Over the past ten years Christian aid has campaigned against some difficult situations such as:
The cancellation of third world debt – to do this many postcards has been sent to the Prime ministers and heads of state. Some cancellations have been promised but so far only one third.
Fair trade – Christian aid believes that people in LEDC’s should get paid fairly for the work they do. For example people working on tea plantations get roughly around £1.50 a day rather than 75p. This means that with this money they can buy basic food, health care and some education.
The work that Christian aid does to help world development can be split into four parts:
Fund-raising – in order to relive poverty Christian aid helps raise money in several ways. For example Christian aid week has been organised since 1957. In 1995 it raised over £8.6 million.
Also many churches and individuals have fund raising events throughout the year which usually raises three times more than Christian aid week.
Emergency aid – Christian aid spends between 10% to 15% of its budget on emergency aid each year. It has a disaster fund which helps deal with natural disasters when they might occur. For example Christian aid sent food, medicine and shelters for the flood victims in Bangladesh.
Long-term aid – Christian aid works alongside many partner organisations and contributes money to help with long term aid. It believes that people can solve their own problems best if they are given the chance. So for this reason they spend most of the money in a wide variety of long term projects, Such as training in new farming methods and setting up health centres.
Education – Christian aid spends about 5% of its budget educating the people of Britain in the need for world development and how Christians can help less developed countries. It also publishes a news paper called ‘Christian aid week’ which gives us information on world development and how Christian aid is helping. It also produces teaching packs and videos for schools.
CHUTY
