I don’t know about you, but I am so ready for Christmas this year. Ready to be snuggled under a blanket watching Christmas movies, with the tree all dressed up and glistening in the corner, the smell of roast turkey and pigs in blankets, with a hint of a spiced scented candle in the background. Ready to spend time with family, rest from work, share special memories together and distribute colourfully wrapped parcels from under the tree while Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé sing their hearts out and the snow drifts down from the sky to settle in perfect white flakes on the pine needles through the frosty window. I just can’t wait.
Your Christmas may look a little different from what I’ve described, but in our partner projects across Central and Eastern Africa, this festive season would be fairly unrecognisable to what you and I have come to expect each December. Apart from the beating sun and culinary differences, the reality for many on our partner projects is that Christmas is another day to survive, another day to wonder where food might come from, or how to send their children to school. At Comfort International, we are working with local partners to make Christmas a day to remember for all the right reasons this year.Â
Every year, we launch an appeal to help make Christmas special. This year, we want to reach every individual on our sponsorship projects and make sure they have a reason to celebrate this Christmas. Some projects will put on a Christmas party, distribute gifts and share food together, while some projects where members are more widespread will receive a special gift to help bring joy this year. While these things may seem frivolous – not the obvious priority for families battling poverty – we have found that children and families who experience the joy of a Christmas party, the generosity of a gift, and the warmth of knowing that they are special, loved and seen, have found this incredibly important and memorable. If you would like to donate to our Christmas appeal, please click on the button below.Â
Another way of reaching out and making a difference this Christmas is to choose Comfort Gifts as your gift of choice for family, friends and loved ones. By selecting Comfort Gifts, you make sure that your gift is unique and extra-special. You can give the gift of education, health care, safe accommodation, training and nutrition to those who need it most in our partner countries. When you purchase your gift, the money will go straight to your chosen project and we will send you a specially designed greetings card and a description of your gift to pass on to your recipient. It’s the perfect choice for that person who is impossible to buy for, the friend who has everything or the loved one who will value the impact of your generous donation much more than another trinket on the shelf.Â
This year we are introducing some new Comfort Gifts. These include supporting vulnerable young people to attend the Joy Centre, where they can receive accredited training in sewing, computing or welding. You can even purchase a gift towards building a new carpentry workshop, expanding the courses available and offering the opportunity of transformed lives and changed futures to even more young people. All of the individuals attending the Joy Centre find themselves in difficult situations, whether that be an inability to attend school, difficult family circumstances, or even a life struggling to make ends meet on the streets of Kigali. The vital skills and qualifications they achieve at the Joy Centre offer a new chance to build a thriving and stable future.
You can also choose to buy a gift which will provide a young mum on the Comfort Babies Project with a place on the new Sewing Academy! Partners Comfort Rwanda have developed this training option for mums who want to learn the skills they need to provide for themselves and their baby, allowing them to generate an income, as well as access a loving community and find direction and security.Â
Alongside these new options, you can still choose to pay school fees for a child who can’t access education, or support a midwife saving lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo. You can choose school meals for children in northern Rwanda so they don’t have to go the whole day at school without food but can concentrate on their studies. You can gift a low-income pastor a set of course notes from the Comfort International Ministry School allowing him or her to receive accredited training to better serve their church and their area. You can purchase life-saving medication for rape survivors and refugees, pay medical insurance for an ex-street child, support an ex-child soldier to find restoration and so so much more. There are so many great options with Comfort gifts, you’re sure to find something to make everyone on your Christmas list smile this year.Â
When you order your Comfort Gift(s), be sure to choose one of the specially designed greetings cards to give to your recipient so they can find out exactly what their Christmas gift has accomplished. We have some beautiful designs which have been snapped, created or lovingly painted by our generous donors. Inside, you’ll find an insert card detailing a little more information about the project and the difference this Comfort Gift has made.Â
This Christmas, let’s remember the woman in hospital in Goma, who has lost her home and is recovering from rape surgery, or the child who has been living on the streets of Burundi, scavenging for food and unable to go to school despite being 8 years old. Let’s remember the teachers, who are teaching their heart out in the midst of war and poverty, and are struggling to make ends meet for their families. Let’s think of the mother of five in South Sudan, who is struggling to find food for her family or the new mother of one in Rwanda, at a loss as to how to take care of her new baby and battling loneliness and fear of the future. As we celebrate, give gifts and enjoy time together, let’s make Christmas special for those who are on the other side of the world, but no less human than you or I.Â