of faith-based organisations in developing age-friendly communities

A policy innovation partnership between public agencies and faith-based organisations in Greater Manchester.

Faith-based spaces are important community assets. They are a critical form of social infrastructure and often already provide important services to older people. Yet they have limited formal engagement with the age-friendly cities agenda. By working closely with Age-Friendly Manchester through a secondment scheme, this project explores the overlap of healthy ageing and faith in the context of age-friendly cities.

It investigates how older people are using and shaping faith spaces; how they enact cultural heritage in these spaces; and how intersecting aspects such as ethnicity, gender, social class, inform their participation.

Over the course of 18 months, the research revealed a fascinating picture about the work that goes on within faith spaces, often done by older people themselves. In particular, the research highlighted the crucial role that faith spaces play for first and second generation migrants, and as a self-sustaining form of social infrastructure in the wider community.

The final report from this research is available here: Developing age-friendly communities to support healthy ageing: The role of faith spaces as social infrastructure.

Findings and recommendations from the project were disseminated at the Centre for Ageing Better (CfAB) Annual Conference with one of the researchers as a keynote speaker (November 2023) and at the International Federation on Ageing Global Café.

Principle investigator

Research team

Funder

Partner organisations

Secondment partner

Other partner organisations

The project also involves the following partners:

Past events

The research team organised events in collaboration with community partners three knowledge exchange workshops. These interfaith events happened in a Hindu temple, a mosque, and a church, with over 145 attendees in total, including faith community members, researchers, and representatives of the public sector.

News

  • The research associate on the project (Luciana Lang) was invited to speak about the project on BBC Radio Manchester on Fri 28 Jun 2024. She was awarded the Research Staff Excellence Award 2024 for ‘Outstanding contribution to research impact’. 

Contact information