Norwich Dean helps launch Christian Aid Week 

Christian Aid Week was launched in Norwich yesterday by the Dean of Norwich lifting a large bag of sticks and a plea for volunteer street collectors.

The Dean of Norwich Cathedral, the Very Rev Jane Hedges, and Bishop Peter Fox lifted 20 kilos of sticks outside Norwich Cathedral to highlight the load that women living in poverty in Ethiopia have to carry – often for 8 hours to sell for a pound.
 
Jane did this to show that it matters that women and their children often suffer more from poverty and that we can do something about it. A woman called Loko in Ethiopia walks 8 hours to find sticks to sell for a pound to feed her hungry children who simply do not have enough to eat. Christian Aid is highlighting Loko’s story to show how hard life can be for women living in poverty.
 
Jane said: “It’s hard for us in this part of the world to imagine what it is like to walk miles each day to collect water for your family or to spend your life gathering wood to sell in order to feed your children. Christian Aid working alongside people in local communities in places such as Nepal and Ethiopia, can enable people to change their lives and be treated with dignity for relatively small amounts of money.’
 
Bishop Peter Fox and other church leaders also lifted the sticks and were saddened that women have to do such exhausting work, whilst suffering from malnutrition to feed their starving families.
 
This year’s Christian Aid Week (10-16 May 2015 www.caweek.org), Britain’s longest running door-to-door fundraising week, is asking the British public to support women living in poverty around the world who are often discriminated against from birth.
 
Julian Bryant, Christian Aid’s Norfolk Coordinator said: “I was moved that the Dean of Norwich Cathedral, Bishop Peter Fox and others were willing to highlight the need to help women out of poverty across the world. A cow, which costs £150, would transform a woman’s life in Ethiopia and give her an ongoing income and dignity. She would no longer have to carry 20 kilos of sticks in dangerous territory and could feed her children.”
 
Julian also put out an appeal for more street collection volunteers who are needed for an hour or two each in Norwich city centre on Friday May 15 and Saturday May 16.
 
To contact Julian ring  07841 920384 or email jbryant@christian-aid.org
 
Pictured above is the Very Rev Jane Hedges carrying a 20-kilo pack of wood outside Norwich Cathedral, where Christian Aid Week was launched locally.