St. Mary's Church, Theydon Bois

13th - 19th May 2012

Once again we will be collecting door to door around the village, together with Theydon Bois Baptist Church and Epping Catholic Church.

This year Christian Aid Week is about giving the tools to help people in poverty out of poverty. Christian Aid works to bring an end to poverty around the world – tackling its root causes as well as its effects. They help people of all faiths and none. Currently Christian Aid works through 507 local organisations in 47 countries, providing urgent, practical and effective assistance, giving communities the tools and the skills to find their own solutions to poverty.

This Christian Aid Week the story is of Gbap, a town in Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world. Ten years of brutal civil war has severely hampered development. With little infrastructure in many areas, it is one of the hungriest places in the world. Christian Aid worked with its local partner, the Methodist Church of Sierra Leone, to set up a village development committee in Gbap and a food production group. It provided seeds and some basic tools – hoes and farming knives. It helped the group to cultivate the vast floodplain outside the town. By doing this, they developed a communal rice farm in addition to a cassava plot.

Now the children eat two meals a day all year round, whereas before it was one. They are growing well; they don’t cry because of hunger. They are happy to go to school because something is in their stomach. This is the story of one community; there are many more who are in need of help. When the red and white envelope comes through your letterbox this Christian Aid week, please give as generously as you can. Thank you very much.