Anti-slavery work in Cathedrals

Cathedrals, with their prominence and reach within a diocese, are uniquely positioned to deliver and inspire anti-slavery work.

Each cathedral serves its community as its area's mother church and the bishop's seat. Through their presence, worship and varied work, they reach out to their local and wider communities in many ways.

Over the years, The Clewer Initiative has worked in partnership with many different cathedral teams to raise awareness of modern slavery and engage local communities with anti-slavery projects.

Some have used their spacious buildings to host awareness-raising exhibitions or art exhibitions. Examples of this include Chester Cathedral and Ely Cathedral.

Southwark Cathedral hosted an awareness-raising day organised by the Reigate Archdeaconery Social Justice Focus which gave visitors to the Cathedral the opportunity to meet with anti-slavery organisations, including The Clewer Initiative, hear talks from those on the frontline and take part in worship.

Other cathedral teams have focused on engaging schools in anti-slavery work and raising awareness of the dangers that county lines pose to students. Recent examples of this sort of cathedral education work include:

working with young people to create a stained glass window at Southwark Cathedral
a county lines awareness-raising day with Worcester Cathedral
a county lines art exhibition with Salisbury Cathedral
an online schools' day with Ely Cathedral. We partnered with the Cathedral's learning centre to use local history to teach children about modern slavery through a short film called Sanctuary. With the team at Ely Cathedral we created online lesson plans and took part in a virtual assembly that reached over 30,000 students across 25 local primary schools.