A Gospel Mandate

Friday May 1 2015

Christian Aid is commemorating its 70th anniversary this year. Jackie Macadam meets the Rev Kathy Galloway, head of the organisation in Scotland, to discuss how it works today - and the Church of Scotland minister who started it all.

“I think what has always appealed to me about working for Christian Aid is the idea that we are in a relationship with people on the other side of the world, not just your own family, street, town or country.

“The story of the Good Samaritan encapsulates that concept – the idea is that ‘my neighbours’ are not only people who are like me – but people who are different.”

Kathy Galloway, Head of Christian Aid in Scotland, is reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the organisation, and her own six years at the helm north of the border. I ask whether she sees her work, and Christian Aid’s work, as political or social.

“It’s a mixture of both,” she says.

“Most people probably know about the high profile relief work we are involved in, when disasters strike and urgent help is needed, or in war zones.

“But for me, our ability to respond in different ways in different situations and 
in different countries is invaluable. The very basis of Christian Aid was itself a mixture of political and social need.

“We were founded in the wake of the Second World War, when Europe had been devastated and was largely flattened by bombs.

“A Church of Scotland minister, the 
Rev Douglas Lister was a chaplain with the British Army in Germany in the aftermath of the war when he was approached by a Luftwaffe officer and asked to help 80,000 German refugees sheltering in barns and bombed homes nearby. Lister was horrified. Old people, new-born babies wrapped in newspapers for warmth mixed with defeated and hopeless civilians in the freezing cold conditions.

“Lister requested help from the British high command, but was refused. He was told he would be ‘fraternising with the enemy’.

“Not to be put off, Lister asked the ordinary people for help, writing letters to churches across the country to send whatever they could to help the refugees.

“Though the British people were themselves trying to recover from the toll the war had taken on them, they responded to the other human beings in need, sending blankets, food, and other necessities to those who had even less.

“Spurred on by the response, other churches across battered Europe also began sending essentials, and out of that initial Christian ideal, the organisation Christian Aid was conceived.

“The Rev Lister only died in 2010,” Kathy says. “He was an amazing humanitarian, and a very modest man.”

That idea, that the aid offered is unconditional, is at the heart of the Christian Aid concept. It doesn’t depend on the recipients being Christian. It doesn’t depend on their culture. The only condition is their need.

“We take responding to need as a gospel mandate.” Kathy says.

“Nowadays we tend to work with local agencies on the ground and in partnership with lots of different churches. Where once we’d have sent people into the areas to do the work, we now find that the people who actually live and work in the community are best placed to do the work themselves.”

She adds: “I am incredibly proud of the hard work my brilliant team does. On a work and personal level, they give all they can to the organisation.

“One of the team is giving up all her holidays this year to climb 70 Munros.
She hopes to raise £70,000 for us – working out at about £1000 per mountain.

“And I’m incredibly proud of the work Scotland does towards allowing the work we do to continue. Around 15% of Christian Aid’s income from voluntary fundraising comes from Scotland – and with only 8% of the population of the UK that means we are punching well above our weight.”

A full list of Christian Aid events
 in Scotland is available at www.christianaid.org.uk/scotland-events

Tomorrow, Saturday May 2, the Moderators of the General Assembly and the National Youth Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev John Chalmers and Rachel Hutcheson, will be scaling Ben Lomond as part of Christian Aid’s ‘70 Munros’ challenge. Donate here, and find out more about the 70 Munros campaign, and how you can take part, here.