Outreach

Outreach at Lion Walk Church is about raising awareness of human need and supporting community projects worldwide. We regularly support projects in our local community and across the world, with funds raised from our lunchtime concerts and from donations from members.

We collect for the Christian Aid door-to-door collections during Christian Aid Week. Through the period of Harvest Thanksgiving, we have gathered in donations for the local Soup Run, which teams from our congregation support each month, as well as our substantial contributions from the congregation for Commitment for Life. At Christmas-time we raise funds from the Christmas Tree Festival and from Christmas services for the Colchester Night Shelter and the Colchester and Tendring Women’s Refuge, which is now called Next Chapter.

In 2019 we raised the following:

£ 8573.50 (including Gift Aid) in the autumn for Commitment for Life – Christian Aid work in Bangladesh – a wonderful result.

£ 2970.07 in January, from the Christmas Collections and Christmas Tree Festival – this includes £992.36 raised at the art exhibition at the Festival – enabling us to send £1485.03 to both the Colchester Night Shelter and the Colchester and Tendring Women’s Refuge

Our spring/summer Christian Aid house-to-house collections raised £816.39

We normally support one ‘focus charity’ which changes once a year in the autumn, and then we also donate smaller sums of money to other charities, with a particular focus on those based in our own community or smaller charities. Our focus charity is Acorn Village. Here are details of the charities to which we donated in December 2019, to a total of £1400.

Acorn Village
Acorn Village is our Focus Charity from September 2019. People First, Disability Second is the Acorn Village philosophy with the motto ‘Life is For Living’. Every individual, whatever their disability, is encouraged to follow their dreams and are supported to be as independent as physically possible. Acorn Village offers high quality care and accommodation to adults with learning disabilities. Within two models of care, residential and supported living services, they provide support to meet a number of needs within large or small care packages.

Catherine Bullen Foundation
Named in memory of Catherine Bullen, a medical student from West Mersea who died in 2002 of an illness contracted in Namibia, this local charity, run by her parents, works for the relief of poverty, sickness and distress, and the preservation of health in rural Namibia.

CBM
Christian Blind Mission – the overseas disability charity – transforms the lives of people with disability, their families and communities, in the poorest parts of the world.

Jubilee Debt Campaign
A UK charity working to end poverty caused by unjust debt through education, research and campaigning.

Marie Curie
Marie Curie works to support people living with any terminal illness, and their families, offering visits from nurses and helpers, and running a number of hospices.

Practical Action
Practical Action puts ingenious ideas to work so people in poverty can change their world. Their innovative approach is helping to build climate resilience that protects lives and livelihoods, transform food production for smallholder farmers, make cities fit places for people to live and work, and improve access to clean energy that transforms lives.

Bible Society
In some parts of the world, the Scriptures are difficult to access or are simply unavailable. In this country, the Bible is readily available but has lost its significance and its value is unrecognised by millions. The Bible Society is working hard here at home and in key areas across the world to change this. They take the Bible and find ways to translate and distribute it, create digital formats, advocate for its place in society and help people relate to and make sense of it in their everyday lives.

Freedom from Torture
Torture causes long-lasting mental and physical pain. It can take many years for someone to recover from it. The aim of Freedom from Torture is to help people come to terms with their experiences and enjoy lives that are as full and happy as possible. Many people think that once people fleeing torture arrive in the UK, they are safe and can get on with their lives. That is not the case. They work alongside survivors to raise awareness and campaign for survivors’ rights in the UK.

Coram
The Coram story began more than 275 years ago when it was established by Thomas Coram as the Foundling Hospital, London’s first home for babies whose mothers were unable to care for them themselves. The charity evolved to begin pioneering work in adoption, early years and parenting from the original London site. The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, today known as Coram, developed new approaches to childcare and education, informed by developments in child psychiatry which highlighted the importance of children’s emotional wellbeing and need for secure family placement. Over the centuries, more than 25,000 children’s lives were saved. Today, as the children’s charity Coram, Thomas Coram’s legacy is continued by creating better chances for thousands of children across the UK.

Donations made in March-September 2019:

TEECH

Haven Project

Carers Trust

Homestart Colchester (Focus Charity 2018-19)

Integration through Language

DEC Cyclone Idai Appeal

Tools for Self-Reliance

Colchester Gateway

The Eagle’s Nest Worship Centre, Kabula

Donations made in December 2018:

Benin Christian Support