Christian Aid New 46 - Winter 2010

CHRISTIAN AID NEWS Issue 46

Winter 2010

• Looking for life

after Copenhagen

• Farewell: the Director’s cut

www.christianaid.org.uk

WHAT NOW FOR HAITI?

As the emergency relief arrives, Christian Aid and its partners are starting to look ahead to help the country rebuild for the future

Jean-Blaise Hall/Getty Images

BOWL OVER POVERTY Be part of The Super Soup Lunch Friday 26 March 2010

Register NOW to make your bowl count

Visit www.christianaid.org.uk/super-soup-lunch

020 7620 4444

CONTENTS A survivor in Haiti gets medical treatment at an emergency health centre

EDITOR’S LETTER

Christian Aid News is printed on 100 per cent recycled paper

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Christian Aid/Leah Gordon

IT’S ABOUT this time that the Winter edition of Christian Aid News would normally be dropping onto your doormat. However, due to the impact of the recession, which has hit the income of many charities, including Christian Aid, we have decided to save on print and distribution costs and produce this one issue in a digital-only format.

We realise that many supporters do appreciate being able to read about the world of Christian Aid in the ‘traditional’ magazine, and we will be producing a print version again, with our Spring issue in April. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy browsing through the digital pages – and finding the further information, slideshows or video footage that lie just a click away. And please, email the link to this digital magazine to family, friends, neighbours or colleagues, who might like to read it.

This issue is dominated by the Haiti earthquake, but there is also coverage of other events and campaigns, including the climate change summit in Copenhagen, and a farewell from outgoing director Dr Daleep Mukarji.

Roger Fulton, Editor

REGULARS

■ 30 INPUT Your letters and emails

■ 4 NEWS From Haiti to Indonesia; Sri Lanka to Sudan – how Christian Aid is responding around the world… plus other news from the world of Christian Aid

■ 32 LAST WORD

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Dr Daleep Mukarji reflects on his 12 years as director of Christian Aid

FEATURES

■ 10 THE BIG PICTURE

■ 12 FRONTLINE

One startling image…

From horror to hope: the Haiti earthquake, including Nick Guttman, head of Christian Aid’s humanitarian division, on where Haiti’s shocked people go from here

■ 20 CAMPAIGNS What was achieved at Copenhagen? And will you join our tax campaign day?

■ 26 EVENTS Looking ahead to the fundraising challenges of 2010 – and back at some triumphs of 2009

20

■ 24 FRONTLINE – REVISITED Sarah Filbey catches up with a Zambian girl who has been living with HIV

■ 28 LIFE AND SOUL A new cookbook, a new novel – and some new ideas for Lent

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■ 25 COMMENT Why slavery is still a scar on the world today

UK registered charity number 1105851 Company number 5171525 Northern Ireland charity number XR94639 Company number NI059154 Republic of Ireland charity number CHY 6998 Company number 426928 Scotland charity number SC039150. The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid; Poverty Over is a trademark of Christian Aid. © Christian Aid February 2010

■ Cover A young earthquake victim receives medical aid. Photo: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz/courtesy www.AlertNet.org ■ Pictures Joseph Cabon ■ Sub-editors Simon Wilcox, Caroline Atkinson, Carolyn Crawley ■ Circulation Ben Hayward ■ Design and production Patsy Bedrossian/Circle Publishing, 020 8332 2709 ■ Christian Aid head office 35 Lower Marsh, London SE1 7RL ■ Tel 020 7620 4444 ■ Fax 020 7620 0719 ■ Email info@christian-aid.org ■ Stay in touch online at www.christianaid.org.uk

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. We work globally for profound change that eradicates the causes of poverty, striving to achieve equality, dignity and freedom for all, regardless of faith or nationality.

We are part of a wider movement for social justice.

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

Emergency aid kits are handed out in Port-au-Prince

HAITI

Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance

NEWS

QUAKE APPEAL TOPS £3 MILLION CHRISTIAN AID supporters helped to make our Haiti Emergency Appeal the fastest fundraiser in the charity’s history, hitting the initial £1 million target in just under six days.

After online activity, emails, press ads, TV and radio interviews, the website generated £500,000 including Gift Aid in just over 55 hours of the site going live.

There have also been many more donations of more than £1,000 than in previous emergency appeals, the highest being a £10,000 donation by a new supporter in response to an advert in The Independent on 14 January.

At one stage, mail responses were running at around 4,500 a day with more than 1,200 telephone donations also being processed daily.

As we went to press our own appeal stood at around £3 million. A further

£3.7 million will also be used by Christian Aid, as its share of the joint Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, which had raised more than £58 million by last week.

Christian Aid launched its £1 million emergency appeal just hours after the quake, which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck 15km southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince just before 5pm local time. It was shortly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5.

The disaster is estimated to have killed up to 200,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. The Christian Aid office in Haiti also collapsed and three Christian Aid staff had to be rescued from the rubble.

Christian Aid has also presented a 13,000-signature petition to the chancellor, Alistair Darling, urging him to do all he can to get Haiti’s entire

$890 million international debt burden cancelled immediately. The charity is calling on the chancellor to use his influence with the International Monetary Fund and Haiti’s other creditors.

Paul Brannen, head of advocacy and influence at Christian Aid, said: ‘Even before the country was devastated by this earthquake, it was the poorest in the western hemisphere. And when 200,000 people are feared dead and countless more have had their bodies and their lives shattered by horrific destruction that will take years to repair, how can lenders still be demanding their money back?’

The petition also calls on Mr Darling to ensure that all money given to Haiti in future, for relief and development, is in the form of grants and not loans.

See further coverage of our response to the Haiti earthquake on pages 10 to 19

Supporters back Asia disasters appeal CHRISTIAN AID’S supporters raised £1.4 million to help the thousands affected by a typhoon in the Philippines and an earthquake just four days later in Indonesia.

A joint appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee, of which Christian Aid is a member, also raised more than £4 million.

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Typhoon Ketsana swept through the Philippine capital of Manila on 26 September, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee from their homes.

An earthquake registering 7.6 on the Richter scale struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra four days later, killing more than 800 people and

ASIA

destroying thousands of homes.

Christian Aid’s partners responded immediately. One partner, Yakkum Emergency Unit, treated nearly a thousand patients in the immediate aftermath of the Indonesian disaster.

Partners also distributed water, food, clothes and blankets to the worst affected communities.

CHRISTIAN AID has announced that its new director will be Loretta Minghella.

Ms Minghella, who has been the chief executive of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) for the past five years, will take up her Christian Aid appointment in April. Daleep Mukarji, our director for the last 12 years, will retire at the end of March.

Ms Minghella says: ‘I feel hugely privileged to have been invited to become the next director of Christian Aid. Its vision of eradicating poverty, building a world with a commitment to equality and human dignity at its heart, is both challenging and compelling.’

Ms Minghella has held a number of senior jobs in the public sector including the Department for Trade and Industry and the Financial Services Authority. While not coming from an international development background, she has extensive experience which will be invaluable in leading Christian Aid. During her time at the FSCS, it has moved from being a low-key organisation handling compensation claims on a small scale to one that has played a major role in mitigating the effects of the financial crisis. Over the past year, it has paid out more than £21 billion in compensation, protecting some 3.5 million bank account holders.

Loretta is attracted to Christian Aid’s approach to poverty, in that it operates on a number of levels.

‘It seeks to address the immediate effects of poverty and natural disaster and it looks to help those in poverty help themselves out of it,’ she says. ‘And in its mission to eradicate poverty it seeks to go further: to tackle the structural causes of poverty which are rooted as much in the thinking and systems of rich countries as of poorer ones.’

Loretta is a committed Christian, who recognises the special relationships that Christian Aid has with its sponsoring churches in Britain and Ireland, as well as those with its partners in the South.

‘While the world is facing very difficult times, and Christian Aid has been facing difficult times, I am confident that we can continue to move forward.’

DRC

PARTNER REUNITES WAR CHILDREN WITH FAMILIES

Christian Aid/Tori Ray

NEW DIRECTOR FOR CHRISTIAN AID

WHEN REVEREND Kambale Mangolopa set up a temporary home for 128 children displaced by fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2008, he didn’t know how long he would have to care for them - or if they would ever be able to trace their families.

In a conflict on the scale of that which beset DRC good news stories are hard to come by, but in December last year – 12 months on from the crisis – the last of the children were reunited with their families.

The children were displaced by an escalation of the 15-year conflict in which more than six million people lost their lives. In 2008, it forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. Many children were at school or at home while their parents were working in the fields.

‘Everyone had to run to safety as best as they could,’ explains Reverend Kambale. ‘Some of the children lost their parents along the way and were left to fend for themselves. They found their way here – it was like a word of mouth recommendation.’

Reverend Kamable’s organisation, Communauté Baptiste au centre

Displaced children playing in their temporary home

de l’Afrique, (CBCA), set up the Unaccompanied Children’s Centre next to a church in Goma to care for the influx of children. The centre was a simple set of rooms around a courtyard where a small team of displaced mothers and women, some of whom had lost their own children, cared for them as volunteers.

Christian Aid provided a grant to provide food, school fees and most crucially, support, to help reunite them with their families.

Through their church networks, the Red Cross and UNICEF, CBCA passed the details and photos of the children through the refugee camps to retrace their relatives.

Gradually over the past year the children have returned to their villages to either their parents or their nearest surviving relatives. Just before Christmas the last five children returned home.

‘For us it is an unexpected surprise that in an emergency such as this CBCA has been able to reunite all of the children with their families,’ says Jacques Miaglia, Christian Aid’s country manager. ‘It makes it all worth it.’

Christian Aid News 5

NEWS

CHRISTIAN AID is appealing for urgent funds to save some of our vital projects from closing due to a sharp downturn in revenue over the past year.

The recession has resulted in a shortfall in funds, forcing cutbacks throughout the organisation, including staff redundancies, new limits on overseas travel and a reduction in the publications we produce – this issue of Christian Aid News has been produced as a digital-only edition to save on print and distribution costs.

In a New Year letter sent to 400,000 supporters, Christian Aid director Dr Daleep Mukarji says: ‘Our income has been seriously affected by the recession and we do not currently have enough funds to support all the people we’d planned to in 2010.

‘The harsh reality is that without extra funds, next year we won’t be able to continue some projects that are relying on our help.’

We are requesting that donations be sent by 19 February, to help staff assessing whether 2010 programmes will have to be cut, but contributions are welcome after that date.

The appeal highlights three areas of our work where the continuation of projects is under threat: education,

health and sustainable food. These are projects like our work in southern Sudan, where at present just six per cent of children complete their primary school studies; work in Malawi to get treatment for and tackle discrimination against those living with HIV; or the provision of long-term solutions to food shortages in Afghanistan, where 40 per cent of the population are not getting enough to eat.

Donations can be made to support one of the three areas of work – or can go to general funds to be used wherever we feel the need is greatest.

This is an appeal Dr Mukarji says he wishes didn’t have to be made.

Addressing supporters he says: ‘I know you already do so much to help us and I’m truly grateful. I’m aware that this is more than we have asked for before, and I would not ask if your support was not absolutely vital at this time.’

‘Please make sure your gift reaches us before 19 February. It’s my greatest hope that we’ll have raised enough by then to save projects in all areas under threat.’

Donations can be made by post, using the form sent out to supporters, online at www.christianaid.org.uk/ urgent or by phone on 0845 700 0300.

Christian Aid/Sarah Filbey

WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP

Above: Albert Nkomo, who is helping fellow farmers in Zimbabwe learn agriculture conservation techniques.

Below: some of those who fled fighting in Sri Lanka with their new bikes

PiRo dignibh enim in velenim quat.

PEDAL POWER HELPS REFUGEES

CHRISTIAN AID is helping families in Sri Lanka to rebuild their lives as they return home for the first time since the government’s crushing military victory over the separatist Tamil rebels.

Some families in Jaffna at the northern

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tip of the island nation have gone back to their villages for the first time in 15 years after leaving government-run camps where they escaped the fighting.

Our partners have provided new fishing equipment and carpentry workshops to improve conditions in the battle-scarred area for 95 families and there are plans to help hundreds more.

In December, we spent £2,000 raised by UK congregants of the Tamil Church of God on 36 bicycles for some returnees.

In an area where people depend on pedal power, the bicycles have been given to children so they can get to school and to traders so they can get to market.

Darishini Mahandran, from Christian

Aid in Jaffna, said: ‘When these people went to the camps they only had the clothes they were wearing and a few basic items. Now they are back in Jaffna they need these bikes to travel to work and to open their shops.’

Senior Pastor Bishop Kumar Reginald, of the Tamil Church of God, said that the community in the UK had been deeply concerned about those caught up in the fighting and had wanted to help them rebuild their lives.

Around two-thirds of some 300,000 people held in camps after fleeing fierce fighting have returned to homes or are staying with family members in the north and east of the country.

AFGHANISTAN

CHRISTIAN AID CALLS FOR NEW AFGHAN POLICY

ZIMBABWE

APPEAL BOOST FOR FARMERS CHRISTIAN AID’S appeal in July last year to help families in Zimbabwe break free of the cycle of food aid dependency is starting to bear fruit.

With the help of our agricultural partners we managed to provide training and seeds in time for the rains in late October, in some of the worst-hit areas of southern Zimbabwe. As a result, we expect that more than 20,000 men, women and children will need no food assistance in just a few years’ time.

Zimbabwe is now entering its ‘hunger season’, the months of the year when the poorest families run desperately short of food. This time last year, aid agencies estimated that 5.5 million Zimbabweans relied on food aid to survive. Predictions for this year are around two million, but this figure is expected to increase.

The training our partners provide is called Conservation Agriculture and includes techniques that use naturally available materials to protect the soil so that crops shouldn’t fail or wilt in spite of insufficient rains and intense heat.

Farmers such as Albert Nkomo from the Lockhart area of the Matabeleland South region, who featured in an article in Christian Aid News last summer, help teach the precise techniques to others in their community. These ‘lead’ farmers, among the most successful and hardworking, help Christian Aid partners such as ZimPro to identify those most in need, including families affected by HIV. William Anderson, Christian Aid’s country manager in Zimbabwe, says: ‘There’s a real add-on effect of our conservation farming work for other community members who we’re not directly supporting. The situation in the country is dire, but the beauty of conservation agriculture is that many of the farmers we’ve reached are achieving harvests doubled and trebled in size.

‘This is the difference between poverty and profit. With the profit from that, they’re able to afford healthcare and education costs for their children.’ ● To watch a short thank-you message from a Christian Aid partner, click here

CHRISTIAN AID has called for a radical change in international strategy for Afghanistan because of the failure of military-led intervention to end poverty for millions of people.

Afghans must be at the heart of any strategy to rebuild the nation based on the needs of the people, said Christian Aid country manager Serena di Matteo. She said the international community must accept that the task of developing the nation will take decades.

Afghan MP Shinkai Karokhail, of the Afghan Women’s Educational Centre, was among those who flew in from Afghanistan for a Christian Aid-backed meeting in London to demand change.

Karokhail, who has worked for decades promoting women’s rights in Afghanistan, said: ‘This is a chance for Afghans to represent themselves and ask for support.’

The visit came ahead of a separate meeting in London hosted by British prime minister Gordon Brown to plot Afghanistan’s future course.

Christian Aid believes that the military has a vital role to prepare the ground for development. But this is only a short-term fix to address conflict that has arisen from years of political upheaval in Afghanistan.

A legitimate and accountable Afghan government is vital to development. The Afghan authorities should also work harder to end poverty, dismantle the opium trade and destroy networks of corruption.

Spending more on development in Afghanistan will make the task of combating violence more effective.

Christian Aid believes that Afghanistan has the potential to change its standing as one of the poorest countries in the world.

Christian Aid News 7

SUDAN

A CRITICAL YEAR FOR PEACE ON 9 January, Sudan entered the final year of the implementation of its Comprehensive Peace Agreement which was signed in 2005 ending more than 20 years of civil war. The conflict left more than two million dead, a further four million displaced and devastated the lives of thousands of children forced to fight.

In this critical year of the process, peace remains fragile. There was a surge in violence in southern Sudan during 2009: 2,500 were killed and more than 360,000 displaced during incursions across Sudan’s borders by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a brutal

Ugandan rebel group, and through increasing intertribal fighting. Conflict in the western Darfur region, where 2.7 million people are displaced, also remains unresolved.

People fear the violence could escalate in the run-up to general elections due to be held in April 2010 and a referendum in January 2011, when southern Sudan will vote on whether to remain united with the north or separate to form a new country.

In this context, Christian Aid’s work bringing communities together through education and events such as sports competitions remains vital. ‘If you

spend time in the company of people from a different community, you get to actually talk to them, look them in the eye, and you understand they are people and you don’t want to fight with them,’ says Sarah King, Sudan emergency manager.

Continued intensive engagement by the international community to support Sudan also remains critical in the coming year. Christian Aid is working with church bodies and other agencies calling on the UK government to commit to building peace in Sudan.

You can add your voice at www.sudanletterwritingcampaign.org

QUARRY WORKERS MARCH FOR JUSTICE EGYPT AFTER TRAINING in their rights from Christian Aid partner Wadi el Nil, quarry workers and owners in the Minya region of Egypt successfully protested against a tax increase that could have caused

8 Christian Aid News

mass unemployment and plunged many families into deeper poverty.

Minya’s limestone quarries provide much employment and make a significant contribution to the local economy; yet the work is hazardous, irregular and low paid. Over the past five years Wadi el Nil has been working with

quarry workers to raise awareness of health and safety issues, the minimum wage and other labour rights. It has supported the workers to unionise, and is now working with 15,000 of the 25,000 people employed in the quarries.

In 2009 the government doubled the duty on each limestone block transported

Christian Aid/Tom Pilston

Picture: Cesar Moreno Pinzon

NEWS

A LIFE REMEMBERED spearheaded work to improve the environment in his home community of Kiambiu. Through his commitment to standing with the most vulnerable he earned the respect and trust of the people with whom he worked.

Patrick was passionate about his role, saying, ‘The people you work with are the people that give you hope. If I leave today and go to my house knowing somebody’s life was improved, that gives me the strength for tomorrow.’

Patrick will be remembered with great affection and respect by all those who had the privilege of working with him.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and colleagues.

Christian Aid/Elaine Duigenan

IT WAS with great sadness that Christian Aid learnt of the death of Patrick Bondo Ochieng who worked with our Kenyan partner Maji na Ufanisi (MNU) until shortly before he passed away in October.

MNU’s work bringing water and sanitation facilities to Nairobi’s informal settlements or slums, and helping communities to take control of their own futures, will be the focus of Christian Aid Week this year.

Patrick’s dedication to improving the lives of these communities was – quite simply – awe inspiring. Before joining MNU in 2006, he volunteered as a paralegal in Nairobi’s slums and

CHRISTIAN AID IN THE NEWS A snapshot of some of the coverage our work has had in the media at large Among the extensive media coverage of the Haiti earthquake, Christian Aid staff have appeared on BBC News, Sky News, CNN, BBC radio, BBC1’s The One Show and in national, regional and church press talking about our relief efforts. Prospery Raymond, our country manager in Haiti, who was himself injured in the quake when Christian Aid’s office collapsed, was interviewed live on BBC News via webcam. See Frontline: Haiti on pages 10 to 19 Christian Aid’s presence at the Copenhagen summit was covered online and in the international, national and regional press – as was the death and subsequent funeral of campaigner Hereward Cooke, who sadly died after arriving in the Danish capital with other Christian Aid supporters.

Christian Aid officers were vocal in their reaction to the summit outcome on BBC World Service and in the Welsh media.

Patrick Bondo Ochieng speaking at Kiambiu Community Hall

from the quarries. Coupled with a rise in fuel, this would have crippled the quarry owners and forced some of them to close. In response, the newly-formed union mobilised the workers, and 15,000 marched on the provincial capital of Minya, where the governor was forced to meet them, and more importantly, meet

their demands. The tax increase was dropped – a brilliant example of what can be achieved when organisations that have their roots in the community work to empower and organise people in defence of their rights.

To watch a YouTube video of the march, click here

Christian Aid/Sarah Filbey

Previously, pictures and footage of Christian Aid supporters joining The Wave climate change protest marches in London (below), Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow appeared on Sky News, CNN, BBC Scotland and in The Guardian.

Christian Aid News 9

THE BIG PICTURE

HAITI’S TRAGEDY Already one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, Haiti’s devastation in the earthquake which struck on 12 January has touched the conscience of the world. Within hours of the quake occuring, Christian Aid had launched its own appeal, which topped £1million in just six days and now stands at around £3 million.

Director Dr Daleep Mukarji has thanked supporters for their ‘fantastic response’, adding: ‘This has been a devastating humanitarian crisis for the people of Haiti and ours will be a long-term response as we go from the initial relief phase to reconstruction and the rebuilding of lives, livelihoods and shelter.’

Read on-the-spot accounts and analysis in our eight-page special beginning over the page

10 Christian Aid News

Christian Aid News 11

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

FRONTLINE

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

An eight-page report on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, including eye-witness accounts, details of Christian Aid’s response and an analysis of the country’s long-term needs.

LIFE AT THE SHARP END OF EMERGENCY RELIEF Christian Aid journalist Sarah Wilson has visited Haiti many times as our Latin America specialist. Reporting on the earthquake here has proved to be one of the most challenging assignments she has had

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Reuters/Eduardo Munoz/couortesy www.Alertnet.org

Left: Rescuers search a collapsed building for survivors. Above right: a scene of almost total devastation

PASSENGERS LANDING at Port-auPrince airport used to be greeted by musicians. Now it’s more likely to be half a dozen US marines with assault rifles standing in front of a makeshift United Nations reception centre.

The musicians would be drowned out anyway by the noise of Black Hawk engines as they take off and land in quick succession.

Port-au-Prince was always divided between those with family in Miami and a US visa which enabled them to visit regularly and the majority who were lucky if they could scrape together the money for one square meal a day.

Now that divide has widened into a gorge. The UN troops who always

patrolled the streets in tanks have been joined by thousands of US troops, a huge influx of police and hundreds of cars containing journalists, with tape in the shape of a TV plastered on their windscreens. Not to mention the hundreds of aid agency staff from around the world who have been flown in to help their colleagues on the ground.

Hardly any of the military, journalists or foreign aid workers speak Creole, and I imagine most don’t even speak French.

There has been a lot of talk about security risks. But I think it is amazingly calm here given the number of people wandering the streets, unable to communicate, obviously carrying dollars.

The majority of Haitians living in the capital have not had enough to eat or drink since the earthquake. Most lost their source of income and have been sharing what little they had saved with neighbours and family.

A few people I have passed on the streets have asked me for water, money or food. But none has been aggressive about it. I have never felt threatened since I arrived.

When another person was pulled alive out of the rubble after ten days, my colleague, Prospery Raymond, who runs the Christian Aid field office, said: ‘I think if the whole world suffers some huge catastrophe, the last people left alive on earth will be Haitians.’

Outside the capital, there is much less rubble as the buildings were smaller and less likely to be made of concrete. But the people are even more desperate as aid is taking longer to arrive than in the capital.

Recently, we travelled to Léogane,

about 90 minutes from the capital, with a Christian Aid partner, Koral. Its staff had a small stock of torches and T-shirts that were meant for another part of the country. They could not take anything more, even though they wanted to because the banks were not open and they had no access to funds. Christian Aid in Haiti had the same problem.

Our office could not even begin to contemplate transferring money to our partners until the banks opened – and that was 11 days after the quake.

Koral traditionally works in rural areas, so it was really important for them to travel out of the capital as soon as possible. Léogane was one of the outlying areas worst hit by the quake.

Hundreds of people are sleeping under plastic sheeting in the town square and in football fields and other large open areas.

We arrived in Léogane town centre at the same time as three truckloads of material arrived from Port-au-Prince, driven by UN soldiers from Argentina.

Not surprisingly, a crowd immediately formed around the trucks as people wondered if they were carrying food.

One person asked me if what the trucks were carrying was for Haitian people.

This was a reasonable enough question, given that nobody who seemed to be in charge was saying anything to the waiting crowds apart from: ‘Stand back.’

The trucks were laden with medical supplies, plastic sheeting, blankets, water purification tablets and jerry cans.

The material had been flown in by the German NGO and Action by Churches Together (ACT) member Diakonie, in conjunction with Caritas. But nobody

Christian Aid News 13

Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance

FRONTLINE

told the waiting and very hungry crowds what was in the trucks. A few dozen Argentinean troops climbed out of the vehicles and guarded a walled area in front of the mayor’s residence so that the cargo could be unloaded for distribution.

We were carrying loud-hailers in our vehicle, so the head of Koral, Frantzie Dubois, suggested to the mayor that he make an announcement to explain what was on the trucks and how it would be distributed. He said: ‘Don’t worry, it will all be done in an organised way.’

As a white person, I could pass freely in and out of the compound where the material was being unloaded under guard. No one asked me for any sort of identification. Not being Haitian was enough. To pass through the waiting crowds in front of the troops, I just said: ‘Excusez-moi.’ No one bothered me or was aggressive. There were a few people jostling at the entrance, but that seemed understandable to me as no one was even telling them

14 Christian Aid News

just what was being unloaded inside. In the end, the distribution went off well.

Hundreds of people received jerry cans, water purification tablets, plastic sheeting and blankets. But the whole incident illustrated the problems of delivering aid quickly. Those with access to large quantities of money, helicopters, lorries and so on are usually fairly removed from the small Haitian organisations working at the grassroots. There is also a language and cultural barrier.

While we were waiting with Frantzie for a local contact to join us, another Koral colleague, Salomon Brutus, showed me a photo of his two young daughters on his mobile phone. I said: ‘Aren’t they lovely,’ without realising why he was showing it to me. Frantzie explained that they had both been killed in the earthquake.

That is the other constant reality of working here. Many of our Haitian colleagues have lost close family members. Our translator on that day had

lost his mother. The driver had lost his six-year-old daughter.

We were unable to make contact with our local associate in Léogane, so, after about an hour, we decided to go to one of the football fields in a nearby community called Dabonne which had been identified as a place where people who had lost their homes were sleeping rough and needed help.

The idea was to discuss with a group of local women how a communal kitchen could be set up, so that the 161 families living there would receive at least one square meal a day. Once a menu had been agreed, Koral would advance enough cash for the women’s committee to buy ingredients in the local market.

We also came with a pick-up truck filled with torches and T-shirts to hand out to the community. Until then, these people had received nothing from the outside world. They had constructed shelters out of pieces of wood and whatever plastic or corrugated iron they could find.

‘I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY DEAD BODIES’ Among the survivors was Prospery Raymond, Christian Aid’s country manager in Haiti, who was working in his office in Port-au-Prince when the quake struck, trapping him in the collapsed building

One of the temporary camps set up by those made homeless in the earthquake

While Frantzie was talking to community leaders I chatted to some of the people in my broken French and even in Spanish with a few people who had learned Spanish in the Dominican Republic. Several people asked me for money. A few were a bit aggressive. One woman asked for my watch, bracelet and even my wedding ring. She was not aggressive; in fact, she was very charming. Not charming enough for me to give her my jewellery, however.

I wasn’t wearing anything remotely valuable… but it would be valuable enough to buy food in the local market.

This is the sharp end of emergency relief. The communities living away from the centre often receive the least attention from the international aid operation. Naturally they become suspicious of outsiders ‘doing assessments’. Even Koral, a national Haitian NGO based in Port-au-Prince with lots of experience in emergency relief, found it difficult that day.

PULLED FROM the rubble of Christian Aid’s offices in Haiti, country manager Prospery Raymond praised the efforts of local youths who saved the lives of two colleagues and a young boy in the aftermath of the quake.

Prospery was working in Christian Aid’s office close to the centre of Port-au-Prince when the quake struck. The force of the earth tremors completely destroyed the building.

‘I was sitting at my desk, working on my computer and I realised the office was moving,‘ he said.

‘It was a sliding earthquake, like when you are on the sea, like you are on a big wave.

It was moving. And you see the soil moving with you. It was really terrible.’

He managed to dash to a part of the building where he hoped he would be safe from falling masonry but found himself trapped by fallen iron work from which he was quickly extricated by a colleague.

However, another Christian Aid staff member, programme manager Abdonnell Doudou, and Evelyn Magron, an employee of the Dutch aid agency Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO) who was in the building with her ten-year-old grandson, were not so fortunate.

They were buried in rubble for some hours and were only rescued after youths in the area helped dig them free. Abdonnell escaped with minor injuries as did the child. Ms Magron, however, was seriously hurt with numerous broken bones

and a punctured lung and was later evacuated to the Dominican Republic for surgery.

‘My colleague Abdonnell was in his office with the roof on his right arm. We couldn’t move him out. A woman from ICCO was crying with her grandson in the office above,’ said Prospery.

‘We couldn’t do anything because of the aftershocks. I went to look for help and met a group of soldiers who said there were people dying and they couldn’t do anything to help us at that moment.

‘I managed to see my family and they were OK and then went straight back to the office and some youths helped us get Abdonnell and the lady and her grandchild out.

They were trying to pull people out with their hands. I think it is what saved our colleagues.

‘For 1km around the office, only two homes were still standing.

‘What was really terrible was people crying. I do not have words to describe what I have seen in the street, I have never seen so many dead bodies.

‘I am alive and really happy to be alive. I received the right help at the right time. I am grateful to the people who helped me out and I am trying to do the same for the other people, and sharing what I have with families on the street.

‘This earthquake is really terrible for the Haitian people. A lot are suffering right now. In each family, you have dead people.’

Within hours of the quake, Prospery began trying to coordinate

‘It was a sliding earthquake, like when you are on the sea, like you are on a big wave. It was moving. And you see the soil moving with you. It was really terrible’

Christian Aid News 15

FRONTLINE aid efforts among Christian Aid partner agencies, and over the following week was working to source emergency relief items for distribution to more than 15,000 people in eight different locations.

Our partner organisations are staffed by local people who speak Creole and have close ties with the communities in which they work.

They are well placed to assess the immediate needs of local people.

This helps ensure well-targeted distributions, and the long-term sustainability of emergency response and recovery work.

Initial relief efforts were hampered by difficulties in getting supplies into Haiti because of damaged airport and port facilities, and intermittent closures of the border with the Dominican Republic. Collapsed infrastructure such as roads and bridges, along with fuel shortages and communication difficulties, further complicated matters.

Christian Aid says that, where possible, food supplies will be sourced from farmers in Haiti who escaped the impact of the earthquake. It will also work closely with partner organisations in the neighbouring Dominican Republic to source material not available in Haiti.

‘We are concentrating on buying food in local markets to distribute.

Local farmers have food to sell and if they do not sell it, it will rot,’ said Prospery.

‘Now we need better building standards for hurricane and earthquake-proof houses. We also need people to support the government – for instance, town planners and architects, who can apply the building standards.’

HAITI: WHAT WE’RE DOING TO HELP Backed by the phenomenal response of our supporters to the emergency appeal, Christian Aid is working closely with partners to get relief to where it’s most needed CHRISTIAN AID is working through local partners in Haiti and the Dominican Republic to reach those who have been injured, made homeless or lost their livelihoods in the earthquake. Our work is currently focusing on getting food to the most vulnerable, as well as providing shelter, blankets and medical assistance. In the coming months, Christian Aid will begin to focus on restoring people’s livelihoods and helping them come to terms with the long-term impacts of the earthquake.

Since the quake struck, we have responded through our long-established local partners who have the capacity to reach more than 15,000 people.

FOOD

Our partner the Support Group for Refugees and Repatriated Persons (GARR) has distributed weekly rations to 200 families in 11 different locations in Port-au-Prince. As markets and food became available within days of the

quake, our partners have been sourcing supplies from local producers to help stimulate the local economy. GARR was able to distribute rations quickly and smoothly, the key element in its response being to involve community leaders, so that it knew the food would be distributed fairly. Each ration included 25 kilos of rice, a gallon of oil, six dried fish and 5lb of beans, which is designed for an average family of six.

Until this food was distributed most people had been sharing what little they had with neighbours.

GARR is able to provide food for ten times as many families and will scale up its operation with our support.

GARR has been our partner since 2003, and, prior to the quake, it had been responding to the forced expulsion of Haitian migrants from the Dominican Republic. ● To view a video of GARR’s food distribution click here Another local partner, Konbit pou Ranfose Aksyon Lakay (Koral), has been

How you can help ● You can also donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal at: www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/

16 Christian Aid News

Aid supplies are unloaded, guarded

by UN soldiers

Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance

● Donate to our appeal at www. christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/

Epicentre

helping local residents in Dabonne, in Léogane, organise a communal cooking system to provide food for people who have lost their means of cooking.

CLOTHING

In the city of Léogane, about 19km west of Port-au-Prince, Koral distributed torches and clothing, including raincoats, to people who have lost all their possessions. The UN says that up to 80-90 per cent of buildings in Léogane have been destroyed.

MEDICINES

Soon after the quake, Koral helped to transfer the severely injured away from the worst areas to places where medical support was provided. Also, our partner the Association for the Promotion of Integral Family Healthcare (APROSIFA) has set up a clinic in Carrefour Feuilles to provide basic medicines and healthcare, and Christian Aid has been helping to source medicine boxes for their work. These boxes contain three

months, medical supplies for up to 1,000 people.

Our partners in the Dominican Republic have also been involved. They have provided support to the Jesuit Refugee and Migrant Service (JRMS), part of the Help Haiti Coalition, to provide medical support for hospitals in the border town of Jimani and in Port-au-Prince.

CASH

Early assessments by our partners indicated that while food was available in the local markets, families needed cash to purchase it. Where possible, we will be targeting specific families for cash distributions in banks. The families will then use the cash to buy what they need most. Before the banks reopened, Christian Aid put this process in place: targeted beneficiaries will show a form of ID at the bank and receive US$25US$30 (around £15.40-£18) per person per month or US$1 a day – the equivalent of a daily food ration in Haiti.

WORKING WITH OTHERS

Apart from working with our partners, we have been coordinating relief efforts with Action by Churches Together (ACT) Alliance members, sharing resources and access to beneficiaries.

For example, ACT member Diakonie allowed us to use its offices for two weeks following the collapse of our own office. A dedicated Christian Aid staff member has been brought in to support ACT efforts, and the Church World Service has made its medical and hygiene kits available for distribution to our partners. These collaborations have helped us all deliver for Haitians during their hour of need. ● To view a video of ACT work click here ● To view another slideshow, with narration by Prospery Raymond and some video footage click here ● To view a photo gallery of relief work click here

Christian Aid News 17

FRONTLINE

SO WHERE DOES HA GO FROM HERE? Even in the wake of its devastating earthquake, a fresh disaster could only be six months away for this hurricane-prone country. Nick Guttmann, head of Humanitarian Division, Christian Aid, explains how the role of our partner organisations will be vital in helping Haiti recover THE OVERALL aim of Christian Aid’s work in Haiti can be summed up quite simply: to leave people much better off than they were before the earthquake struck. Achieving this aim, of course, is anything but simple.

All our work will be guided by our local partner organisations and they, in turn, will be guided by the communities in which they work.

18 Christian Aid News

One of the lessons we learned in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami and the Kashmiri earthquake in 2005 was that you should not rush into reconstruction.

You may, for instance, do it in the wrong place. Furthermore, you need to involve the affected communities at every stage and address problems with land rights.

We always want to spend funds over the longer term to make people better

prepared for earthquakes and also hurricanes. A couple of years ago, Haiti was devastated by three hurricanes and a couple of years before that, another hurricane. The next hurricane season begins in six months’ time – and it is quite likely that Haiti will be hit again.

The need to make people more resilient will influence the type of reconstruction we support – how we

AITI

Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance

Paul Jeffrey/ACT Alliance

Left and below: Haiti’s clear-up begins as rubble is cleared away and temporary shelters are constructed

build, where we build, the types of drainage installed and so on.

It’s vital that the reconstruction work involves the communities who will use the new buildings. So, for instance, they will have a say in the design of new buildings and where they are built – in Port-au-Prince or elsewhere.

Our partners are already talking about reconstructing some schools. One of the key things for getting normality back is getting children back to school – it is very, very important. But in addition

to rebuilding homes and schools, we want to support Haiti’s recovery in the widest sense. A huge amount of work is going to be needed on livelihoods and governance issues, ensuring that communities are involved in local government decisionmaking. These things take a very, very long time.

We will help people to find or resume their ways of earning a living – for instance through farming and trading. We may distribute cash as part of this, so that people can decide for themselves how best to recreate businesses destroyed by the earthquake.

Christian Aid will also support savings and micro-credit schemes, and psychosocial work to help people overcome the trauma of the earthquake, although we won’t be flying in lots of psychiatrists – we’ll support the methods that the local communities normally use to deal with trauma. In addition, our partner organisations will continue to work on HIV/AIDS. Christian Aid will also campaign for changes at an international level that

will help Haiti recover, such as the cancellation of the country’s remaining debts (see Haiti story on page 4).

I expect that we will work on Haiti’s post-earthquake recovery for at least three years and probably five. We’ll be doing immediate relief work but move on as quickly as possible to rehabilitation and reconstruction. But it depends on what is needed.

We’ll choose our top priorities in consultation with our partner organisations which, in turn, will consult the communities in which they work. This takes time – you have to know communities and to know who you are talking to – it’s important that you don’t only talk to powerful people within a community.

We’ll use participatory vulnerability and capacity assessments to help us. These involve talking to local people about the worst problems and risks that they face and what means they already have of coping with them – and what else they need to help them cope better.

‘A couple of years ago, Haiti was devastated by three hurricanes and a couple of years before that, another hurricane. The next hurricane season begins in six months’ time – and it is quite likely that Haiti will be hit again’

Christian Aid News 19

CAMPAIGNS

Christian Aid

CABLE CARS AND ROLLERCOASTERS After months – years – of protests and petitions, rallies and lobbies, reports and briefings, the world held its breath as its leaders met in Copenhagen to hammer out a deal on climate change. Christian Aid campaigns editor Andrew Hogg was there to follow the twists and turns as hope gave way to despair at a disappointing outcome THE EFFORTLESSLY urbane Yvo de Boer, whose crucial task for the past three years has been to keep the UN climate change talks on track, resorted several times to the image of a cable car going up a mountain when describing to journalists progress during the recent Copenhagen summit.

‘The cable car has made an unexpected stop,’ the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was forced to admit early in the proceedings.

Those who had earlier witnessed the anger of African nations at attempts to kill off the Kyoto Protocol could picture it swaying perilously, buffeted by winds while the strands making up the cable began to snap loudly – one by one.

A little later, after tempers had been assuaged, albeit temporarily, and African calls for the suspension of all negotiations save those about the protocol had been

20 Christian Aid News

abandoned, it was: ‘Hold tight and mind the doors. The cable car is moving again’.

Then, as the difficulties besetting the proceedings piled yet higher, the verdict from the Dutch government minister was laconic: ‘The mountain just got bigger.’

The final time Mr de Boer presented himself to journalists at Copenhagen’s giant conference facility, the Bella Centre, following a last marathon round of talks in which UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon allegedly managed two hours sleep in 48, he abandoned the cable car image altogether.

The conference, he said, had been ‘a roller coaster’ ride.

The description was apt as the international community was arguably back precisely where it had started from after a tense and highly volatile ride.

In fact, given the wasted opportunity that Copenhagen will undoubtedly be adjudged to have

been for many years to come, it is probably more accurate to say the international community is now further away from meaningful action to combat climate change than it was before 115 heads of state, 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists, and a large army of campaigners descended on the Danish capital.

The Copenhagen Accord - the ‘deal’ that emerged from the summit, with far from universal backing, particularly among poorer countries – has, in reality, all the weight of a non-aggression pact signed by Hitler.

The summit should have resolved a number of key issues, foremost amongst which was a new set of legally binding emission cuts to which rich countries would submit after the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period in 2012. It was also important that detailed agreement was reached about the amount of money and

Christian Aid campaigners were out in force in Copenhagen to send a clear message to world leaders

Christian Aid

technological help rich countries would give to poorer countries under the UNFCCC to help them adapt to climate change and develop in a relatively carbonclean manner.

Instead, the non-legally binding accord, drawn up by a working group of 30 countries rich and poor, but including most, if not all, of the major emitters, balked at setting any emission targets.

It merely recognised that cuts were necessary ‘to hold the increase in global temperature below 2ºC’ – the point beyond which scientists predict climate catastrophe. Even the ‘below 2ºC’ formula is of scant reassurance to the more than 100 countries that urgently signalled they wanted the figure to be 1.5ºC. At 2ºC, said small island states such as Tuvalu, rising sea levels would swallow them up.

At 2ºC, said Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan, representing the G77 group of developing nations, but speaking for Africa, the formula was ‘a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries’. Without a 1.5ºC baseline, large swathes of Africa would be devastated by drought and desertification.

On finance, it was agreed that US$30billion would be made available over the next three years for the most vulnerable developing countries. Developed countries also committed themselves to ‘a goal of mobilising jointly US$100billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries’. The $30billion and $100billion figures are, in theory at least, significant steps in the right direction, but without more detail being forthcoming, the pledges could be illusory.

There is a strong likelihood that instead of ‘new’ money, aid budgets will be raided, and ‘double counting’ used, in which rich countries will buy carbon offsets that allow them to keep polluting, while counting the purchases as their contribution towards funding poor countries’ emission cuts.

No doubt in recognition of the

accord’s many flaws, the summit said merely that it ‘took note’ of its contents, a phrase which in the months and years ahead will be unpacked and re-unpacked to the advantage of whoever is doing the unpacking. Was it endorsed or wasn’t it?

It was always clear that the battle to obtain a new set of emissions cuts targets was going to be hard.

The United States did not sign up to the Kyoto protocol in the first place and China, now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs), is a developing country, and so faces no obligation under Kyoto to make cuts anyway.

It was the stand-off between these two major powers that was identified by the EU as the biggest obstacle to progress at the talks.

The US made it clear that it would commit to no deal that did not also bind China, while China, with little historic responsibility for GHGs, said that its first priority was alleviating the poverty of the nearly 40 per cent of its population who live on less than US$2 a day.

In the case of China, the US also balked at the notion that it should offer finance and technological assistance to counter climate change. The problem, as the Americans see it, is that while China is a developing country, it is also a country to which the US is hugely in debt – to the tune of around $800billion.

The stand-off between the two powers had the effect of polarising the summit, with a number of other major emitters making it clear that they too would like to position themselves alongside the US outside the protocol, saying that a new treaty was needed that would also bind the developing world to making cuts.

China and the developing world, however, made it clear that they would accept no deal that did not ring fence Kyoto.

Nelson Muffuh, Christian Aid’s senior climate advocacy officer, expressed his dismay as the summit ended. ‘The poor will pay with their lives for the lack of ambition and resolution shown at Copenhagen,’ he said.

Christian Aid

COMMENT

CLIMATE JUSTICE How do we keep the message alive?

Alison Doig, Christian Aid’s senior adviser on climate change, looks at where the outcome of the Copenhagen summit leaves our climate change campaign AS WE came home exhausted from two weeks in Copenhagen following the United Nations climate change conference at first hand, the Christian Aid Countdown to Copenhagen team had very mixed feelings. The dominant feeling was confusion at just what the final outcome had been.

After two weeks of bitter negotiations which stalled again and again, what we got was the three-page ‘Copenhagen Accord’. This was written by a self-selected group of countries driven by the US with the support of the host Danish government in the dying hours of the conference, and was then presented to the rest of the world as the final conference outcome. This was held up as success by some (notably rich) countries and was condemned as a betrayal by many (mostly poor and vulnerable countries) who felt they had no say in the text. The accord has now been signed by 49 countries out of about 170 that attended the conference and has been ‘noted’ (not adopted) by the UN. There was a lot of anger at this outcome, particularly as the voice of the poor countries and the most vulnerable were excluded from the decision-making process which led to the accord.

However, there was also some sense of achievement at Christian Aid. The Countdown to Copenhagen team – which included our sister organisations across Europe and a number of our Christian Christian Aid Aid News News 17 21

CAMPAIGNS

POVERTY OVER: WHERE DO YOUR PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES STAND?

partners from the south – had done a fantastic job in keeping the climate justice message alive. We had supporters out in their thousands in London at the Wave demonstration and in Copenhagen. The voices of our southern partners were loud and clear through the conference, giving support to the developing countries as they fought for strong targets from the rich countries. Our messages to our governments and the world were unequivocal: the world needs urgent climate action and climate justice for the poor and vulnerable.

Our work continues in 2010. The campaign slogan has transformed into ‘Time for Climate Justice’ but our messages are just the same.

We need to further develop public support to stop the sceptics and vested interests from stalling progress.

We also need to secure binding emissions cuts from rich countries. This can start now with the EU raising its starting position to cut its emissions by at least 30 per cent by 2020, and offering to do 40 per cent if others take stronger action.

The US must be persuaded to do much more for the planet. And we need to raise the confidence of emerging economies such as China that they will be supported in efforts to build a low-carbon future.

Moreover, there must be a real commitment to delivering a far greater level of funding for developing countries with real money coming forward which is new and additional to aid commitments. To email Gordon Brown to urge him to do what he can to keep the negotiations alive in 2010, go to www.christianaid.org.uk/ actnow/.

For Christian Aid the priority will be to continue to raise the southern voice for justice.

Protecting the democracy of the decisionmaking process through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is essential. Making sure the poor and most vulnerable are heard is at the heart of our work.

It is time for climate justice.

This spring the country will go to the polls in a General Election. Let’s make sure all MPs in the new parliament are committed to ending global poverty A BILLION people – one sixth of the world’s population – still do not have enough food to eat. A similar number have no access to safe drinking water. If we are to end world poverty once and for all, our politicians need to challenge the causes of poverty and not just the symptoms.

Our election campaign is split into two. Depending on your postcode (and whether or not you live in a key marginal seat), we will ask you to join: Either ● Our Ask the Climate Question campaign – focused solely on climate change and coordinated with Oxfam, the RSPB, Tearfund, CAFOD, Greenpeace and WWFUK in 50 marginal seats. See box,

Or ● Our Poverty Over campaign – calling on politicians to tackle the causes of poverty, and specifically two key causes: climate change, and tax dodging by multinational companies. See box.

With your help, we can put climate change and the causes of global poverty at the heart of the next parliament and government.

To find out which campaign is taking place in your constituency, please email campaigns@christian-aid.org and include your postcode.

For more information about both our General Election campaigns and the points you can put to candidates, go to our website

Christian Aid

Wave of protest THOUSANDS OF climate change protestors in London, Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast sent a strong message to world leaders before the Copenhagen summit in December.

In London, more than 50,000 people dressed in blue and with blue-painted faces joined the Stop Climate Chaos march after an ecumenical service with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In Scotland, Kathy Galloway, head of Christian Aid Scotland, preached at an ecumenical service to start the day before gathering with Scotland’s faith leaders to walk at the head of a carnival-style march, which walked from Bellahouston Park to Kelvingrove Park.

Mike Robinson, chair of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said: ‘Scotland has the strongest climate legislation in the world and the turn-out – around 8,000 – shows why: people care.’ ● You can see videos of Christian Aid campaigns, including footage from Copenhagen

22 Christian Aid News

If you do not live in one of the marginal seats being targeted for Ask the Climate Question, we would like you to help us highlight two causes of poverty on which we want a future government to take urgent action: ● Climate change is already killing 300,000 people a year in poor countries. With no fair or binding deal reached in Copenhagen, this is a key election issue and politicians must act before it is too late. ● Tax dodging by multinational companies which denies poor countries at least $160 billion a year.

This is more than one and a half times the amount poor countries receive in aid.

Christian Aid

Election 2010: Ask the Climate Question

BIG TAX RETURN CAMPAIGN DAY

Christian Aid/Rachel Stevens

Christian Aid is working with Oxfam, the RSPB, Tearfund, CAFOD, Greenpeace and WWF-UK to make climate change a major General Election issue in our new campaign, ‘Ask the Climate Question’. This campaign will target 50 marginal seats.

Every time a pollster, member of a political party or a candidate asks what is important to you in this election, please list climate change in your top three issues – this is vital to the Ask the Climate Question campaign.

POOR COUNTRIES are losing billions of dollars a year because multinational companies are not paying the right amount of tax. This is money these countries could be using for health, education and other services to lift their people out of poverty.

If you feel as strongly as we do about this, why not come along to Christian Aid’s national tax campaigners day, Tax, Global Poverty and the City, in London on 20 March? It is FREE, open to all, and a lunch will be provided. Travel to London is the only cost you (or your group) will incur.

Key note address: Theology, Tax and the City by Will Morris, curate at St Martins-inTAX, GLOBAL POVERTY the-Fields in London and a tax lawyer at a AND THE CITY major multinational corporation.

Saturday 20 March Christian Aid HQ Other highlights: 35 Lower Marsh ● Explore the importance of tax in tackling Waterloo global poverty.

London SE1 7RT ● Hear how our tax campaigning is already influencing the UK government and the City. ● Be inspired by other campaigners and see some new film footage on what our overseas partners really think about tax dodging and what they want campaigners to do. ● Get hands-on training before the General Election on how to lobby parliamentary candidates on the causes of global poverty – and specifically the problem of tax dodging.

To book your place, e-mail our campaigns team at campaigns@christian-aid.org or tel: 020 7523 2264. For more on CA’s Big Tax Return campaign, click here

on our YouTube page http://www.youtube.com/user/thisischristianaid Christian Aid News 23

FRONTLINE

Christian Aid/Sarah Filbey

REVISITING VESTINA

Vestina with her grandfather and step-grandmother pictured last year and, below right, in 2007

In March 2007, Christian Aid communications officer Sarah Filbey met a young Zambian girl called Vestina, who was living with HIV, and who was kept alive thanks to the efforts of her family and carers, supported by Christian Aid partner, the Archdiocese of Lusaka (ADL). Vestina’s story touched many people and was featured in the Winter 2007 issue of Christian Aid News and in that year’s Christmas Appeal. So, nearly three years on, how is Vestina doing now.

Sarah has returned to Zambia to find out WHEN I first met her, Vestina, then 14, was living with her 66-year-old grandfather who had taken her in, along with her sister Beatrice and six other young grandchildren, after losing five of his own children to HIV-related illnesses.

When I return, two years later, Kapiri Mposhi, a transit town in central Zambia, four hours drive from the capital Lusaka – and where sex work ensnares many young girls and women – looks much the same, clouded by dust thrown up by trucks roaring along the main road.

In contrast, Vestina, at 16, has changed significantly. In just two years she has grown a head in height. Due to recurring bouts of HIV-related illness, when I first met her at 14 she was the height of an average nine-year-old.

She is now healthier than ever and leading a full, active life with illness no 24 Christian Aid News

longer interrupting her education. Her grandfather Velentino, now 69, tells me proudly: ‘Vestina goes to hospital on her own every three months for a review.

But never because she’s sick.’

Two years ago, caregivers from Christian Aid’s partner, ADL, had helped Velentino understand Vestina’s needs as an HIV+ child. ‘Without their help I would have lost her,’ he said then.

‘Before you came, Vestina was suffering continually, going to hospital twice a week,’ Velentino now tells me.

‘Then when you came she was still sick.

But nowadays there’s not much problem because she started getting medication.’

ADL caregivers helped Vestina register for and collect her life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) from the nearby hospital. Nowadays they visit once a month to check up on the family

and offer any help needed. The family continues to struggle to grow enough food – they are not alone in a country where an estimated 46 per cent of people are undernourished. And without adequate food, the ARV drugs often don’t work. Velentino has been in ill health since 2007 and unable to plant his usual maize and sugar cane crops. ADL is helping him to learn farming techniques requiring less hard work, so that he can grow a variety of nutrient-rich plants that ensure Vestina’s ARV drugs do work.

At the same time. Christian Aid has helped ADL begin micro credit schemes so that grandparents and older siblings caring for orphans can save and borrow, giving access to cash for emergencies or to start a small business. Velentino joined a Savings and Loans Group last year and within a year saved for a bicycle.

Vestina’s sister Beatrice, 18, is now at a girls’ boarding school in the northern Copperbelt mining region. The education costs are paid for jointly by Christian Aid and USAID. Attending boarding school provides much more than just a continued education. It means Beatrice is away from the streets of Kapiri where young girls, with families short of food and no employment opportunities, sell themselves to truck drivers. At school, Beatrice is able to study, away from the commitments that come to the eldest child in orphan households.

‘I’d like to go there too. It’s quiet and you can study well,’ says Vestina.

‘With a higher availability of ARVs meaning fewer sick people, the healthy workforce is growing and Christian Aid is changing its programme accordingly,’ explains Jennipher Sakala, Christian Aid’s country manager for Zambia. ‘We want to ensure that more opportunities to earn an income exist for educated children such as Vestina and Beatrice.’

COMMENT

INDIA’S SLAVERY PROBLEM BLIGHTS LIVES OF MILLIONS In response to Christian Aid’s launch of its Poverty Over vision, Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, highlights an issue that continues to enslave whole families MOST PEOPLE in Britain live under the comforting delusion that slavery is a thing of the past, so much so that a recent Christian Aid advert that said slavery had ended was regarded as accurate and non-controversial. But slavery is a human rights abuse that persists: it is estimated that at least 12.3 million people still live in slavery today.

Debt bondage is the most widespread form of slavery in the 21st century. It is a means of coercion whereby individuals take on a loan which they must pay off at exorbitant interest rates with their labour, which generally is valued well below the usual market rate.

Debt bondage is endemic across South Asia despite being illegal in all the countries of the region. For visitors to South Asia it is most visible in the brick kilns at the outskirts of towns and cities.

Debt bondage enslaves entire families

and often results in children having to help their parents to repay their debts.

Forced to work all day when they should be in school, this system robs children of their childhood, their education and their opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and slavery.

The equine charity Brooke once used the backdrop of a South Asia brick kiln for a television advertisement to illustrate the abuse of donkeys. Not once did they mention the abuse of the ordinary women, men and children bonded at the brick kiln.

Debt bondage is also prevalent in agriculture, gem polishing, cigarette manufacturing, mines and quarries, the sex industry and garment making.

Guddu was 12 years old when he was bonded into an embroidery workshop in Delhi, India. During his first year there he faced constant verbal and physical abuse from the owner. He was often beaten with a stick and saw other children burned with matches by the owner.

During this time Guddu was never paid and never allowed to go home.

While complete figures are difficult to estimate, in Tamil Nadu alone,

an Indian Supreme Court commission identified over a million cases of bonded labour. According to the Indian government 86 per cent of bonded labourers are dalits (untouchables) or come from tribal communities.

Once, while I was trying to explain these sorts of abuses to a journalist from a leading British newspaper, she stopped me mid-sentence. She refused to accept that debt bondage was slavery and instead regarded it as akin to defaulting on a mortgage.

I do not raise these issues to make readers of Christian Aid News depressed, but rather to make them angry. That such abuses are routine in the world is an indictment of all of us. That these stories are so poorly known is a further indictment, particularly given the courageous efforts of the South Asian anti-slavery organisations with which both Anti-Slavery International and Christian Aid work. Our friends and colleagues in these organisations know that slavery is a human institution and, as such, it can be ended by human action. ● To find out more visit www.antislavery.org

Christian Aid News 25

EVENTS We work with some of the world’s poorest communities.

They face huge challenges every day, so why don’t you challenge yourself? Have fun while fighting poverty: join one of our events or do your own fundraising

HOLD A SUPER SOUP LUNCH AND BOWL OVER POVERTY! WHATEVER YOU’RE doing for lunch on Friday 26 March, make sure you are eating soup!

The Super Soup Lunch is a great new way for you to raise money for Christian Aid this spring. Whether you like a traditional bowl of tinned tomato, microwaved minestrone or classy carrot and coriander in a cup, bring your fellow soup-lovers together for lunch.

It’s so simple! Invite your friends, family or colleagues to join you for a soup-themed lunch and collect a donation from each of them. Wherever you are – at home, work, school, church or in your local community – you can make all the difference with a sip of soup. ● Taking part is easy – register now at www.christianaid.org.uk/super-souplunch and you’ll be sent a Super Soup Lunch fundraising pack full of hints and tips, a poster, and invitations which will all help to make your soup lunch a huge success.

Christian Aid’s cyclists – including Hereward Cooke (arms aloft), who later died in his sleep – celebrate their arrival in Copenhagen

POWER TO THEIR FUNDS ON THE RUN WHETHER YOU’RE a complete novice or a seasoned runner, Christian Aid has a run for you! Whether you already have your own place or would like one of our guaranteed places, we’d love you to join our team.

MARATHONS: Registration £50, Minimum sponsorship £500 Brighton – 18 April London – 25 April Edinburgh – 23 May

HALF-MARATHONS: Registration £35, Minimum sponsorship £300 Great North Run – 19 September Royal Parks – autumn (to be confirmed)

10KS: Registration £25, Minimum sponsorship £150.

Great Manchester Run – 16 May London 10,000 – 31 May

● Sign-up online today at www.christianaid.org.uk/events

Lux lively CHRISTIAN AID is launching the newest and most exciting cycling event in Europe, the London to Luxembourg challenge.

The four-day, 330-mile bike ride, from 29 October to 3 November, is open to 100 intrepid cyclists of all abilities.

26 Christian Aid News

A £99 registration fee will secure a place and all participants are asked to raise a minimum sponsorship of £1,100. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, so register now at www.christianaid.org.uk/events to secure your place.

CHRISTIAN AID has a varied range of sponsored walks all over the UK for you to get involved with in 2010. Why not get out in the fresh air and have fun with all the family while striding out against poverty?

To take part in the Forth, Erskine or Tay Bridge Cross in Scotland or find out about other sponsored walks in your area visit www.christianaid.org.uk/ events If you’d like to do something different this year, why not go ‘over the edge to end poverty’?

Experience the thrill of abseiling 164 feet down the iconic Mersey Tunnel Ventilation Station on the banks of the River Mersey in Liverpool on 27 February or, alternatively, take on 150 feet of the Titan Crane on the banks of the Clyde near Glasgow on 2 May. You will be so busy admiring the views you won’t have time to look down! ● Registration is £25 per person and you are each asked to raise £100 minimum sponsorship. For more information visit www. christianaid.org.uk/events

SING A SONG OF CHRISTMAS

Fancy a New Year’s challenge?

FROM 11 to 13 December 2009, thousands of Big Christmas Sings were held in homes, work, schools and churches across the UK. People of all ages got involved through carol concerts, and an evening of competitive karaoke. One group of supporters also sang out against high winds and waves on the Exmouth Lifeboat!

Christian Aid hopes to raise more than £100,000 from the Big Christmas Sing. If you held a Big Christmas Sing and haven’t sent your money in yet, please do so as soon as possible – you can pay it in online at www. christianaid.org.uk/bigsing. Whether you raised £2 or £200, all the money will help Christian Aid partners across the world to achieve Christian Aid’s vision of alleviating poverty.

Christian Aid

IS YOUR New Year’s resolution to get fit?

Or maybe you pledged to raise some money for a charity in 2010? Well, how about combining them both by getting involved with one of Christian Aid’s challenge events?

UK TREKS For 2010 Christian Aid has two new UK Treks – Offa’s Dyke Midnight Marathon (19-20 June) and the Jurassic Coast Trek (17-19 September), both taking in great scenery and sites of historic interest. ● For more information on all Christian Aid’s UK treks, visit www.christianaid.org. uk/events

What’s going on in your area?

Christian Aid

R PEDALS

FROM 9 to 12 December, 27 cyclists came together to pedal 140 miles from London to Copenhagen. During the ride, the intrepid team ate their way through 400 energy bars, drank 240 litres of water, repaired 22 punctures and experienced -8°C temperatures to deliver one message to politicians at the climate change summit: Climate Justice Now! To add to this fantastic achievement, the team also raised a staggering £50,000 for Christian Aid. A special tribute must be paid to one cyclist, Canon Hereward Cooke, who died peacefully in his sleep while in Copenhagen. Hereward was a staunch climate activist and Christian Aid supporter. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. ● Are you or do you know a keen cyclist? Why not sign up to our London to Paris Bike Ride in July? Now in its third year, places are going fast so sign-up online today at www. christianaid.org.uk/events

Left: R’n’B singer Rachel Adedeji does her bit for the Christmas Sing

Best feet

THE 2010 North Staffordshire Sponsored Walk takes place on 27 March. Anyone wishing to join in this event, which last year raised more than £50,000 for Christian Aid, should be at Tittesworth reservoir, near Leek, from 9.30am for a 10.30am start. ● More details from John Bamford on: 01782 516137

Christian Aid News 27

FEAST OF RECIPES IN FUNDRAISING COOKBOOK TV chef Kevin Woodford, insurer Congregational & General and Christian Aid unite to support launch of Loaves, fishes and more…

SURROUNDED BY fresh fish and tasty bread loaves, celebrity chef Kevin Woodford has helped to launch a unique cookbook, which includes recipes submitted by church leaders and members of the public.

Featuring 70 delicious recipes, Loaves, fishes and more… is a 128-page fundraising cookbook devised by insurer Congregational & General, and endorsed by Kevin. It contains a wide range of recipes from a traditional game pie to Spanish-style fish stew and a delicious citrus tart.

Available now from independent booksellers and high-street bookshops, including Waterstones, it is the first publication of its kind involving some of the UK’s key church leaders. For every book sold a donation will be made to Christian Aid. Among the recipes submitted by nine church leaders are the Baptist Union of Great Britain’s succulent salmon with honey sauce, a wholesome ‘Bara Brith’ fruitcake supplied by The Presbyterian Church of Wales and The Church of England’s recipe for delicious ginger biscuits, provided by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Margaret Slater, marketing manager at Congregational & General, said: ‘Like many companies we are often approached by church communities and charity groups to help with their fundraising

initiatives. Loaves, fishes and more… is a not-for-profit publication devised to help these groups generate funds, while making a donation to Christian Aid. ‘We are grateful to Kevin Woodford for his time – which he has given freely – for providing some of his own recipes and making the final selections for the book, which we hope will appeal to all cookery enthusiasts.’

Kevin, who has appeared on a number of TV shows including Planet Cook, Ready Steady Cook and Songs of Praise, added: ‘Loaves, fishes and more… is a fantastic fundraising initiative and I have been delighted to lend my support.’

Dr Daleep Mukarji, director of Christian Aid, concluded: ‘Flawed global systems and structures – including those of trade, taxation and the responses to climate change – will result in more than a billion people going hungry this year.

This book’s central message of nourishment and sharing is made doubly pertinent by the support it will give to Christian Aid in our mission to overcome global poverty.’

Loaves, fishes and more… is on sale for £11.95.

For more information, please visit www.loavesfishesandmore.com Dr Daleep Mukarji and Kevin Woodford at the book launch

BOOK REVIEW

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY REVEALED BEYOND REACH?

by John Madeley (Longstone, £9.99)

28 Christian Aid News

AFTER SOME 30 years of writing factual books and newspaper articles on development and poverty issues, journalist, author and Christian Aid supporter since the 1960s John Madeley switches to a novel to tell the story of the Make Poverty History campaign.

John covered the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, was present at most of the national Make Poverty History

events and was also involved in local campaigning. The book gives an eyewitness account of the campaign, as seen at both national and local level.

The book’s fact-cum-fiction plot tells a witty story of how a feisty young married woman inspires a church minister, known for his inappropriate choice of women, to join the campaign. The result is an explosive mix that takes them into

FAMILY GIFT IS A LASTING LEGACY

Odionse diamcon sequissit lut prat digniam

LIFE AND SOUL

When a family wants to celebrate the life of a loved one with an exceptional gift, it is sometimes possible to find a project that closely matches his or her interests. Head of Legacies Colin Kemp reports on a hostel for women trainee teachers, funded by a gift in memory of one Christian Aid supporter WHEN CHRISTINE Dodd received an inheritance from her father, John, she wanted to celebrate his life by funding work reflecting his interest in education for all. She contacted the legacy team at Christian Aid to see what would be possible with her gift of £15,000.

After talking with her about her father’s interests, we identified a Sudanese project where Christian Aid partner Mundri Relief and Development Association provides education and teacher training in a part of Sudan where only a third of children are in school – and only a third of those are girls. There is a desperate need for more female teachers – but the training school had no suitable accommodation for women. The project had plans to build a hostel – but no money to do so. Christine agreed to fund it – and the hostel is now ready for use.

We have sent Christine an update,

a world that neither bargained for. The novel asks searching questions about relationships, the nature of love and the meaning of life. The author exposes what he sees as government duplicity, drawing on the work of aid agencies to show that the huge claims made by the government about aid and debt relief are not always what they seem.

‘After years of banging on about

including interviews with two of the trainee teachers who will move into the hostel. Miss Angwa Doren told Christine that she would not have been able to train without it. She believes: ‘It is important to educate both males and females for our country’s development.’

Miss Alice Justin said: ‘The building of the Dodd Hostel has shown us that the importance of female teachers is really recognised.’ Both have now moved into the hostel, along with 26 other trainees.

Christine was pleased that she was able to fund one particular project and to see exactly how the money was used. She added: ‘I’m sure my father would be so pleased to see how his money will enable such a transformation in the lives of so many people.’

To receive a copy of our Celebrate a Life leaflet via email, ring 020 7523 2173 or contact ckemp@christian-aid.org.

development in factual books,’ says John, ‘I felt the need to explore an alternative way of getting the message across, one that could reach people who have not been involved in campaigning to end poverty. Putting the issues into a novel might, I hope, help to step up the demand for policies to end poverty.’

Royalties go to agencies, including ours, that are working to end poverty.

The way we lead our own lives can have a tangible impact in the fight to end poverty. By ‘doing the right thing’ we show we have a commitment to a sustainable lifestyle that places a high value on helping others

COUNT YOUR Blessings is a lifechanging countdown to Easter. It includes a simple calendar to stick up on your wall: for each day of Lent we’ll tell you something new about the world and suggest ways of responding through giving, action or prayer. If you’re looking for more, there are also ideas for children, Mothers’ Day and further reflections online. Count Your Blessings raised more than £250,000 last year and helped thousands of people see how much they have to give thanks.

Here’s what some of those who took part thought of it: ‘I am a working class woman, two pay packets away from disaster, like so many. I did not think I was in the richest ten per cent of the world. It brought me up short to realise that what I spend on my pets is what 90 per cent of the world has to live on.’

‘Your Lent pamphlet brought home to me how many everyday blessings I take for granted. It did me good to remember that, for many, these would be precious gifts.’

‘Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to count my blessing in this way. God has created such a beautiful world and has given us so much – enough for everyone. It has been quite a journey these seven weeks, but it has made me aware of so many issues around the world which I can continue to pray about.’

To take part in Count Your Blessings, go to www.christianaid.org.uk/lent or call 08700 787 788.

Christian Aid News 29

INPUT Inspired? Enraged?

Send your views to the editor. Christian Aid News, PO Box 100, London SE1 7RT or email canews@christian-aid.org POPULATION DILEMMA I recently read the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge book Creation in Crisis, which has an excellent perspective on sustainability.

Among other things it covers the difficult subject of the population explosion in the Third World which is working against the efforts of Christian Aid and the aim of eliminating poverty.

Scientists who have studied this problem are seriously concerned that if nothing is done, you end up on a treadmill of: remove poverty through aid/more children are born alive/they cannot be fed because the land cannot support a bigger population/ the next generation sinks back into poverty…

And so on. The elimination of poverty becomes an impossible task. Should the predictions of climate change come true, large parts of Africa will never be able to support an increased population no matter what is done. With the current rate of four children per family, it is easy to see that it does not take many generations before you are faced with very serious problems. For one thing, there will be an increase in intertribal violence as people naturally fight for as much as they can to support their family. I fear for my grandchildren who will be given the job of sorting out this mess.

But this book presents a lucid discussion on what can be done now. The developing countries and the aid agencies must support all efforts to encourage voluntary contraception

30 Christian Aid News

among the population.

This means supporting programmes for education as well as providing free contraceptives to those who need them.

My fear is that without action now, governments will impose Chinese-style statutory birth control to deal with the problem. Leave this to the politicians and you will end up with statutory and totalitarian state intervention.

Over the next 60 years (two generations) some regions of the Third World will be facing a more violent climate, a shrinking land mass and many more mouths to feed. Surely it is time that this was discussed and action taken.

Stephen Arnold, via email D Holmes in his letter on population in the Autumn issue of Christian Aid News (Making the numbers add up) writes: ‘If only we could stabilise the world population to nil growth.’

This goal is not so unachievable. According to the UN Population Fund, 200 million couples would use family planning if they had access to it. More than 40 per cent of pregnancies are unintentional. It has been pointed out by Professor Chris Radley of the Natural History Museum and also in a recent Scientific American article that the number of births resulting from unintended pregnancies is roughly equal to the amount by which the world’s population increases. All that is lacking is political will.

Roger Plenty, Stroud

MILKY WAY As a lactation consultant and author of Fit to Bust, in support of Baby Milk Action (the UK branch of IBFAN), I was glad to read that Margaret Thewarapperuma’s church is supporting young Zimbabwean mothers (letter, Issue 45), but concerned by their difficulty in getting suitable baby-milk powder.

Breastfeeding saves lives; in developing countries, lack of it greatly increases mortality and morbidity in both babies and mothers. In a statement on infant feeding in emergencies, the International Babyfood Action Network (IBFAN) explains why donations of formula milk can do more harm than good. Where bottle-feeding is not affordable or relatively safe, HIV-positive mothers are now encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months. If the mother dies, it may be possible for female relatives to nurse the baby, by relactation or induced lactation.

More information written by a Zimbabwean lactation consultant, is available by contacting me via my website www.linkable.biz Alison Blenkinsop Aldershot

PUT A PRICE ON CUTTING CARBON I share your objectives both to alleviate poverty and substantially reduce the risk of climate change. However, I worry about the conflict between these priorities in the UK. In order to reduce Britain’s CO2 emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020, as you are campaigning for,

there will be substantial costs. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that the non-CO2 energy options can be built today at the rate and scale that we need them as cheaply as fossil fuels. And radical efficiency drives to reduce energy demand will likely involve significant new investment in our homes, industry and transport. In truth we don’t know today how much all this would cost.

However, I believe it would help the debate if Christian Aid could explain what they believe is a manageable cost – perhaps in income tax-equivalent, or say just for the electricity options in price rises in pence per kWh – for a country such as Britain to afford. Then, as we embark on the plans, the public could have more confidence that affordability, as well as the 40 per cent target, would have a strong voice in the trade-off if the costs turn out to be more expensive than we hope for.

Martin Haigh London

FUNDRAISING SUCCESS I noticed with interest in the last but one edition of Christian Aid News that the fundraising achievements of Kathleen Evans in Palsall received merited attention.

Readers may also be interested in the work in Kings Langley which, since its beginnings in the 1960s, has raised more than £200,000. The story is told on the web page www.kings-langley-churches. org.uk Harold Taylor, Kings Langley

The next print copy of Christian Aid News will be published in April, and the magazine will again be available digitally. If you have a view on any of the issues affecting Christian Aid, please write or email to the addresses at the top of the page.

‘I am a working class woman from the UK, two pay packets away from disaster, like so many…’

‘…I did not think I was in the richest 10 per cent of the world.’

Cathy Niazi Ghadim, a Christian Aid supporter who took part in Count Your Blessings

Get a fresh perspective this Lent by ‘counting your blessings’ with Christian Aid. Download or order a free Count Your Blessings calendar and make Lent meaningful for you and your family.

Mothering Sunday resources and children’s activities also available

www.christianaid.org.uk/lent

LAST WORD A parting reflection from a member of the Christian Aid ‘family’. This issue, outgoing director Dr Daleep Mukarji offers some final thoughts

‘I WILL NOT STOP FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE AND THE END OF POVERTY’ After 12 years as director of Christian Aid, Dr Daleep Mukarji retires from the post at the end of March. Here, in a special Last Word, he looks back at what’s been achieved in his time, and looks ahead to the challenges of the future

32 Christian Aid News

Christian Aid/Gaoussou Koita

I HAVE had 12 wonderful years at Christian Aid! What a privilege and honour it has been to lead this vibrant organisation into the 21st century.

Today Christian Aid is a respected, professional charity, proud of its Christian heritage and identity, and its influence and impact on poverty.

This is not my achievement alone, of course – we have a passionate, loyal network of supporters who pray, take action for change and give generously of their time and resources.

Our staff are experienced, dedicated and hard working; our committed partners do excellent work in their own communities. I wish to thank them all for their work and encouragement.

So what are some of the activities I have been most proud of? Let me list just a few: ● Christian Aid’s leadership role in the J2000 debt relief campaign, the Make Poverty Coalition (2005), the Trade Justice Movement and our recent work on climate change and tax. In all of this we have enabled people, churches and organisations to be part of a movement for social justice and poverty eradication. We have shown we are willing to challenge structures. ● The real difference being made by our international work in relief, development and advocacy in around 50 countries with about 600 partners. In my travels overseas I have seen much of this myself. Our scaled-up response to the Asian tsunami proved that we can respond effectively to disasters.

An independent evaluation showed that we and our partners reached out successfully to the most vulnerable communities. The decentralisation of our staff and offices to many countries has helped us employ excellent people and be closer to local churches, partners and networks. ● The new international Action by Churches Together (ACT) alliance.

Through this, church-related development agencies can cooperate better, raise our common profile, improve our standards of accountability and be more outspoken together on key issues. Christian Aid staff have played a critical role in the emergence of this alliance – we must now ensure that it works well. ● Our total income has grown from about £40million to more than £90million. We diversified our

fundraising, took risks to explore new markets and built up fundraising and marketing expertise and capacity.

The mix of our income has changed and we are today probably the largest UK grant-giving charity in international development. ● We now have a clear strategic purpose, a renewed organisational direction and framework and have invested in infrastructure, office facilities, staff and improving our accountability standards. In the past year we have been awarded Investors in People (IiP), Investors in Volunteers (IiV), People in Aid and the international Humanitarian Accountability Partnership accreditation. It means that our work is recognised and of a high standard.

I could go on! To sum up, I believe we have changed the culture, behaviour and focus of the organisation over the past few years. We are now, more than ever, not just a charity that distributes funds. Our analysis of poverty enables us to recognise the injustice, abuse of power and discrimination that perpetuates poverty, exclusion and disempowerment.

If Christian Aid is going to have greater impact it must deal honestly with the root causes of poverty. So our work is about justice, empowerment and building a movement for getting rid of poverty.

Our vision is for a better world – a more inclusive, just, healthy and sustainable world. I believe this is what inspires most of the people who work for Christian Aid. It has certainly inspired me. Where else can one get paid for putting one’s faith into action, while fighting for justice and the end of poverty?

But there have also been difficulties.

As a result of the recent financial crisis we have had to downsize, make cuts and lose staff; this has not been easy for the staff or for me. Charities have suffered in this recession but I believe Christian Aid will come out of it well. We can grow our influence and continue our efforts to end poverty so long as we recognise that the organisation needs to be flexible –

able to respond to opportunities and able to think four to five years ahead.

So what are some of the challenges ahead? In the present economic climate fundraising will not be easy. Also, there is a new political environment internationally – power is shifting, and China, India, Brazil and South Africa will have a bigger global role – and also in the UK (whoever wins the coming election). We will have pressure on us from the media, the public and some in government to measure impact and to demonstrate the value of our partnership approach. With different understandings of accountability, we may also get more regulation.

But we must not allow poverty eradication to be equated with simply more aid or even the delivery on the Millennium Development Goals. Both are important but development is, above all, about rights, education, empowerment, challenging power structures and working with many to see poor people and countries benefit from development activities. I believe Christian Aid is ready to meet all these challenges.

I leave with a sense of satisfaction. Let me thank God and all who have supported me during these years. I could not do this without the understanding and encouragement of my wife and family.

I am grateful to the chair and board for their confidence in me. It has been great to work with very good people in the directorate and senior management colleagues. My senior colleagues are, I feel, some of the best in the sector.

I want to assure my successor Loretta Minghella, the staff, the churches, the board, our supporters and our partners – all of you will be in my prayers and thoughts. Although I am leaving Christian Aid – I will not stop fighting for justice and the end of poverty. It has influenced my life and choice of jobs.

Christian Aid starts a new era and I believe the best is still to come. May God bless and guide Christian Aid.

‘I leave with a sense of satisfaction. Let me thank God and all who have supported me during these years ’

Christian Aid News 33

PLANT A TREE THAT BEARS FRUIT FOR GENERATIONS PRODUCE TO SELL A BETTER DIET SOIL THAT RETAINS WATER

MORE FERTILE LAND

FEWER LANDSLIDES In Ethiopia, poverty has devastated the landscape, with people cutting down trees in a desperate search for firewood. Now when the rains come, the water runs off rather than sinking into the soil, and crops don’t grow. Leaving just £3,500 to Christian Aid in your Will could plant more than 30,000 seedlings. The result will be not just trees, but also fruit, shade, water, bigger harvests and healthier livelihoods.

Leaving a gift to Christian Aid in your Will could change many, many lives for generations, and bring us closer to the day when poverty is over for good.

To find out more about how to leave a gift in your Will and what it could achieve, or to tell us what has inspired you to remember Christian Aid in your Will already, please click here or contact Colin Kemp on

020 7523 2173 or email ckemp@christian-aid.org