Christian Aid is a Christian organisation that insists the world can and must be swiftly changed to one where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty.

Christian Aid works globally for profound change that eradicates the causes of poverty, striving to achieve equality, dignity and freedom for all, regardless of faith or nationality. They are part of a wider movement for social justice.

They provide urgent, practical and effective assistance where need is great, tackling the effects of poverty as well as its root causes.

How does the Parish of St Mary’s with St Faith’s and St Francis support Christian Aid?

We support the aims of Christian Aid mainly through prayer and giving.

Throughout the year we support a number of appeals that are run by Christian Aid.  The main appeal is Christian Aid Week which is always held in the second week of May.  Last year the parish raised just over £5,000 for the appeal with the help of over 70 street collectors.

For the first time last year we ran a Quiz Aid event in the Parish Centre as part of our Christian Aid week campaign.  It was a huge success, well supported by local businesses in the form of raffle prizes and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended.  Plus we raised another £550 to help Christian Aid’s fight against poverty.

The other regular appeals are during Lent and at Christmas and in the past year the parish has donated another £400.

Then of course there are the special appeals that are run for disaster relief and we have collected in the past year for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Haiti Earthquake Appeal.  So far we have collected over £1200 for the people of Haiti and donations are still coming in.

Christian Aid partner Koral distributing clothing, torches and batteries in Darbonne. These were emergency supplies that they already had stockpiled in Port-au-Prince.

Firstly, we need your prayers for our ongoing work in supporting the aims of Christian Aid.

Secondly, we need your time.  During Christian Aid week we aim to collect in every street in our Parish, that’s over 160 roads.  Even with 70 collectors we are only able to cover about 75% of those roads. Could your spare some time during Christian Aid week - 9 to 15 May 2010 and be a street collector?  Resources, support and advice are available so please consider doing something wonderful to help others less fortunate than ourselves.

Thirdly, we need your donations, either directly to Christian Aid by direct debit or online donations or through the various envelope schemes run via all 3 churches in our Parish.  If you would like to learn more about Christian Aid and the work that it does please use the logo below to hyperlink to their website. 

If you would like to help in the Parish particularly during Christian Aid week as a street collector please contact the Parish Office or the Parish Christian Aid co-ordinators Tim and Liz Finch via e-mail timsafinch@hotmail.com