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Charities
One of the objectives of the Unitarian Christian Association is to financially assist individuals or bodies engaged in charitable activities. The main charity we are currently supporting is Christian Solidarity Worldwide. CSW support and advocate for persecuted Christians around the world, but unlike other similar organisations, they support religious minorities of other faiths as well, although the emphasis remains on Christians undergoing persecution. You can find out more about their work by clicking here.
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Our other current charitable focus is to direct contributions towards the Christian Aid, who provide relief related to the war in Ukraine and the recent Earthquake in Syria and Turkey.
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Previous Charities
In recent years the UCA has supported various charities. In 2009, the officers recommended to the membership that we support a charity called ‘Embrace the Middle East’ (formerly known as ‘BibleLands’). We undertook to help sponsor the education of a 14 year old boy called George. He came from a poor Christian family and lived in a small village near Bethlehem. We sent £200 to help with George’s education until he left school in July 2011. In Autumn 2011, the UCA started working with Christian Aid in a partnership scheme and pledged to raise £5,000 for a maternal health unit in Sierra Leone. This project was match-funded by the UK government and we raised £ 20,000 for this very worthwhile project. In the following years we have continued to support Embrace and Christian Aid whilst also supporting other charities closer to home. For example, A Rocha, a Christian environmental charity, the refugees and asylum Conversation Club at Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds and Ullet Road Rebels, a football team for asylum seekers in Liverpool.
Between 2020 and last year, the UCA returned to supporting a charity involved in education. MaaChild is a British based charity, founded in 2010 that works in the southern part of Kenya, home of the Massai people. The charity aims to provide sustainable secondary education for Massai students. It is run entirely by volunteers and supports education, health and community projects that benefit Massai children. The UCA agreed to support the education of a student through the four years of secondary education at a cost of £1500. Normally, UCA members would hold fund- raising events to raise this money. However, in the light of the pandemic, this was impossible. The officers decided, therefore, to send all donations received for the year to the charity and to extend our support to the end of 2021. In order to help in fundraising for MaaChild the UCA joined AmazonSmile. This scheme enables a registered charity to receive 0.5% of an eligible purchase in donations from Amazon at no extra cost to the supporters. Supporters simply shop through www.smile.amazon.co.uk, which will link to their existing Amazon account.
Another way of supporting charities is to buy gifts from their Christmas catalogues. This is a link to the catalogues of a charity we have supported:https://shop.embraceme.org/
For more information about any of the charities mentioned above please visit their websites, see links below :-