About us
We are a partnership of people, churches and local organisations committed to ending poverty worldwide.
Our groundbreaking work began in 1945, when we were founded by British and Irish churches to help refugees following the Second World War.
For more than 70 years, we have provided humanitarian relief and long-term development support for poor communities worldwide, while highlighting suffering, tackling injustice and championing people’s rights.
We are the international development agency for 41 sponsoring churches and keen to serve and work with other churches, too. We were established so that the sponsoring churches and others ‘could respond to Christ’s command to care for all in need’.
Our values are rooted in our Christian belief and are based on our understanding of relational theology, which asserts that human beings are called to have a special relationship with God and in turn to have a particular relationship with one another.
Everything we do is in response to God’s gift to the world, of his son Jesus Christ. Jesus promised ‘good news’ for the poor and ‘freedom’ for the oppressed, calling us to action.
Jesus called his followers to ‘love God and love your neighbour’. Through his life and teaching, his death and his resurrection, he inspired his followers to love God, love their neighbours and long for justice.
Our faith in God, and in his loving relationship with us, gives us confidence and hope that poverty can be ended, despite all that might stand in the way.
Our theology is developed in partnership
- Our theology is shaped by our experience of working alongside some of the poorest people in the world. We believe that God has a ‘preferential option for the poor’ and we listen to the experience of those who experience poverty the most.
- We rejoice that the Christian faith is owned by people in many different contexts and diverse traditions, and that faith is deepened as we share experience throughout our global, diverse community.
- Our theology is not set in stone. We are in regular conversation with our supporting churches and with churches around the world, and we look to find ever new ways to include more voices in the conversations and places where our theology is formed and shaped.
Our beliefs in action
Our faith tells us that human beings are created in the image of God, and that we should all use our power, skills and resources for the good of all. But we experience the world as one damaged and often broken by suffering, injustice and sinfulness – a world in which there is poverty and war, hunger and pain.
The relationships between people, communities, corporations and nations are distorted, as inequality becomes greater, oppression stronger and poverty persistent. Even creation itself is in crisis, as it is exploited and degraded.
Where relationships are broken or distorted, wherever there is stigmatisation or discrimination, where some are exploited or diminished by others, we believe that these relationships should and can be changed. We believe the world can be restored and transformed, and that there is hope for a renewed world to come.
The issues we work on are complex. But we have hope and confidence that God is with us, revealing to us good ways of living human life together. We have the gift of hope and also the responsibility to keep working and praying for God’s will to ‘be done on earth as in heaven’.
Let us love
‘Let us love, not in word or speech but in truth and action’ (1 John 3:18). Our film below is based on this verse from the New Testament – which sums up what Christian Aid is all about.
