The aid agency Christian Aid is 80 years old this year. To mark the anniversary, Fiona Bennett spoke with Andrew Tomlinson of Christian Aid Scotland at a service in Augustine United Church, Edinburgh

Fiona: I’m curious to think of how many lives Christian Aid has touched throughout 80 years. I doubt you have a number for that.
Andrew: I don’t have an overall figure but I am aware that in 2024 we directly reached just over four million people and indirectly reached over 19 million.

How has Christian Aid changed over 80 years?
To go back to the very start, Christian Aid was formed at the end of the Second World War when there was this sudden, huge refugee crisis across Europe. The churches saw the need and responded in an incredible act of generosity. Remember, the UK was still under rationing at that time so people gave out of scarcity. And a significant number of those refugees were Germans who until recently would have been considered the enemy, so it was a very complicated situation. The appeal raised £80,000 from the churches, the equivalent to £3m today.

Then, to give a potted history, in the 50s we did lots of work in Palestine and we’re still there today. We’ve been in China, Nigeria. We worked with refugees in Kosovo in the 1990s. We worked with Martin Luther King Jr on the civil rights movement in America. We worked on anti-apartheid schemes…

Fiona Bennett is Minister of Augustine United Church, Edinburgh, and a former Moderator of the URC General Assembly.

Andrew Tomlinson became Campaign Advocacy Youth and Education Manager for Christian Aid Scotland in 2023. A recording of their conversation of 11 May is online at
www.youtube.com/@augustineunited/streams

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This is an extract from an article published in the Issue 5 – 2025 edition of Reform

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Image credit: Fabeha Monir/Christian Aid / July 2023