Christian Aid Ireland magazine - Winter 2014 (No. 46)

Christian Aid Ireland Winter 2014 â– Number 46

Kenya

Coping with climate change Christian Aid Ireland

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Christian Aid Ireland is the official relief and development agency of the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Moravian Church, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Salvation Army, and the Irish Council of Churches.

It is a member of ACT Alliance (Action by Churches Together), the worldwide ecumenical network for emergency relief.

Christian Aid is a signatory to the Dóchas Code of Conduct on Images & Messages. More details can be found on www.dochas.ie Please send any feedback about images in this publication to ahorsman@christian-aid.org

Rosamond Bennett Chief Executive, Christian Aid Ireland Belfast Linden House, Beechill Business Park, 96 Beechill Road, Belfast BT8 7QN Tel: (028) 9064 8133 Email: Belfast@christian-aid.org Contacts: Deborah Doherty, Head of Church & Community Adrian Horsman, Head of Communications & Media

Dublin Canal House Canal Road, Dublin 6 Tel: (01) 496 7040 Email: Dublin@christian-aid.org Contact: Peter Byrne, Church and Community Manager (Dublin)

Christian Aid Ireland

Annual Report

Combined Financial Stateme nts for the year ended 31 March 2014

Christian Aid Ireland’s Annual Report for the financial year 2013-2014 is now available. The report includes highlights of the year as well as detailed financial statements, showing where our money came from and how we have been spending your donations. christianaid.ie

A limited number of copies have been printed.

It is also available for download on christianaid.ie/aboutus or you can email Adrian at ahorsman@christian-aid.org for a soft copy.

We are moving!

Our new Dublin address is:

Christian Aid Canal House Canal Road Dublin 6

Telephone:

(01) 496 7040

Please come and visit - we would love to see you!

Cork Hill View Bandon, Cork Tel: (023) 88 41468 Email: Cork@christian-aid.org Contact: Andrew Coleman, Fundraising Co-ordinator NI Company no. NI059154 NI Charity no. XR94639 ROI Company no. 426928 ROI Charity no. CHY 6998

The work of Christian Aid Ireland is based on our Christian belief that everyone, regardless of faith or race, is entitled to live a full life, free from poverty.

We believe in tackling the root causes of poverty, not just the symptoms. We believe the world can and must be changed so that there is equality, dignity and freedom for all.

We are driven to make this change happen and to inspire others to help make it happen.

www.christianaid.ie

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Christian Aid Ireland

@christianaidirl Designed and printed by

Contents

Editorial Over the last few months crisis after crisis has hit the headlines with terrible atrocities occurring in Iraq, Syria and Gaza. We have seen the situation in South Sudan deteriorate as more and more people are displaced and in need of food and shelter. We have also seen the death toll rise in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as a result of the Ebola virus. These crises are a reminder of how fragile life is and how circumstances can change suddenly in the blink of an eye.

While these emergencies dominate the media, it can be easy to forget all the other issues that affect people in poverty day after day such as malaria, typhoid, drought and flooding. We have tried to give a flavour of all the work we do in this edition of the magazine, talking about our campaigning work on climate change, giving you an update on the many emergencies that are around but also talking about the life changing work that our partners are doing in Kenya and South Africa and the rebuilding of Haiti five years on after the devastating earthquake there.

Things have also been busy closer to home as we recently moved offices in Dublin. We were fortunate to find a nicer, more accessible office at a lower cost than what we were paying. If you are ever in the area of our new office on Canal Road in D6 please call in for a cuppa and a chat, we’d love to see you.

8 News ■ 4 Nets Work

Irish Diocese battles malaria

■ 5 Celebrity Hiker

Walking in West Cork ■ 6 Emergencies

Dealing with conflict and Ebola

Feature

As the year closes, I want to thank you all for your support. It has been and continues to be a difficult year for so many of the people we work with and it would have been even more difficult without your financial and prayerful support.

■ 8 Bee-keeping in Kenya

We are now looking ahead to 2015, our 70th birthday year. In an ideal world there would be no need for Christian Aid and although it is not appropriate to celebrate our birthday, we do feel it is important to acknowledge it and to mark the year in some way. We hope that our supporters and volunteers will help us do this via a series of events next year. If you have any ideas, please let us know, we would love to hear about them.

Five years after the quake

God bless.

Rosamond Bennett

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A sweet way to cope with drought ■ 10 Rebuilding Haiti

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Campaigns ■ 12 Climate Change

The people speak ■ 13 South Africa

Living with radioactivity

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Diary dates CEO Christian Aid Ireland

■ 15 Dr Rowan Williams

In Dublin for Advent Hope ■ Cover: Bee-keeper Margaret Sapali lives in Lengwenyi, Kenya, where climate change has led to erratic rainfalls. Read more of Margaret’s story, and how Christian Aid is supporting her village, in the centre pages.

Photograph: Mervyn McCullagh/Irish Council of Churches

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News

Lively drama demonstrates to villagers in Nigeria how sleeping under a treated mosquito net can protect a whole family from malaria.

Nets Work!

Mosquito nets treated with insecticide are one of the most effective weapons in the battle against the deadly disease malaria, which kills 300,000 children a year.

Open Schools World Wide Zimbabwe The students and staff at Villiers School in Limerick raised more than €3,000 for Christian Aid’s partner Open Schools World Wide Zimbabwe.

Pictured here are some of the pupils, along with school chaplain Jackie McNair and principal Jill Storey, presenting a cheque to Christian Aid’s Andrew Coleman.

Photo: Christian Aid / Rachel Stevens

Over the last two years Christian Aid Ireland and our colleagues in Nigeria have been amazed by the generosity and kindness of the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe. Their ‘Nets Work Appeal’ has raised £117,141 - far surpassing the original £100,000 target. That’s enough to buy almost 23,500 mosquito nets!

Charles Usie, Christian Aid's Country Manager in Nigeria, has referred to the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe as ‘a true blessing on the lives of poor and marginalised people in Nigeria’.

Peacebuilding Conference Twelve countries will be represented at a week-long Conflict Transformation and Peace Building Conference at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown, from Monday 3rd November.

Photo: Noelle Burke

Celebrity attraction at Sheep’s Head Hike

This year’s Sheep’s Head Hike in West Cork attracted one very famous local face, the BBC’s Graham Norton, pictured here with Beth and Nell McCarthy. More than 160 walkers took part, raising around €6,000 for Christian Aid.

Christian Aid partners from Angola, South Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, Colombia, Guatemala, DR Congo, Mali and Pakistan will be sharing their experiences along with inputs from Northern Ireland - and hoping to learn from each other.

Co-hosted by Christian Aid Ireland and the Transitional Justice Institute, it will begin with a keynote speech by Paul Seils, Vice President of the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York.

The first day will be open to the public.

If you would like to attend, please email Elaine McCoubrey at e.mccoubry@ulster.ac.uk

PRESENT AID Gifts that keep giving all year round

There are ten brand new gift ideas in the latest Present Aid catalogue, available with this magazine, from piglets to an amazing underground sand dam.

These ingenious dams hold water under dry riverbeds, providing fresh water even during times of drought.

You can place your order by post using the form in the catalogue, or online at presentaid.ie, or by phone:

(01) 901 5035 in the Republic of Ireland

And this year you will have a choice of six different gift-cards to choose from.

Your support will help people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.

(028) 9592 2015 in Northern Ireland.

Emergencies Thousands of people, including children, have died in conflicts in Gaza, Iraq and Syria and millions more have been left devastated. In West Africa Ebola had claimed the lives of over 4,000 by October 2014.

We are grateful for the generous response of our supporters to our recent emergency appeals. Your support has helped Christian Aid’s local partners save lives, and bring urgent relief and hope to people in desperate need, in the midst of truly challenging situations.

Gaza On 26 August, a long-term ceasefire announced between Israel and the Palestinians brought an end to seven weeks of relentless violence and destruction.

After the ceasefire many people left the UN shelters where they had sought refuge and made their way home, only to find that they had no homes to go back to. Many have since had to return to the shelters.

The destruction in the aftermath of the conflict was

How Christian Aid partners are responding and saving lives unprecedented. Over 108,000 Palestinians were left homeless; agricultural lands flattened and fishing boats destroyed - people’s only ways of living have been destroyed.

Water and sanitation facilities were severely damaged.

‘This used to be a beautiful place. Now it is rubble’. Azzam Alsaqqa, Christian Aid Gaza.

Immediately after the conflict our partners distributed food, clean water and hygiene kits to homeless families, as well as essentials such as cooking equipment, blankets and mattresses.

Christian Aid partner PMRS (Palestinian Medical Relief Society) is providing medical aid to hundreds of people every day in Gaza. Another partner CFTA (Culture and Free Thought Association) is providing psychosocial support to children and young people who witnessed the violence.

The people of Gaza have a long road to recover and rebuild their shattered lives.

Three million Syrian refugees The Syrian civil war that started in 2011, and still rages on, has forced over 3 million Syrians to flee to Iraq and Lebanon. Another 6.5 million have fled their homes and moved to safer areas of Syria.

Christian Aid partner REACH distributes food packages to displaced families from Fallujah in the Kurdish city of Chamchamal.

Photo: Christian Aid/Tracy Selton

Approximately 100,000 people in South Sudan have sought protection in UN ‘Protection of Civilians’ sites, like this one in Bor, Jonglei State.

Photo: Christian Aid / Carl Odera

Many families are living in cramped and overcrowded conditions in neighbouring countries that are struggling to cope with the huge number of refugees.

In Northern Iraq, our partner REACH is working with people living in informal camps around Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. Many refugees do not have access to healthcare and other basic services. REACH is providing hygiene and sanitation kits, as well as food packages and shelter.

REACH is also working with refugee communities to help them to use the skills they have to gain employment. This will enable them to provide for their families and make them less dependent on aid.

Christian Aid received €160,000 from Irish Aid towards a project aimed at protecting female Syrian refugees in Iraq. A further €75,000 was received to provide food and non-food items to people internally displaced by the crisis in Iraq.

Our partners - in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria - are working non-stop to meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable displaced communities.

South Sudan facing ‘world’s worst food crisis’ South Sudan is facing a food crisis if action is not taken to permanently end the fighting that broke out in Juba in December 2013.

There are more than 1.5 million displaced people in need of food aid and this could rise to 2.5 million in early 2015.

50,000 children could die of malnutrition unless swift action is taken.

Farmers have been unable to plant or harvest crops due to the continued outbreaks of violence. And the food shortages have driven families to eat the seeds meant for planting.

Our partners are working in the areas worst affected by the violence, insecurity and forced displacement, including in Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states. They are providing emergency supplies such as food, clean water, hygiene kits and shelter in remote areas.

PLEASE DONATE to our emergency appeals:

Despite agreements signed to end hostilities, fighting continued between the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) and opposition forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar.

Christian Aid has joined over 50 NGOs in calling for the peace agreement to come into full effect. We are appealing for the international community to urgently focus on clear and immediate actions to provide assistance to the people of South Sudan.

Ebola in Sierra Leone

By October 2014 the Ebola virus had killed over 4,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Women are at a greater risk as they are often the primary care givers in the family.

‘There is a lot of panic in poor and remote communities.

People have been confused by mixed messaging’, Theresa Bagrey, Christian Aid Sierra Leone explains.

‘It’s vital to speak to communities through our partners who are already trusted as they have worked in these communities on HIV education and livelihoods project’, Theresa added.

In Sierra Leone our partners are getting life-saving advice on how to avoid contracting Ebola to 3.8 million people across the country. They are putting up information posters in remote areas and using community radio to reach people in areas where illiteracy is high.

Our partners have also distributed over 200,000 pairs of disposable gloves to medical teams across nine districts and provided medical kits, more than 360kg of powdered chlorine for hand-washing and disinfection to medical centres.

They have trained 900 community health volunteers to conduct door-to-door awareness-raising on how to prevent the transmission of Ebola. The training has been rolled out to a further 9,000 volunteers, enabling them to reach nearly 50,000 households in 10 of the country’s 14 districts.

Visit christianaid.ie/emergencies or donate by telephone

Dublin (01) 901 5035 Christian Aid Ireland 7 Northern Ireland (028) 9592 2015

Cover Story

Some of the women of Lengwenyi who are coping with climate change, with the help of Christian Aid

Kenya

Where the Butterfly People live In August three teachers from Ireland visited Lengwenyi in central Kenya. They were from Markethill High School in Co. Armagh, Ashton School in Cork and Down High School in Downpatrick. David Thomas was with them.

As we set off towards Lengwenyi, I asked ‘Is it far?’ The question triggered a philosophical discussion around the differing Kenyan concepts of distance. To say a journey is ‘not very far’ could simply mean ‘we’ll arrive sometime today’.

Fortunately after just two and a half hours our vehicle pulled up amongst the acacia trees. The only signs that we were in Lengwenyi, a tiny rural village north of the town of Isiolo in central Kenya, was a few scattered enclosures made of thorny branches surrounding small mud brick houses.

The people of Lengwenyi are from the Samburu tribe. The Samburu have sometimes been nicknamed the ‘Butterfly People’ because of their colourful beaded jewellery and clothing. They are, traditionally, pastoralists keeping huge herds of cattle, goats, sheep and camels. However, the region where Lengwenyi is located has a long annual dry season, which forces the men of the village to take their animals on a long walk in search of fresh pasture.

This has always been a feature of life for the Samburu, but as a result of climate change the rainfall patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable. The rains often arrive later than expected, finish earlier or are patchy and insufficient.

In 2011 a severe drought affected the whole East African region including those living in Lengwenyi. Christian Aid responded through our partner Anglican Development Services Mount Kenya East (ADSMKE), who delivered trucks full of water and provided feed for the communities’ valuable animals.

Since that time ADSMKE have been helping the community in Lengwenyi to increase their ability to thrive in the face of these recurrent, and potentially worsening, droughts. They have provided rainwater storage tanks and helped the community to build a sand dam across a nearby seasonal riverbed, which traps water in the rainy season, so that it is available for use during the dry season.

When we visited in August, it was the middle of another drought and the men and animals had been gone for the last five months. The women and children left behind were often relying on government food aid. ADSMKE are helping the women find alternative sources of income and food.

Margaret Sapali tends to one of her beehives hanging in an acacia tree.

One lady we met was Margaret Sapali, (our cover picture), who had received a beehive from ADSMKE. Margaret had never kept bees before and so, in addition to the hives, ADSMKE provided training in beekeeping to a group of twenty women in Lengwenyi, including Margaret.

Margaret said ‘The bees are like cattle, they follow the rain.’ So during the dry season she hangs water containers from the branches of a tree so the bees can get water and, importantly, she also puts a stick into the container so that the bees can crawl out again without drowning.

ADSMKE provided Margaret with a bee-suit, smoker, brush and knife so that she can safely harvest the honey produced without hurting herself or the bees. She uses the honey as a source of food for her family and her animals; apparently the goats love it!

She also sells some of the honey to buy essentials like food and medicine.

In addition to bee-keeping, ADSMKE trains women in Lengwenyi to keep poultry, giving them 15 chicks to get started. One of the women is Stella Leporole. She is able to use the eggs to supplement her own diet and that of her children and also sell them to earn an income.

Stella said, ‘With the livestock, even if they were around, I cannot touch them, I cannot sell them. They belong to my husband.

But now with the poultry I have got full authority as a woman. I can sell them. I can get an income.’

Stella had a message for those in Ireland who support ADSMKE through Christian Aid.

‘We pray that God may bless them and let them walk with us through, so that such a small change that has started in my household can also reach more households to bring a bigger change among the Samburu community.’

Stella Leporole with some of her hens provided by Christian Aid partner ADSMKE

The three teachers who travelled to Kenya are now working on a range of schools materials, along with our Education & Campaigns staff. We hope these will be a resource for schools in Ireland to teach classes about global issues and the work of Christian Aid in Kenya. The first of the new materials will be launched in January 2015.

Aid Ireland All photographs: Mervyn McCullagh/Irish Christian Council of Churches

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Overseas

Haiti: Five Years On

Rebuilding homes and livelihoods Florence Mutesasira I had two quite contradicting impressions of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, on my recent visit nearly five years after the January 2010 earthquake.

The city boasts a vibrant, colourful expression of art and culture. I was particularly fascinated by the art on the Tap taps - brightly painted buses and pick-up trucks that serve as public transport.

Some of these tents are now so old they are torn, tattered and discoloured. Slums in debilitating conditions; dark grey streets with piles of litter and overflowing sewage systems.

On one hill you are stunned by the sight of hundreds of houses painted in nearly every colour that exists; and on the next hill a similar number of houses exists - unpainted, all dull and grey, many incomplete and dispersed with tents and tarpaulins.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the world. 80% of Haiti’s population of over 10 million people live below the international poverty line of $2 a day; 54% live on less than $1.25 a day. Unemployment is at a staggering 40%.

There has been good progress made on rebuilding since the earthquake. As we drove through the city, our Haitian colleagues pointed out the new roads, schools, hospitals and other buildings that had been destroyed by the earthquake.

After the earthquake, the country that had started to see growth in the previous years was brought to its knees.

Existing parallel to this is disheartening stark evidence of extreme poverty, not only in the poorer parts of capital, but also in some of the rural areas we visited. Hundreds of people are still living in tents and temporary structures.

years on, people are still living in makeshift shelters 10 Five Christian Aid many Ireland

‘Before the earthquake, the situation was quite difficult but the country was starting to grow. The earthquake pulled Haiti back more than 20 years,’ says Prospery Raymond, Christian Aid’s Haiti Country Manager.

Marie Joseph fled Port-au-Prince with her children after the earthquake. For months following the disaster she lived in a tiny shelter made up of bed sheets and tarpaulin. In October 2012 she moved into her brand new home with her four daughters and a grandchild. The 2 bedroom house was built

by Christian Aid partner SSID

Not just a house With over 300,000 houses destroyed or uninhabitable post-earthquake, housing was one of the key priorities of long-term rebuilding.

Following the earthquake over 600,000 people left the capital and moved to rural areas. Some set up temporary shelters while others moved in with ‘host families’ relatives and friends who themselves were already struggling to provide for their own households.

Some of our local partners, like GARR, Koral and SSID were already working in rural areas and subsequently focused their rebuilding there. They worked with skilled engineers to build sturdy and earthquake resilient houses.

These houses were not just strong, but they were also a good size - with 2-3 bedrooms, a living room and kitchen.

‘When we talk about a house we mean good houses, especially in the rural areas where we work. Just four walls and a roof don’t make an adequate house’, explained Gerrard Deserne from GARR. Christian Aid also determined early on that it wasn’t enough to just give a family a house, but we also needed to help people earn a sustainable living. That way they would be less likely to have to move back to the already crowded Port-au-Prince.

‘Our work is not simply about housing the homeless, but about creating the capacity for the people of Haiti to build a better future for themselves and their country’ Prospery Raymond, Haiti Country Manager

All photographs by Florence Mutesasira

Christian Aid partners have helped rebuild more than 360 earthquake-resilient houses in Haiti to date. They have also supported people by: •

Giving cash grants and business training

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Proving local farmers with seeds and cows, goats and chickens, as well as training in livestock farming and gardening skills

•

Planting over 240,000 trees to help combat deforestation and reduce vulnerability to floods and hurricanes

•

Improving access to clean water.

In the aftermath of the earthquake Christian Aid supporters, donors and supporting churches responded with incredible generosity. We are grateful for this continued support that has made it possible for our partners in Haiti to give people rebuild their lives after the devastation.

Our work is not limited to providing aid, we are also advocating and challenging the Haitian and international political systems that are keeping the people poor. There is still a lot of work to do, but as Haiti continues to rebuild, slowly but surely, Christian Aid will continue to work with local communities to ensure they are self-sustaining, are more resilient to natural disasters and can prevent environmental degradation.

Florence Mutesasira is Christian Aid’s Communications & Media officer, based in Dublin

Christian Aid Ireland

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Campaigns

Climate Change - the people speak

Christian Aid’s Senior Climate Change Advisor Mohamed Adow outside the UN in New York.

Photo: Christian Aid/Joe Ware

The world’s largest ever massmobilisation for the climate took place on 23rd September, writes David Thomas, when hundreds of thousands of people across the world from New York to Dublin, from Delhi to Belfast, and from Rio to London took to the streets.

The ‘People’s Climate’ events were timed to mark the beginning of an important climate summit hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in New York. As well as being involved in the various public mobilisations, we also lobbied, successfully, for Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Prime Minister David Cameron to attend the conference in person.

At the conference itself, Christian Aid’s Senior Climate Change Advisor, Mohamed Adow (pictured), was amongst

Christian Aid Ireland, with your help, will continue to campaign on climate change throughout 2015 and beyond, especially in the run up to the UN negotiations in Paris in December 2015.

only 38 non-governmental representatives worldwide who were invited to take part. Mohamed said, ‘The impacts of climate change are getting more acute for people around the world, especially for the poor, but crucially also the reluctant rich. This has forced the reality of global interdependence and so both rich and poor are increasingly cooperating to address the climate challenge.’

Many of the world leaders attending the conference made positive commitments towards tackling climate change.

As Mohamed commented, ‘We’re even starting to see movement from the world’s biggest polluters. China should be commended for putting in place carbon reducing policies and growing its booming renewable energy industry.

The foundations made in New York must now be built upon at December’s climate talks in Lima, Peru, the penultimate gathering before a global deal is to be struck in Paris in 2015.’

We need to keep pressure on the Irish government to ensure that the much delayed Climate Bill is enacted as soon as possible and that the UK government fully implements its existing Climate Change Act, so that both governments can show leadership towards seeking a strong global agreement on tackling climate change in 2015.

David Thomas is Christian Aid’s Education & Campaigns Coordinator, based in Belfast

“Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.

Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy”.

Proverbs 31: verses 8 & 9

Reflection on a visit to Christian Aid partners in South Africa by Deborah Doherty, Head of Church and Community For many people Nelson Mandela was not just a national leader but a worldwide hero. We have watched as the country and nation of South Africa suffered repression and injustice as a result of the Apartheid system. We witnessed the terrible violence and loss of life as the country emerged out of Apartheid and into a newly found political freedom. We rejoiced when in 1994 the black majority had the opportunity to express their human right to vote for the future they so desired.

Nelson Mandela’s wisdom and humility in his leadership has been inspirational to the rest of the world and his triumph over adversity and hard won democracy for South Africans, hailed as a great achievement.

However, this visit made me realise that whilst the African National Congress hold political power, economic power continues to be in the hands of the few, and the issue of the restoration of land is a particularly contentious one. The rich and powerful have ready access to land, housing and services, while the poor are excluded.

Poor people are then driven to occupy land that is not valued because it is steep and prone to mud slides, on flood plains or next to sources of pollution including radiation.

Tudor village, South Africa Photos: Christian Aid/Deborah Doherty

In this place, our partners are speaking out.

Bench Marks Foundation (bench-marks.org.za) strives to be the voice of the poor and the destitute who have nowhere else to live but in places like Tudor Village (pictured). Daily, men women and children dwell in the shadow of the hills of radioactive waste, two thousand people sharing two latrines and two showers, breathing the polluted air, dumped by wealthy mining companies who extract the riches of gold and platinum from God’s creation without care or thought for people or environment.

Radioactive lake next to Tudor village

I felt encouraged that Christian Aid is supporting partners like Bench Marks whose community monitoring scheme gives a voice to mining communities, speaking up for poorly paid miners, highlighting the lack of decent housing and sanitation for them and their families and documenting the devastating effects of radiation on their children.

It is David versus Goliath. But our partners are standing firm in the face of the rich and powerful mining companies and they need our prayerful support to continue this vital work.

Deborah was accompanied on her visit by Bishop Patrick Rooke, Chair of Church of Ireland Bishop’s Appeal; Rev Lesley-Ann Wilson, Presbyterian World Development Appeal Committee; Louise Monroe, Methodist World Development and Relief Committee and Alf McCreary, Religion Correspondent, Belfast Telegraph.

A chance encounter on a steep hill at the Strangford Sportive last year led to an engagement announcement for Sonya Walker and David Coulter at this year’s event!

A bicycle made for two

Sonya explained that she was cycling on her own in the first Sportive, as her brother had gone on ahead.

'Then another group of cyclists, including David, caught up with me. I thought I’d just stay with them, but eventually as we were going up a hill he left me behind.'

'We didn’t see each other again until I joined the ‘Cycle 4 Christ’ group in May this year, and then David joined. We knew we recognised each other, and then worked out that we’d met at the Christian Aid event last year. We started dating in August, and we got engaged 3 weeks ago.'

'David proposed to me on the same hill where he left me during the sportive last year. He promised he’d never leave me again!' The couple plan to marry in January 2016.

Sonya added, ‘There’ll be thousands at next year’s Strangford Sportive hoping to meet their marriage partner!’

Laganside Walk

Strangford Sportive Cycle On a warm sunny Saturday in early October, around 360 cyclists turned up at Delamont Park in Co Down to take part in our second annual Strangford Sportive. £10,000 was raised for Christian Aid’s work overseas, while participants tackled a choice of three different routes - including a new 120 kilometre route through some of South Down’s prettiest roads.

Our thanks go out to all the volunteer marshalls, photographer Victoria McMurray, our sponsors Podium 4 Sport who provided the support vehicle, and the Good Little Company who provided 1,400 sausages for the post-event barbecue.

Christian Aid twin volunteers Suzanne Shepherd and Moyra Megarry at the Annual Laganside Walk in September.

All photographs: Victoria McMurray/VCW Photo & Film

Photo: Simon Newell

14 Christian Aid Ireland

Diary Dates Advent Hope 2014 Join us for a special service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin on Sunday 30th November at 3:15pm. The guest preacher will be Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and currently Chair of Christian Aid (Britain & Ireland).

This is the first Sunday in Advent, and the day before World AIDS Day, which is marked around the world on December 1st every year.

The service will be in the wonderful context of Choral Evensong, led by the world famous Cathedral Choir, and by the very kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral.

Our partners for the service will be ACET (Aids Care Education & Training). ACET works to improve the lives of those living with and affected by HIV in Ireland, while Christian Aid partners with ACET in a number of overseas locations where both organisations work.

I Witness: Images of Hope from Haiti

Christian Aid lunches

Raing McCullagh and Deborah Doherty in Belfast preparing exhibits for the “I Witness: Images of Hope from Haiti” tour of Ireland exhibition.

Every Tuesday 1st Lisburn Presbyterian Church

1st Wednesday of each month Armagh Road Presbyterian Church, Portadown Centre for Celtic Spirituality, Armagh Cathedral

1st Friday of each month St Patrick’s Parish Church, Drumbeg, Co Down

NEW: Every Thursday The Churches in Hillsborough have recommenced their weekly Lunches as of Thursday 9th October 2014 in Hillsborough Parish Church Hall

If you would like to support any of our regular lunches you are most welcome!

The exhibition - showing life-changing projects taking place in Haiti today - will be on display in St Finn Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, in November.

It will then move to St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, then on to St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast for the month of December.

If you would like to host the exhibition in 2015, which promotes the benefit of a legacy to Christian Aid, please contact Deborah in the Belfast office.

Christian Aid Ireland

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Not every child born in a stable survives In Kenya, 14,700 babies die every year on their first day of life. You can restore the joy and hope in childbirth by helping us get mothers the healthcare they need.

To support our Christmas Appeal, or to find out more, please visit christianaid.ie/christmas For resources for your church please contact

belfast@christian-aid.org dublin@christian-aid.org Northern Ireland Charity number XR94639 Company number NI059154 Republic of Ireland Charity number CHY 6998 Company number 426928