U31 Reading Street Pastors Research

The street pastors in Reading volunteer to roam the streets on a Friday

and Saturday night from 10pm to 4am in order to help anyone on the
streets who may require it.
The National Street Pastors was first founded in 2003, and since then
cities have been adopting the idea and in many cities, you will find street
pastors.
Although street pastors are volunteers, they are also supported by the
church, the local council and are in partnership with the police.
Street Pastors are well known for carrying round lollipops, and giving them
out to people in order to raise their blood sugar. They also hand out flip
flops to girls whos shoes are causing pain and have to walk a long way.
Street pastors are Christians, but are often confused for Jehovah
Witnesses. However they are only trying to help the public, and devote
their time to making people safer on the streets.
In 2008 a few leaders of RCN caught the vision of Street Pastors and set
up a management team and the Street Pastors initiative was launched in
February 2009. Training began in June 2009 when 27 volunteers were
trained and commissioned and the first night out was 16th October
2009, on the streets of Reading.
In 2011, they were invited to patrol inside Reading Festival and since then
they have been invited back each year and this year we had a tent at the
festival. They have also been invited by the police to have extra patrols
during Freshers Week.