At a special service at Bruntsfield Evangelical church, 13 additional Street Pastors have been commissioned by Chris Jewell, CEO of the charity Ascension Trust Scotland which oversees Street, Rail, School and Response Pastors across Scotland. Street Pastors have been operating in Edinburgh since 2009 backed by a number of local churches, and have been a valuable asset in the night time economy.
Andy Amour, the Edinburgh Street Pastor Co-ordinator is delighted to have the new volunteers in place. He said, “It was really good to be able to commission such a significant number of additional Street Pastors. This had been delayed due to the Covid pandemic and we know from experience just how valuable they will be in the City Centre. This means we are now able to have Street Pastor patrols out every Friday and Saturday night, listening caring and helping. We already are finding many people wanting to chat and share their experiences with us. There is little doubt that there has come a major increase in mental health issues as part of the pandemic, and we are able to chat and also to signpost people we meet for specialist help.”
Street Pastors are volunteers, especially trained, and come from a variety of Christian denominations and work together for the benefit of the local community. Further information on what they do is available from the Ascension Trust Scotland at www.scotland.
