By Community Correspondent Eleanor Roberts Christian Aid Week is from 9th – 15th May this year, it consists of seven days of fundraising, action and prayer. It's a time when communities all over the country get together to raise funds to make real and lasting changes in the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. Christian Aid takes three main approaches toward ending poverty which are, funding long-term development projects, responding to emergencies and challenging regimes which have allowed some of the world’s poorest people to suffer. This may seem a tall order for any charity but with the help of individuals, churches, groups and donations during Christian Aid Week, and at any other time throughout the year, Christian Aid is making a real difference.

You may be wondering how such a unique fundraising week began. The week started out as the churches’ response to the refugee crisis in Europe after the Second World War. This led to the different churches in the UK and Ireland getting together to fundraise by sending the money through partner organisations who were best placed to make a difference on the ground. Christian Aid currently has 41 different church denominations across the UK and Ireland involved, a great partnership.

Christian Aid Week has now become the country’s biggest ‘house-to-house’ collection charity with volunteers going from door to door every year delivering envelopes and picking them back up from householders in the week. There will be fund raising events and people collecting at stations and shopping centres. All in all some 300,000 volunteers are involved across the country.

On a local level, in the Parish of Mortlake and East Sheen, around 100 people are involved, delivering and collecting envelopes to roughly 4500 homes within the Parish during Christian Aid Week. A local collector within the Parish, Linda, has been collecting from the same street for the past eight years. She told me that she puts a note inside the envelope when delivering telling people when she will be back to collect; people are more welcoming when they are expecting your call. She also said that having collected from the same street for a long period of time she has made some new friends whilst also contributing to a good cause.

Often people worry how their money will be spent when giving to charity; Christian Aid assures the public that the money you raise is spent wisely. For each one pound that was given in 2008 and 2009, 80p was used for direct charitable expenditure and the rest was used for fundraising and ‘governance’. Christian Aid makes sure that money and energy is focussed where they will have the greatest effect. For example, by challenging people in power to tackle issues that have a big impact on poor communities, such as climate change.

Christian Aid never gives money to governments, instead it works directly with local organisations which assures that money is put into where it is needed, projects that show poor communities how they can build a better future. The money does not go just to Christians, but to people in need of any or no faith.

Although the 7 days in the second week of May may seem insignificant to you, 25% of all the money raised annually by Christian Aid is in this one week because of all the hard work volunteers such as Linda put in to collect your donations! So when you see the small red envelope sitting in your hallway, don’t just throw it away! Fill it!