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radioJon Bellamy spoke with Charlotte Marshall
For more than sixty years Christian Aid has been fighting poverty, strengthening the poor and turning hope into action. Recently it was Christian Aid Week across the UK and Jonathan Bellamy took the opportunity to find our more about the amazing work of this globally effective Christian charity. He caught up with the West Midlands Unit Manager Charlotte Marshall.
Jonathan: Thanks very much for joining us. Is this the best and the worse week of the year for you?
Charlotte: Absolutely. Yes. It's a very very busy week. But it's also fantastic. It's just so great to see so many volunteers out and about on the street collecting; putting on events: really just raising the profile of people we work with all across the globe. So, yes very busy but good fun.
Jonathan: What motivates people, generally speaking, to become a Christian Aid worker?
Charlotte: The main thing really would be, Christian Aid is just such a great way for people of faith to put that faith into action and there's so much need worldwide. We hear about poverty all the time, we see it on the news. It's very easy to feel, what difference can I possibly make; it's so far away from me. Actually Christian Aid week is such great opportunity for people to just help out locally, to do something that's easy enough for them; that doesn't require huge amounts of time, but can make a massive impact worldwide. In the West Midlands alone last year, Christian Aid week raised over a million pounds. Putting that money into developing countries and into projects, it just has such a phenomenal effect. I think that's what attracts people. It's the idea that they know the money's going to be used wisely by our partners and it's going to go to those most in need and they can do something really practical to help that.
Jonathan: Fantastic. Now Christian Aid has been going sixty years. It's the kind of job that you wish that you could work yourself out, isn't it? Because you're trying to meet a need in the hope that you could deal with the need once and for all. Give us a snapshot. Is it worse or better than sixty years ago?
Charlotte: I think that there've been huge improvements in that sixty years. We've particularly seen tremendous success in our campaigning. We've seen millions of pounds worth of debt cancelled internationally; which has given free education systems, better health care systems. We've seen the injustice involved in trade challenged and addressed. We see our politicians moving on climate change. It's still also heartbreaking to think that there is so much need and still so many situations where people live in desperate poverty. But I think we're making great steps towards it. I really hope that the next ten years, even though we're in this difficult financial situation, we can still plug on, we can still keep pushing forward the development agenda and that actually we'll see real drastic change in that time as well. It's good news. There is hope there. There are things that are moving and changing. We just want to keep that momentum rolling.
Jonathan: That's fantastic. I was stunned to read that you have 650 partners overseas projects in and around fifty countries. That's huge.
Charlotte: It's absolutely enormous and when you consider sixty years ago it was an absolute fraction of that. Christian Aid on the whole has grown tremendously and the reason it's successful is because of our volunteer network here and because of our fantastic partners overseas; doing everything from working with people with HIV and Aids, trying to prevent disasters and helping people in emergency situations. It's just wonderful. They're just such a fantastic group to work with. They're on the ground; they know the needs of the local population and they're best placed to actually address them. That's why we believe so strongly in that partnership approach.
Jonathan: Just tell us about a couple of things that you've seen first hand. I know you went to the Philippines to see how climate change was affecting people.
Charlotte: Yes, absolutely. I spent three weeks in the Philippines in January 2007. It was really amazing actually, because we went to a small town called Infanta, which is in the north of the Island of Luzon, the main Island in the Philippines. That whole community there, six thousand people in the town, has been absolutely devastated by a cyclone and a large typhoon, a couple of years before. One of our partners there, the social action centre, were working to help rehabilitate people so that they could go back out fishing again and get their livelihoods back. They were also trying to grow new crops that would grow in the new soil. It was amazing to see a whole town that had been transformed in a couple of years, because the social action centre went into the community, they asked people what they needed. They tried to address the difficult issues they were facing. I found the people there, just to be so open and welcoming and friendly and able to help each other. There was that real sense of community you get when people draw together in times of need. Our partners are fantastic about using that and improving those networks all the time.
Jonathan: I know you went to Bethlehem as well. What was the purpose of going to Bethlehem and what was life like out there?
Charlotte: Well it's incredibly difficult at the moment. Palestinian poverty is rising all the time and the difficult situation between Israelis and Palestinians affects everyone. Our partners work a lot on reconciliation, trying to bring groups of people, like-minded people, together to try and move forward in the process. In Bethlehem especially, there are a lot of Christians, Palestinian Christians, living in really difficult circumstances, because the tourist trade has almost been completely cutback. They're very hampered, they can't really move about freely. I went really to work with some Christian Aid partners to raise the awareness of the situation of Palestinians; to bring back some stories about them. We had a big event over Christmas time to try and raise their profile and get people along side them and try and support the peace movement in that region.
Jonathan: One of the benefits of raising money here is that the pound is so strong in comparison to a lot of the currencies in Africa and Asia; the power of what can be done with just a small amount of money is pretty significant, isn't it?
Charlotte: Oh, it's huge. I mean we always say this to people. It doesn't cost a lot to make a real difference. In the Democratic Republic of Congo there was a young girl called Nadia who's been given some tailoring training, which means that she can now make clothes for a living and support some of her family. To think that you know, just £10 buys enough material for a young girl like her, to go through a tailoring course for twelve months. I mean £10 to us would buy you a sandwich and a coffee wouldn't it and yet in the DRC it's providing enough material for a twelve month course. Obviously there's countless other examples, of buying school books and uniforms for children. It's just that a little money can really go a long way.
Jonathan: I understand that next year is the twentieth anniversary of the Stoke-on-Trent area?
Charlotte: Absolutely, yes. We've been running, or the volunteers in that area have been running the North Staffordshire sponsored walk for twenty years next year, which happens every March and it's at Tittesworth Reservoir. It's a brilliant fundraising event; hundreds of people go along and take part. This year it raised over fifty thousand pounds for the work of Christian Aid partners. So phenomenally generous and an absolutely brilliant, brilliant event. Next year on March 27th it will be their twentieth anniversary and the director of Christian Aid, Dr Daleep Mukarji will be coming up to speak at that event, to really show how much we support everything that local volunteers do and really how grateful we are; because as I said without our volunteers we just wouldn't be able to do what we can all around the world.
Jonathan: Brilliant. Charlotte thanks very much for sharing all that you're doing. It's a great work that Christian Aid does and we really hope that you raise all the finance that you need to continue it at that level.
Charlotte: Brilliant. Thank you very much. 
Jonathan Bellamy is the CEO of Cross Rhythms. He presents the daily City Drive 
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