Parish Project Update May 2009

Thanks to the generosity of contributors to the Parish project we have been able to amke the following contributions:

  £400 for the Courier Orphan Fund

  £400 for Fr Cashin's Mission

  £200 for Val Newton's Wales Romanian Aid. She recently visited Ledbury and spoke to the CWL about her work.

FR CASHIN’S MISSION

Fr Cashin, formerly Parish Priest in our church, runs missions in Zambia. One of his schemes supports children at Nalwei Mission. He buys food and bundles of clothes for distribution at their school. Most of these children have lost one or both of their parents to AIDS.

COURIER ORPHAN FUND

We continue to support this project in Natal helping supply necessities to children orphaned by AIDS.  Two-thirds of the cash is spent on food, the rest on clothing and sending children to school. See the item below.

The generosity of parishioners enables us to ease in this way the burdens others are carrying.  We hope supporters of the Parish Project approve of their committee’s choices.

Contributions can be regular or occasional, and of any amount.  All you have to do is take an envelope labelled Parish Project from the back of the Church and put your contribution in the collection plate. All contributions are anonymous.

If you are a taxpayer your tax can be reclaimed if you write your church covenant number on the envelope.          

 Cyril Stone

NORTH COAST COURIER AIDS ORPHAN FUND

KWA ZULU NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA

 In 2003 the North Coast Courier newspaper set up an umbrella fund encompassing the local Christian churches to channel money  to assist the weakest in society.   The Aids pandemic has brought about an explosion in the number of orphaned children on the North Coast. 

In some districts of the north coast unemployment has reached chronic proportions. The result is that by the time the child becomes orphaned, deep poverty has already struck its dehumanising blow and child headed families struggle to exist.  In the main the funds are used to support feeding schemes and food parcels for the vulnerable.

 Projects supported by the Courier Fund visited by a parishioner February 2007:

 Bread for Life – Stanger Secondary School

It was evident to classroom teachers that many children were coming to school having eaten nothing.  One teacher from the Anglican church approached her vicar who in turn made contact with the Orphan Fund.  It was arranged for loaves to be delivered daily to the school where Grade 8 pupils  prepare the sandwiches, later handed out by teachers. 

 Shakaville’s United Reformed Church  – 120 orphans/vulnerable children receive 6 meals every week. Pastor Simone’s wife Eunice runs this with very little help. Creche has 67 children and at lunch time about 70 older children arrive after school. For most this will be their only meal of the day.

 NOAH (Nurturing Orphans of Aids for Humanity)

Runs crèche and feeding scheme for after school meals.  Assists with school bus fees and shoes for children enabling them to go to school. 

Eagles View Church – a Zulu woman living on the edge of a municipal waste dump houses 22 children  and feeds an additional ten each day.  She and her husband give all their income to ‘parenting’ these orphans.  She receives monthly food parcels from the local church and the Orphan Fund.

Merits of this Fund

There are no administrative costs with legal, accounting and banking services given  free;  organisational costs are borne by the North Coast Courier;  with members of the  committee who are representatives of the various churches and the editors of the Courier newspaper making no charges for their time or travelling costs. 

Local people provide most of the anonymous donations which make up the bulk of the Fund’s income.  A lot of this money comes from people not affiliated to mainstream churches and it was particularly  encouraging to see their belief in the total integrity of the Courier Orphan Fund. 

There was plenty of evidence of  involvement of  different communities helping each other:  local Indian vegetable growers contacted the fund and asked how they could help supplying soup kitchens with their ingredients.  Others have done their part.

March 2007