Christmas gifts that transform lives in Africa

Solar lamps means children can study at home in the evenings

This Christmas, charity New Ways is running an alternative gifts programme so that for as little as £5 you can buy a gift that will help New Ways transform lives in Africa.

Mosquito nets for mothers and children will help reduce the spread of malaria, often a killer that is intensified by climate change because of flooding.

A gift towards free residential schooling will help a young person have a chance to escape poverty and protect girls from child marriage.

Mango tree saplings will help nourish and sustain families, and the gift of a solar lamp can help children study in darkness, and power a battery for a mobile phone.

There are other gifts available, and sponsors receive a certificate they you can slip into card to represent the gift you have purchased.

New Ways has been working in Africa since 1997. The charity has helped tens of thousands of people earn a living, receive an education, and build infrastructure to support communities and develop peace.

When people can't grow crops, when their cattle and livestock die from hunger caused by drought, the people themselves suffer.

Scholastica, who works for New Ways in Turkana in Northern Kenya talked about one badly malnourished mother who came to a New Ways health centre, desperate for help. The mother had two baby twins, and was having to choose which one to keep alive as she was not producing enough milk to feed both children.

New Ways gave her milk for her babies, and continued to support them as they grew. Both children survived and are now healthy toddlers.

Angela Docherty is CEO and explains that New Ways, by supporting the Missionary Community of St Paul the Apostle in several regions of Africa, has educated, fed, sustained and provided water, agriculture, and fishing aid, to keep thousands of people alive.

The projects New Ways supports range from feeding babies and their mothers, providing subsidised fishing boats for fishermen, building dams, drilling boreholes to help communities access clean drinking water, running nurseries and schools that both feed and educate children, and many, many more life sustaining projects.

The theme that runs through these projects is that they provide ways for communities to equip themselves to survive. People who benefit from the projects very often come back to help as members of staff or lay members of the missionary community. They find ways to use the skills and training that New Ways has helped them with, to give back to their communities.

In so many ways, New Ways has helped local tribes live peacefully together. The education projects build peace, and teach ways of coexisting peacefully, even as climate change deprives tribes of water, livestock and resources, and threatens to intensify conflict.

The Furrows in the Desert project helps green the desert, irrigating the land so that crops can grow, and people can make a livelihood. The local agriculture projects provide nourishing food for the nurseries and schools meaning that school children get improved health, and local farmers get an income.

This is one example of the beautiful cycle of nourishment and sustenance that New Ways, through supporting their partner organisations provides.

Angela says: "Our implementers are a missionary community. The missionary community, made up of priests and lay women, have committed their lives to go into areas of great deprivation and support poor people.

"The missionaries are working in areas that aid agencies tend to go to in times of difficulty at time of crisis, whereas we want to build infrastructure to help people deal with difficulties as they go along.

"The commitment of the missionary community means they are living in this area. The people come to know them."

If you would like to support New Ways and purchase an alternative gift for a friend or family member, visit: www.newways.org.uk/alternative-gifts

To learn more about New Ways, visit: www.newways.org.uk

Watch footage about the charity's work at: www.youtube.com/channel/UCpOStQLehp_xVvwjubbgStQ