Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. The charity works with people of all faiths and none, never gives money to governments and is the official development agency of 41 church denominations in Britain and Ireland.

Christian Aid Week 2025: 11th to 17th May

Seven days, so many ways to fund lasting change. This Christian Aid Week, what will you do?

• Undertake a sponsored activity for the ‘70K in May’ challenge. Perhaps you could ask people to sponsor you to walk or cycle 70 kilometres during Christian Aid Week, either individually or in a group?
  You can put all proceeds from your sponsored activity into our dedicated digital Christian Aid envelope.
  
• Sponsor our very own Ken Pattison, who will be cycling a jaw-dropping 140 miles during Christian Aid Week, and very much hoping for good weather! Just pop your sponsorship into our digital Christian Aid envelope.
  
• Bake a cake for our cake stall in aid of Christian Aid at the Community Fair on Saturday 10th May. (We also welcome home-made jams, chutneys, etc.)
  
• Deliver Christian Aid envelopes in our patch of the parish, the village side of Falcondale Road. No knocking on doors required!
  
• Donate. To donate to Christian Aid, you can use our digital Christian Aid envelope, but cash or cheques are welcome too. You can drop off your donations to the Parish Office, or to the wonderful Sarah C, our local greengrocer in Carlton Court in the village.

Note on donations

Please remember to Gift Aid your donation if you can: it enables Christian Aid to claim £1.25 for every £1 that you give, at no extra cost to the donor.

This year’s focus country

For 2025, the focus country for Christian Aid Week is Guatemala, where the climate crisis is destroying crops and causing hunger for indigenous communities.

Gruelling heatwaves, savage storms and unpredictable seasons are ravaging farms. Industrial agriculture is taking over the last of the region’s natural resources to feed the world’s richest countries.  

Christian Aid is seeking to help fund vital tools and training so that local farmers can support their community to escape hunger.

Aurelia’s story

Aurelia is an inspirational farmer and community leader in the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ community of the Alta Verapaz region. The climate crisis and industrial plantations have changed this land dramatically. Many of the vital crops that Aurelia and her family depend on are withering and dying before her eyes.

Aurelia’s father, Ricardo, brought her to the land that she now calls home 53 years ago, when she was two years old. Ricardo described how the land had changed over five decades:

I came to this community when I was 25 years old; I’m 78 now. This was a forest with different types of trees. You could really feel the freshness of the environment while walking through the mountains, under the shade of these trees.

It’s a heartbreaking injustice that a community should be threatened by a climate crisis they didn’t cause. Aurelia, along with the women and girls of her community, has the twice-daily challenge of collecting water from a cenote – a natural sinkhole like a cave, with water at the bottom.

First and foremost, Aurelia’s farm feeds her family. She tries to grow a range of crops so that she can provide them with a balanced diet that contains the vitamins and minerals they need to thrive. In this way, Aurelia can protect her loved ones from malnutrition and ill health. However, as increasingly intense conditions kill her crops, Aurelia’s ability to safeguard her family slips away.

She has observed many impacts of the climate crisis, including extended dry seasons, the degradation of soil, contaminated water and a decreasing diversity of plants and crops.

Thanks to Christian Aid partner Congcoop, Aurelia has gained the skills and knowledge to cultivate native seeds that are better suited to the changing climate. She’s producing her own organic fertiliser, creating nurseries, constructing rainwater collection systems, and making nutritious food and medicine for her chickens.

Please help fund vital tools and training, so that farmers like Aurelia can support their community to escape hunger.

This Christian Aid Week, you can help dreams come true

You can help ensure that more people in Guatemala get the tools and training they need to meet the challenges of climate change. Anything we raise will make a difference to people in Guatemala:

• £6 could buy the pruning saw that means a farmer can tend their fruit trees.
• £30 could help fund the training session that teaches someone how to make valuable organic fertiliser.
• £100 could fund the metal roofing sheets that shield a market stall holder and their produce from the sun and rain.

For more information, please contact Ken Pattison via the Parish Office by calling 0117 950 8644 or emailing office@westbury-parish-church.org.uk.