The Union of Welsh Independents’ appeal is focused mainly on the work of five Christian Aid partners in South Africa.
This work covers four main areas: supporting the rural landless, working with disadvantaged youngsters, responding to the HIV crisis, and post-apartheid reconciliation.
Disadvantaged youth
South Africa’s townships are a different world to the modern cities nearby. Here the country’s poorest citizens are crammed into sprawling ghettoes with tumbledown housing, few jobs and high crime.
Just 20 km from the thriving city of Durban, KwaMashu is home to half a million poor black South Africans. With 80% unemployment, high HIV rates and violent crime, many young people here have little to hope for.
It is in this brutal context of poverty and violence that the KwaMashu Community Advancement Project (KCAP) offers dance, drama, music and design classes.
The centre brings meaning and hope to the lives of hundreds of young people, and a very real opportunity to find work in the arts sector. The performances are both spectacular and relevant, often dealing with gritty issues like crime, HIV and life in prison.
The rural landless
South Africa has one of the widest gaps between rich and poor in the world. After years of colonial and apartheid rule, most land still remains in the hands of a wealthy minority.
Many poor rural families had their land taken from them during colonialism or apartheid. The Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) now helps these families and others to make legal claims for land to be returned to them.
After families have received land, AFRA also helps them to access the support they need to tend the land effectively.
It also helps people fight unfair evictions and keeps them informed about their housing rights.
HIV
More than one in five adults in South Africa are HIV positive, and the illness has left more than a million children orphaned.
Christian Aid partner Thandanani Children’s Foundation supports these orphans and other vulnerable children in the Pietermaritzburg area, ensuring that they have food, shelter, access to education and emotional support.
In Cape Town and nearby townships, our partner Wola Nani supports women who are HIV positive and their children through care and counselling.
Reconciliation and development
Lobbying churches to support the introduction of a basic monthly grant that would lift the very poorest South Africans out of extreme poverty and running economic literacy courses to help ordinary people understand how the South African economy works.
Those are just two examples of the wide-ranging and varied work of the Pietermaritzburg Association for Christian Social Awareness (PACSA) - a Christian Aid partner that aims to inspire church and community groups as well as vulnerable and marginalised people to play active and full roles in society.
The work includes education, spiritual reflection and campaigns on issues such as poverty and inequality, domestic violence, trade and HIV.
Another focus is reconciliation work with communities scarred by years of political violence.