ChapAID

 

Chap-Aid Update February 2010

An update on Chap-Aid is available to download as a PDF file or a doc file, which addresses

• Support sent to Haiti through Shelterbox

• the Chap-Aid AGM

• choice of charities for 2010 and 2011

  

CHAP-AID Donation to Haiti

(made on your behalf on 15 January 2010)

In response to the devastating earth quake (7 on the Richter scale), which shook the island of Haiti during January leaving many dead and injured and all in desperate need for the essentials of life, the Chap-Aid Board (our Chaplaincy’s charity association called to help those in need) acted on your behalf as follows. Already having knowledge of Shelterbox which was galvanised into action sending 600 emergency boxes to Haiti the day after the quake, the Board sent €750 from the emergency fund to Shelterbox France to cover the cost of one emergency box (see poster which describes the content of a typical Shelterbox). Our contribution immediately helped to replenish the stocks.

The funds had been taken from donations sent to Chap-Aid with no specification for a charity – which are so precious because they can be used quickly and in emergencies such as this one. This considerable donation had indeed emptied our ‘emergency fund facility’ and our congregations were asked the following Sunday to help replenish this essential fund.

Your local Chap-Aid representative can answer any questions that you might have and we hope that you will find a poster on your local church notice board showing the contents of a Shelterbox (adjusted to take into account the type of disaster being responded to) so that you can see the aid being sent.

If you would still like to replenish the pot for future emergencies, so that we can respond quickly on your behalf, please send cheques, made out to ‘Chap-Aid’ and sent to the Chap-Aid treasurer:

Brian Hogarth

Lieu dit Jonquet

47800 Allemans du Dropt

(with the mandatory indication on an adjoining slip of paper please: ’For the Chap-Aid General Fund’).

Our own Suffragan Bishop, Bishop David who spent time in Haiti in the past kept us fed with information and prayers on Eurobishop (www.eurobishop.blogspot.com ) and you may like to follow his updates on the situation and other happenings in the Diocese in Europe.

Chap-Aid Board: Revd Dr Paul Vrolijk, Revd Gill Strachan, Roger Cheale, Sue Gamon, Brian Hogarth, Madeleine Holmes, Lindsay Megraud, Philip Pearce, Charlotte Sullivan

  

CHAP-AID Update [October]

At the beginning of October, the Asia-Pacific area experienced devastating earthquakes, tsunami and typhoons bringing horrendous devastation and death to many people. CHAP-AID received a request for aid from ShelterBox France for their Appel 'Secours Aux Sinistrés du Pacifiques'. (NB: Shelterbox UK already is a ChapAid charity). We felt that we had to respond to this crisis promptly and so €500 were sent from the emergency fund that, you, CHAP-AID supporters, top up on a regular basis. ‘Shelterbox’ (www.shelterbox.org) provides accommodation and survival rations and water purifier so that people receive immediate temporary refuge. A box costs just under £500. We shall eventually be advised of the number of our box and we will be able to track it down to where it is helping out. On the website you will also be able to see the actual contents of the box.

The CHAP-AID committee

    
Emmaüs charity marks its 60^th anniversary
 
HOMELESSNESS charity Emmaüs, founded by Abbé Pierre, is marking its 60th anniversary with a celebration at the Zénith de Paris concert hall today.
 
About 4,000 people are attending the day, which will include a film about Emmaüs’s history, debates, and a concert including Olivia Ruiz, Cali and Diams.
 
Emmaüs started with a community at Neuilly-Plaisance in the Ile-de-France in October 1949 and it now numbers 117 communities in 34 countries and 15,000 people including volunteers, homeless community members and employees.
 
The inspiration came when Abbé Pierre welcomed, in a house he was restoring, a homeless ex-con who was considering suicide – asking him in turn to help others.
 
The communities provide a home for the homeless, where they can help themselves by collecting, sorting and reselling donated goods – however the charity also carries out many wider activities in the homelessness and anti-poverty cause.
 
Emmaüs is a secular organisation, despite its name which comes from the New Testament or the fact its founder was a priest. The name of the charity was inspired by a passage in which Jesus appears to two men walking to the village of Emmaüs, who are discouraged because of his death.
 
“Abbé Pierre wanted to show what could be done faced with the immense needs of society after the war,” said the president of Emmaüs France, Christophe Deltombe.
 
He went on to recruit people who could help him found communities across France. The charity became famous when Abbé Pierre called on the French to feel solidarity for the homeless in a severe winter in 1954 when several people died of cold. 'My friends, help!,' he said, on Radio Luxembourg. 'A woman has just died on the pavement, frozen, at 3.00 tonight, clutching the paper which was used to evict her the day before yesterday.”
 
Mr Deltombe said the struggle continues, including helping poor workers who do not have the means to pay for accommodation, and immigrants.
 
Abbé Pierre, who died in 2007 and was often called the most popular personality in France, chose it as a symbol of hope. He was famous both for his dedication to the homeless and for his unorthodox views – despite being a Catholic priest, he supported gay adoption, and married and women priests, and criticised the Pope’s stance on condom use. His slogan was: “don’t just endure, always act.”
 
Father Gildas Kerheul, assistant secretary general of the conference of bishops of France, said: “He set an example of a personality who, responding to the needs of the moment, managed to create a collective dimension to his actions."
 
Monseigneur Bernard Housset, president of the church’s council for solidarity, said: “Abbé Pierre was able to have consideration for the dispossessed, acting not ‘for’ them, but ‘with’ them.”
 
Emmaüs communities around France will be having open doors events from Sunday until November 17 to mark the anniversary.

 

October 30, 2009

 

 

ChapAid Application Form

An application form for a charity to be approved by ChapAid are available in document or PDF format.