Church members challenged to live on food parcel for one week this Lent

Church members across Notts are being challenged to live on just £2.50 a week plus a basic food parcel, as part of a destitution challenge during Lent.

The Rainbow Project in Hyson Green Nottingham – based at St Stephen and St Paul’s Church – is involved in supporting asylum seekers and refugees and is backing the national challenge set up by the Church Action on Poverty’s campaign ‘Living Ghosts’. Last year they raised several thousand pounds in aid of refugee funds.

Rainbow Project administrator, John Jones, said: “If you have ever wondered what it’s like to be destitute, join us in our ‘Destitution Challenge’. In the Nottingham area we are challenging people to try living for one week (from 21st – 28th February 2007, or at least one week during Lent) on the contents of a typical weekly food parcel which we supply to destitute asylum seekers, plus £2.50 in cash. Throughout this week, we hope that Destitution Challenge participants will share their thoughts and experiences with others and us.”

He explained that under the 2002 Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act, ‘failed’ asylum seekers have their state support withdrawn unless they agree to sign up to return home voluntarily. This applies even to those who cannot be returned because it is unsafe.

Further support for Nottingham asylum seekers is also being sought by the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Revd George Cassidy, who launched a Lent Appeal this month in support of an accommodation scheme for the most vulnerable asylum seekers.

He said: “Any nation can look after its elite, its first class citizens, the powerful and privileged but the acid test of a nation is the way it cares for those who, for whatever reason, find themselves marked down as second class or third class, powerless and marginalised. This Lent I have chosen the Nottingham Arimathea Trust as the focus of my first Lent Appeal. I hope people will help me to demonstrate God’s own concern for the stranger, the outcast and vulnerable, by making a contribution to this project.”

The Arimathea Trust is a new project, based in Nottingham and backed by the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, which provides short-term accommodation for female asylum seekers who may be pregnant or have young children. Volunteers working with the Trust will also aim to befriend asylum seekers and offer them practical support.

For further information on either the Destitution Challenge or the Arimathea Trust contact Marguerite Howard email: marguerite@googlemail.com or tel 0115 9701855

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