A CHURCH in east Donegal has raised almost €1,300 with a soup lunch fundraiser for an aid agency’s work with vulnerable communities around the world.
Volunteers from Carnone Presbyterian Church, located between Castlefinn and Convoy, prepared six varieties of home-made soup which they served to members of their congregation after a recent Sunday service, in exchange for a donation to Christian Aid Week.
Christian Aid Week, which ran from May 12 to 18, began in the 1950s and is thought to be the UK and Ireland’s longest-running fundraising campaign.
Each year, tens of thousands of people across the UK and Ireland get involved in raising funds to support the charity’s work to reach people living in poverty and crisis around the world.
Christian Aid Ireland chief executive, Rosamond Bennett, thanked Joanne Kee, the charity’s representative at Carnone, all her volunteer helpers and everyone who came along to support the lunch with their donations.
“Every year during Christian Aid Week, people across the UK and Ireland raise funds, act and pray for their global neighbours in a celebration of hope for a fairer world,” she said.
“Christian Aid Week brings people together to put our faith into action. Every prayer, every gift, every action makes a difference.”
This year’s Christian Aid Week appeal focuses on the charity’s work in Burundi, one of the most densely populated and poorest countries in Africa.
Heavily reliant on agriculture, it’s also one of the least prepared to combat the effects of climate change, including droughts, floods and landslides.
The global cost of living crisis has intensified the challenges, leaving more than 70 per cent of the population living in poverty and more than half of children chronically malnourished.
Christian Aid has been working in Burundi since 1995 when it first offered humanitarian assistance to people surviving the civil conflict.
Now, alongside local partners, the organisation helps establish Village Savings and Loans Associations.
These community-led groups mean people can save and borrow money, making small businesses possible, offering reliable incomes so families can eat regularly, get medicine when they need it, and build safer homes.
One of those supported by Christian Aid and its local partner is thirty-five-year-old Aline Nibogora.
A survivor of both domestic violence and homelessness, thanks to a small start-up loan, Aline was able to begin trading avocados and peanuts locally.
With her profits, she bought a bicycle to transport greater quantities of goods to markets further afield and now has the money she needs to support herself and her children.
For more information or to donate, visit caweek.ie
