Amelia stands beside a dying banana tree. Due to the climate crisis, her community in Guatemala is experiencing a heatwave and the death of crops. Picture: A Sheppey/Christian Aid

'The Impossible Power of Hope'

Friday May 9

In the year that Christian Aid marks its 80 year anniversary Val Brown, head of the Scotland team tells us why the spotlight falls on Guatemala for Christian Aid Week 2025.

The month of May is always busy but this year it’ll be especially full as we hold a series of events to mark our 80-year anniversary in addition to Christian Aid Week.

The Church of Scotland played an integral part in the early history of Christian Aid. The Rev Douglas Lister was a Kirk minster serving as an army chaplain at the end of the Second World War. Based in Luneberg, Germany, he was hugely concerned for the refugees left desolate, displaced and freezing cold and it prompted his urgent request to the British Army for help.  When this request was turned down, he turned to the churches across Scotland to step in and send what they could to their neighbours in Europe. They responded generously, despite the ongoing hardships at home – an inspiring act of Christian witness.

He’s widely regarded as one of Christian Aid’s founding fathers, though we weren’t known as Christian Aid until many years later.

It’s fair to say Douglas Lister’s legacy continues today both in Luneberg, where there is a street named after him, and in the two Scottish churches where he was minister after leaving the army. He was minister at St Andrew’s Parish Church in Inverurie (from 1957-1967) and then at Largo Parish Church in Fife until his retirement. Both churches are planning special events this month, to celebrate these links while raising money for Christian Aid Week. 

This year Christian Aid Week (11-17 May) is focusing on our work, through our partner, with the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ community in the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala.

Guatemala sits in the Central American Dry Corridor, a tropical dry forest region that endures both severe droughts and floods. The climate crisis is intensifying these conditions. Harvests are failing, rivers are drying up and families who rely on their own farms to supply their daily food are being hit hardest.

Gerardo Tobar is our programme officer based in Christian Aid’s LAC team and he says it’s a worrying picture: Guatemala might be 8000km away but we’re more connected than you think, especially because of climate change – which is being driven by countries in the Global North but being felt most severely by countries, like Guatemala, in the Global South.

“In Alta Verapaz most of the people depend on agriculture which makes them more vulnerable to climate change impacts. It’s also an area where there are high levels of poverty and malnutrition, especially among children.”

One of the ways Christian Aid is supporting communities to build resilience is through agricultural training.  Our partner Congcoop is offering education and training on Indigenous farming practices - adopting agroecological approaches that conserve their land, culture and livelihood. Through training sessions women like Amelia (pictured) are learning how to cultivate native seeds that are better suited to the changing climate, planning planting schedules that will deliver multiple harvests throughout the year, making organic fertiliser, and constructing rainwater collection systems.

Amelia, 24, is married with two children and says she sees the reality of climate change every day and its impact on the land: “The cacao trees are getting dry, and the banana trees are dying. In the past three years, we’ve been experiencing high heat and a lack of rain.

“It’s very worrying. My plantations have been dying due to the lack of water, and there is no food for my family.”

Christian Aid has never just dealt with the symptoms of poverty. We believe the biblical mandate for justice calls us to challenge the structures that keep people poor. Which is why we are asking for governments and companies to reduce their carbon footprints and for the biggest polluters to pay into a loss and damage fund to support the most vulnerable when climate disaster strikes.

The unstoppable power of hope is what motivates us to keep going in the face of what seem like impossible challenges. An active hope that involves us raising our voices to demand that all of God’s people are treated with dignity and equality and can live free from the misery of poverty and want. Because we still believe in Life before Death.

Christian Aid Week is from May 12-18. To find out how you can get involved, and details of events marking the 80^th anniversary, visit caid.org.uk/scotland.