by SCIAF

Deacon Blue stars Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh joined SCIAF staff for the launch of this year’s annual WEE BOX, BIG CHANGE appeal, which raises vital funds for life changing work in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Each year generous Scots give up a favourite treat during Lent and put the money they save into a SCIAF WEE BOX.

This year, the appeal focusses on people in Zambia, in southern Africa, particularly around Kabwe, which is one of the most polluted towns in the world. Here, most families grow their food in small plots near their homes. It’s a perilous life, very much dictated by the weather. And as the weather changes, life becomes more perilous still.

Long-standing SCIAF supporters Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh took to the streets of Glasgow to launch the annual fundraiser for some of the world’s poorest people, who continue to be hammered by hunger and climate change.

Ricky said the difference the appeal can make should not be underestimated. He said: ‘When we travelled with SCIAF, it was heart-breaking to see how many families really struggle to grow the food they need or get the necessities of life we take for granted.’

One of the women SCIAF has been working with, Ruth Musonda, faces a life of extremes, together with her husband Aggrey, their six children and four grandchildren. Floods, droughts and storms are wreaking havoc with their lives.

For Ruth, hunger was just the start of her problems. She was so hungry that she was too tired to work in the fields and her crops failed. This meant she had nothing to feed her family, nothing to sell at market, and no money to fix the roof of her home. When the storms arrived, water came through the roof and her children couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t pay for them to go to school and they cried for food she didn’t have.

For another woman, Catherine, hunger meant poisoning her family by mistake as she had to search in the woods for mushrooms to feed her grandchildren.

She said: ‘We had nothing to eat so I had to collect mushrooms. But I picked poisonous ones by mistake and we almost all died.’

Photo courtesy of SCIAF