The Bishop of Derby's Harvest Appeals in recent years
2007
The 2007 harvest appeal was for two projects involving children in India and Tanzania. £12,699.65 was raised for a new education project for disabled children in Mayurbhanj, Orissa, India, and for the 'Watoto Wa Africa' orphanage for HIV/AIDS orphans in Tanzania.
The Martin Luther King Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, is setting up a school for up to 100 children with a range of disabilities, for whom no government schooling is available. The services of a disability rehabilitation specialist, a physiotherapist, a speech therapist and a psychologist will be available to the children, and their teachers will be trained in responding to learning disabilities. The funds raised for this project by the appeal have been channelled through one of its UK partners, Christians Aware.
The 'Watoto Wa Africa' - 'Children of Africa' - orphanage in Tanzania cares for about 40 children in a small rented compound. There is no mains water supply, and the well on the site is too polluted for general use. Kitchen and toilet facilities are very rudimentary. The funds raised by the appeal for this orphanage are being used for the construction of a new orphanage with much better facilities and space for 48 children. The project is being overseen by the Derbyshire based charity Kids Aid Tanzania. Pictures of the current orphanage can be seen here.
2006
In 2006 the appeal raised £13,307.45 for Asian Outreach Cambodia.
Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest nations – it is ranked 175th in the list of the world’s 232 countries, according to income per head. According to the United Nations, only one in three Cambodians has access to clean water, and around 440 women in every 100,000 die in childbirth every year (compared to 13 in the UK). Life expectancy at birth now is only 56 years (compared with 78 in the UK). For almost 30 years of the late 1900s, Cambodia suffered severely from civil war, notably as a result of the atrocities committed by the communist Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot. Between 1.7 million and 3 million Cambodians were killed by the Pol Pot regime, depending on whether those who died from starvation and in refugee camps are included.
Asian Outreach Cambodia (AOC) is part of Asian Outreach Alliance, an interdenominational ministry founded in 1966. Today Asian Outreach works in over 11 Asian countries. AOC first started working in Cambodia in November 1993, purchasing a boat and launching a mobile medical clinic project called the Boat of Hope, providing medical services to villages along the Mekong river. In recent years, AOC’s medical clinics and programmes have ministered to tens of thousands of people. In 2000 it received a Gold Medal from Prime Minister Hun Sen for its flood relief work.
Cambodia is in great need of basic primary health care and health education. In most villages, simple, curable diseases and sickness are causing horrendous child mortality rates. A survey of the community where AOC is working found that 20-27% of the villagers had recurring diarrhea, typhoid, gastritis and "flu" like symptoms.
The support given to AOC through the 2006 appeal is supporting its work with rural villagers to help them assess their needs, following which appropriate training is provided. This might include disease prevention, for example, or the use of water filters. AOC’s “Homecare” project specifically targets those who are living with HIV and AIDS. AOC provides free voluntary counselling and HIV-testing, as well as regular home visits to patients and their families. It also provides preventative and palliative medication, and transport to hospital for anti-retro viral therapy.
AOC is particularly concerned to break the stigma and the discrimination that ostracises so many by showing the love of Christ to those who are suffering and dying. Some patients then ask more about the Christian God, giving staff the opportunity to share their faith.2005
The 2005 appeal raised just over £12,000 for agricultural projects in the Gambia and Brazil.
The project in the Gambia involved supporting the Bakewell-based charity Village Aid in a rural development scheme in Lower Saloum, one of the most impoverished areas of the Gambia. It is helping 34 rural women's groups to set up and run small market gardens, growing vegetables and fruit trees. The scheme helped with the training of the women in land management, planting and harvesting, as well as in organic composting and marketing the produce.
The Brazil-based project was for a scheme to supply micro-credit facilities (small-scale loans) to farmers in the state of Parana, in southern Brazil. Around three quarters of the farmers and their families were living at or below the poverty line. The scheme is run by the local organisation DESER (Departamento de Estudos Socio-Economicos Rurais), which is a partner of Christian Aid.
2004
The 2004 appeal raised £15,238 for three projects in Africa:
2003
The 2003 appeal raised just over £10,000 for three projects in North India:
Agricultural Nursery Project, Tarn Taran, Amritsar
The Diocese of Amritsar, led by its Bishop, the Rt. Revd Pradeep Samantaroy, is setting up an agricultural development project which is designed to help poor farmers to improve yields and incomes. It aims to develop and demonstrate sustainable farming techniques which local farmers can learn to apply on their own farms, and will offer training and the sharing of new farming techniques. The first stage in this project is the setting up of an agricultural nursery. This will provide high quality seedlings for poor farmers, which have benefited from controlled germination conditions, good quality potting media and reliable irrigation.
Classrooms for New High School, St. John’s School, Taljhari, Diocese of Patna
Patna diocese falls within the state of Bihar, in north-east India, and is one of the poorest states in the country. Taljhari is the largest Pastorate of the Patna Diocese, with around 3,000 church members. St. John’s Middle School, for children aged up to 12 from the local Santal tribes and other faith groups, was founded in Taljhari in 1864 by the Revd Canaan Cole of the Church Missionary Society. However, lack of resources has prevented the setting up of a High School, which would educate them up to age 18.
The present Bishop of Patna, the Rt Revd Philip Marandih, says “Through the construction of a High School, many Christian boys and girls will benefit. We hope and pray that many will join in this project, which will transform the lives of many needy and downtrodden boys and girls of the region”.
The total cost of the buildings and their furnishings and equipment is estimated to be £26,000. Some of these costs will be met locally, but donations from outside the Patna Diocese are invited in order to make the building of the High School possible.
Empowerment of tribal women, Diocese of Durgapur
Durgapur is also in North-East India, and suffers from widespread poverty and lack of resources. As in other parts of rural India, women bear a particularly heavy burden, typically working 16-18 hours a day.
The Diocese of Durgapur is setting up a project which aims to help tribal women from 30 rural villages to resist the forces of exploitation, become economically self-reliant, and find new sources of income. It will help them to find ways of playing a fuller part in local leadership and decision-making processes. The project will also involve helping them to apply new techniques to traditional agricultural methods, as well as promoting small-scale lending for business purposes (‘micro-credit’), and sharing information about protecting the environment. The total cost of this project will be around £7,000 for one year, after which it is expected to be self-financing.
2002
The 2002 Appeal raised £14,900 for the Community Health Programme at St. Stephen's Hospital, Delhi.
The Community Health Department of St. Stephen's Hospital provides health, education and development services to the people of Sunder Nagari Slum in East Delhi and to eight villages in Gurgaon, Haryana.
For more information click here
2001
The 2001 Appeal raised £17,159 for the United Christian Institute, Suranussi, Punjab, India. This money was for a new hostel for teenage boys at the Institute's Industrial Training Centre.
The Institute is an ecumenical venture, governed jointly by the Church of North India and the Methodist Church. It provides education not only for Christian children, but also for those of other faiths. There are five schools for children from ages 5 - 18, including the Industrial Training Centre. There is also a school farm.
In a recent interview with the Church Missionary Society (CMS), the UCI's director-manager, Mrs Angelina Eliezer, said:
"We are delighted that our need for a hostel for the boys on vocational training was taken up by CMS and recommended to the Bishop of Derby for his Harvest Appeal. We are also planning to develop the Industrial Training Centre with an air-conditioning course and an additional computer unit. We hope to develop further our 200-acre farm to generate income. For example, we have started poplar tree plantations."
The ground floor of the hostel has now been completed and was opened in April 2004.
New Hostel for Industrial Training Centre
In 2003 a group of 24 folk dancers from the United Christian Institute visited Derbyshire and performed in various schools and churches. The group is called 'Sahgaman' - a Hindi word which means 'walking together', reflecting the spirit of partnership between the UCI and the churches in Derbyshire.
Sahgaman performing Bhangra in St. John's church, Ashbourne