REFUGEES arriving in East Lancashire from Kosovo tonight will be offered support from the area's Christian and Muslim communities.

About 160 people are expected to arrive at the Calderstones Hospital complex which has been hurriedly converted by volunteers to provide family rooms, a school, clinic and shop.

Community leaders for both faiths are working to provide pastoral support and practical help for the refugees, who will be accommodated at the Whalley site. The Rev Paul Battersby, principal officer in the Board for Social Responsibility for Blackburn Diocese, said: "The churches are working together with the mosques to make sure there is the provision of personal support and practical help for the refugees when they arrive.

"This reflects the good relations between the Christian and Muslim communities, particularly with the Council of Mosques."

Talha Wadee, director of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: "I think that personal support is very important because this group of people will be traumatised, and we are coming into this project to help them from a faith perspective."

Members of the Muslim community with appropriate professional skills met over the weekend to draw up rotas for care work, including staffing the room provided at Calderstones where counselling and other personal support will be available. Meanwhile, Methodist churches in the Ribble Valley are collecting toys for the Kosovo Albanian refugee children.

Up to 300 refugees from the war-torn Balkans will be housed at Calderstones for up to three months before being resettled into the community. The second group of another 160 are due on Friday. Collection points for the toy appeal have been set up at Trinity Methodist Church, Parson Lane, and Whalley Methodist Church, King Street.

Organisers say that they are looking for good-quality mechanical and cuddly toys, building bricks, games that can be easily understood, bats, balls, felt-tip pens, crayons and paper.

Whalley minister Chris Cheeseman said: "It is understood that a large number of children will be in the party and there is going to be a great need for good-quality toys. We are trying to acquire a large variety to meet all ages."

If people did not have toys, they could contribute cash, which would be used to buy new goods for the children, he added.

Collections are taking place at Trinity Methodist Church today and Tuesday, from 8am to 8pm, and Whalley Methodist Church today , from 11am to 1pm, and Tuesday, from 6 to 8pm.

Further details are available from the Rev Richard Atkinson 01200 423229 or the Rev Chris Cheeseman 01254 822130.

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