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For 80 years, Christian Aid has been an expression of faith in the unstoppable power of hope to create a more just and peaceful world.
Our work was founded by and continues to be mandated by the churches in Britain and Ireland. And we’re a movement that communities in Wales have been a part of since the earliest days.
Here's a snapshot how the movement has grown, with stories from around Wales.
1940s
Christian Aid’s work began in 1945, when we were founded by British and Irish churches to help refugees following the Second World War. On the first Sunday after VE Day, churches gather together to pray for peace and they started a collection. Across Britain and Ireland, that very first collection raised over £80,000 (more than £3 million in today’s money), for emergency supplies in mainland Europe. Under the name ‘Christian Reconstruction in Europe’, we supported, equipped and enabled partner churches there to meet the needs of their people.
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Support for this work grew in Wales in the very early days. The Mumbles Christian Aid Group – one of the first to be set up in Wales - was founded in 1948 by Gwynne Hodge, a member of Mumbles Baptist Church and a Prisoner of War during World War Two, who was forced to work on the infamous Death Railway in Burma (now Myanmar). Once home, he said he had vowed to do what he could for those in need after being inspired by the kindness of local Burmese villagers who pushed fresh food through the fence of the prison camp.
1950s
Christian Aid Week was launched in 1957 to raise extra funds as the work helping refugees in mainland Europe continued, as well as those from Palestine, Korea and China.
When Christian Aid Week began, it quickly became known as Wythnos Cymorth Cristnogol in Wales. Twenty places in Wales organised collections during the first Christian Aid Week: Aberdare, Aberystwyth, Ammanford, Bangor, Bedwas, Blaendulais, Cardiff, Carmarthen, Colwyn Bay, Dowlais and Merthyr Tydfil, Ffestiniog, Llwyngwril, Llandudno, Newtown, Llangollen, Pontardawe, Swansea, Tonyrefail, Welshpool and Ystalyfera.
Today, Christian Aid Week is the longest-running fundraising week in the UK.
Support for Christian Aid’s mission grew in Wales thanks to faithful individuals, like Irene Williams. Irene pioneered support for Christian Aid, or Inter-Church Aid as it was known then. Irene helped to establish the first door-to-door collection for Christian Aid Week in Carmarthen in the mid-fifties. The collection raised £64, using make-shift collecting tins like empty Ovaltine, salt and OXO tins.
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1960s
We made a difference in crises affecting Nigeria/Biafra, Kenya and India. We created the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) so that development agencies were seen to work together in times of humanitarian crisis. We helped set the World Development Movement to encourage political campaigning. We addressed racism and poverty in the United States as well as advising Martin Luther King while he was in the UK.
By 1963, 200 places in Wales were taking part in Christian Aid Week. And when the official name ‘Christian Aid’ was adopted in the 1960s, we become ‘Cymorth Cristnogol’ in Wales too. Christian Aid’s first member of staff for Wales, Dewi Lloyd Lewis, was appointed in 1963 as Area Secretary for Wales.
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This decade also saw Wales’ response to the British Council of Churches’ notable report ‘World Poverty and British Responsibility’. To promote the report and mobilise a political and public response, during Easter week 1967 Christian Aid Cymru organised a ‘TREC-TOR’, a 600-mile tractor journey around Wales at 17mph!
1970s
We drew a link between educating supporters at home about the root causes of poverty and work with partners overseas to eradicate it. We popularised world development issues by providing seed money to establish the New Internationalist magazine. We explained the connection between our consumer culture at home and the global food crisis by launching a campaign to live simply.
The 1970s saw the beginning of the denominational appeals in Wales, an idea which developed during the late ‘60s out of the United Nations’ recommendation that wealthy nations contribute 1% of Gross National Product to support developing nations. While a 0.7% target was agreed by the UN in 1970, churches were invited to lead by example and contribute 1% of their annual income and the pattern of denominational appeals emerged - a pattern that still continues today. Over the decades the appeals in Wales have shaped our understanding of global responsibility, fostered friendship and enabled pioneering work in communities around the world.
Meanwhile, Christian Aid Week in 1972 included an invitation to all local authority libraries to arrange a Christian Aid Week display. These saw communities in Wales - communities that had experienced acute pockets of poverty - making the link between their own lived experience and the experience of their global neighbour. That year, Christian Aid committees, churches and individuals in Wales raised £100,000.
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1980s
We fed hungry people during the Ethiopian famine and those experiencing drought in Mozambique. We led a mass lobby of the UK parliament to call for more official development aid. We created the Southern African Coalition to demand an end to apartheid.
In Wales in 1986, Desmond Tutu was the keynote speaker at the Council of Churches for Wales’ 50th anniversary celebrations, calling on Wales to stand up for human rights and to call for an end to apartheid. Christian Aid in Wales grew as the ecumenical space grew, putting faith into action at the heart church and community life.
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1990s
We linked work in 50 poor countries to campaigns on developing world debt, fair trade and the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We challenged the stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. We stood up for and provided food for refugees in Kosovo. And we were one of the founding members of the Fairtrade Foundation, the UK brand of the Fairtrade movement.
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Christian Aid Cymru supporters joined the Jubilee 2000 coalition of organisations calling for debt cancellation for the world’s most indebted countries. They took their message to the G8 summit in Köln, Germany in 1999.
2000s
We campaigned to make poverty history during a war against terror. We reached more than 500,000 people with food, shelter and healthcare after the Asian Tsunami. We publicised the fact that developing countries lose more money through the tax evasion practices of large corporations than they receive through official aid.
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Supporters and partners in Wales joined the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005 calling for action in Wales and the UK against global poverty. The Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Programme came to life in 2006 in response to the campaign.
In 2007, a group of supporters, including John Rowlands from Wales, walked 1,000 miles, raising awareness of the impact of climate change on communities globally and calling on the UK Government to ‘Cut the Carbon’. And following a two-year campaign with the Wales Fair Trade Forum, on 6 June 2008 Wales became the world’s first Fair Trade Nation.
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2010s
We informed about and campaign against climate change, championed tax justice. We continue to work with local partners on the ground to make a practical difference to the lives of new waves of refugees locally while campaigning and advocating for change globally.
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Throughout the 2010s in Wales we campaigned alongside the Stop Climate Chaos Cymru coalition and the Sustainable Development Alliance to see the Welsh Government legislate on its commitment to being a globally responsible Wales under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and to see carbon emission targets enshrined in law in the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.
During Advent 2016, in solidarity with the millions of people forced to flee from their homes, a group of Welsh walkers trekked 140 miles from Bethlehem in Carmarthenshire to Yr Aifft (or Egypt) in Denbighshire, raising awareness and fundraising along the way.
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2020s
We continue to respond to humanitarian situations in Afghanistan, Sudan and South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others, raising our voices for peace and for climate and debt justice.
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In 2024 we launched Global Neighbours Cymru, an accreditation scheme for schools to equip young Welsh learners with a deeper understanding of global poverty and injustice and to become ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world.
In November 2024, young people in Wales took their call for climate justice to the Senedd in November, during COP29 and Wales Climate Week, part of the ‘Creative For Climate Justice’ project.
In 2025 we marked 80 years of hope. A big crowd of Cymru supporters joined us for a service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey, as many churches and groups held special services and events locally.
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