St Albans Abbey
The Diocese of St Albans includes the counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. The M1 and A1 motorways run through these counties which have rural areas and large towns like Bedford, Luton, St Albans and Watford.
There are over 1,000 Mothers’ Union (MU) members in this Diocese, many of whom meet at regular intervals. Others, who do not want or are not able to attend meetings for one reason or another, are kept in touch by letter, email and through our Diocesan magazine Newsline and are invited to MU events throughout the year. These are our valued Diocesan Members, some of whom meet in local groups where there is no branch.
The common link between all members is the wish to support families and those facing adversity in local communities and the wider world through action and prayer.
MU members in the Diocese of St Albans work in Contact Centres, make and supply several local hospitals with emergency wash bags, ‘cheer up’ bags for children and blankets and clothes for premature babies and we also supply them with memory books and ‘twiddle-cuffs’ for dementia patients in hospitals and care homes. Funds are raised for the Away From It All holidays scheme which is open to anyone who is in need of a holiday due to health or financial problems, bereavement, for family reasons or because of situations beyond their control – and who meets the criteria for the scheme. We also help support three local Refuges with items and annual day trips. Although our work is locally based, we recognise that we are part of the wider community of MU, so our members actively fundraise to support MU programmes in many other parts of the world. Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre is located in the Diocese of St Albans and MU supports the work of the on-site Chaplaincy, supplying bibles (in various languages) clothing and craft items. MU is also a formidable campaigning organisation. Campaigning on local as well as national issues for example Modern Day Slavery, Female Genital Mutilation, the Commercialisation of Childhood and our annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence.
As we are a Christian organisation our programmes and projects are underpinned by prayer and we participate in the MU daily Wave of Prayer using our international prayer diary, Families Worldwide.
We have special overseas links with the Dioceses of Rumonge (Burundi), Tabora (Tanzania), Kabba and Bukuru (Nigeria) and Nagpur (North India). We pray especially for our links in our annual Wave of Prayer when each parish is set a time to pray consecutively on one chosen day each Summer.
Three times a year we issue Newsline, our diocesan newsletter , which keeps each member up to date with MU news and events taking place in the Diocese. Please go to our Calendar page for details of events.
