Christian Aid's David Pain interviewed
22/04/2009
David Pain, Christian Aid's head of Africa, was back in the North East on Saturday (28 February) to take part in the Newcastle office's Stories of Hope event at St. Mary's Church, Heworth, Gateshead.
John Clay reports
David talked to local people about the charity’s work in Africa before covering more specific issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A former Durham University student (St Johns 1985-88) - David first joined Christian Aid at the age of six! As a volunteer, he helped his mum post red envelopes through letterboxes. After working in community development in India and South Africa, he joined with church and community groups in the West Midlands to raise awareness of justice issues - locally and globally - and help people act for change.
He joined the staff of Christian Aid in 1998, working first with volunteer fundraisers and campaigners in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. He then moved on to lead work with the churches in the UK, including Christian Aid Week.
He’s been in his current role since 2005. Married with two children (Daniel, eight and Suzanna, five) he lives in Winchester. His work takes him across Africa - and at the end of March he will be visiting staff and Christian Aid partners in Ethiopia.
1. With such a big job title how do you tackle your objectives?
Yes, I agree it does seem huge. But it’s all about the people. I work with 16 country managers and around 270 partner organizations, all focused on reducing poverty and injustice across Africa.
Collectively this equates to a massive pool of expertise and enthusiasm, which is what makes the real difference in changing things locally, nationally and internationally.
2. So what are your priorities?
For me there are three key issues:
• Responding to climate change in Africa and its impact on agriculture, and food. So we work with farmers to help them adapt, maintain their livelihoods and sustain their families.
• Promoting the power of citizenship so the voices of those living in poverty in Africa are heard at every level - from the household through to local, national and international decision-makers.
• Importantly, we also do a lot of work on HIV and it effects on young people. So there is lots of work going on like awareness raising and challenging stigma, promoting prevention and providing community-based care.
3. What work are you doing at the moment?
I’m currently wrestling with next year’s budget. Much of our work is paid for in U.S. dollars so the reduced value of the pound is making this a more challenging task. There is also high inflation in Africa, meaning our work with partners is costing us approximately 25per cent more. This creates huge financial pressures and makes fundraising this year in Christian Aid week all the more important.
4. Tell me how donations from Christian Aid supporters are helping people in Africa?
In the next financial year we’ll be giving grants worth between £17 & £18million to our locally based partners. We do this because they are best placed to effect change and effectively tackle the causes of poverty and injustice.
5. Give me an idea of where the money goes?
I have seen some recent examples of things which really stand out- some brilliant work with orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV in Nigeria; work with farmers in Ghana, helping them to get a fair deal when trading their goods. And we’re doing some great work with women building peace in Sierra Leone after the conflict there.
Because much of our work is in countries affected by conflict the words of Bishop Tutu strike a chord here – ‘when Elephants fight it’s the grass that comes off worst’. To me helping people to build a sustainable peace in situations like the DR Congo and Sudan is the most inspiring element of our work.
6. At this time of great financial uncertainty how can we encourage people to continue their support of Christian Aid?
There’s no doubt the financial crisis is a huge challenge to Christian Aid’s work in Africa. Western governments are cutting their aid budgets, prices and demand for goods traded by Africa countries are reducing and remittances (people working abroad and sending money home) into Africa have declined.
But if you think of people in Africa as your brothers and sisters then you’re going to want make their needs a priority. Individually, we might have problems, but it’s much worse for people living in Africa. Now is not the time to cut our support.
7. We're competing with other charities and development agencies for people's goodwill, why should people choose to support Christian Aid?
I’m lucky in my role because I see the impact of donations at first hand. I can then go out and visit people in places like Gateshead to talk about how their donations are making a difference.
I believe we’re having a huge impact, because we use resources and invest where we think our work will have most effect in tackling the causes of poverty.
The Christian Aid identity also gives us the opportunity to work with Church-based organizations in Africa who are best placed at a community level to engage people and promote change.
8. A lot of people might not know much about Christian Aid so what makes it different to other charities and development agencies?
Christian Aid provides a mixture of immediate help and tackles the long-term causes of poverty and injustice. Christian Aid works with people of all faiths and no faith and the fact that we work with partner organizations that know what’s important to the local community is very important.
I am not saying Christian Aid is unique because that would be misleading but we do offer these strengths.
9. What are you hoping today's event, and others planned for the North East, will achieve?
Firstly, it’s about recognizing and thanking our volunteers and partners for their fantastic work - whether this is by awareness raising, donating or passing on stories of hope to their neighbours. But it’s also about creating a link between our supporters and partners by illustrating the way in which we share a common vision – we all want to end poverty in Africa.
10. What is the key message people should take away?
Hope is a choice we make. If we make a decision to act in hope we can end poverty.
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