Shona carries torch for next caring generation

And a five year old girl from Clarkston was chosen as the poster girl for the landmark anniversary campaign.

The charity was set up to

help German refugees in the aftermath of the second world war.

Scots are being thanked for their longstanding support over the decades, and urged to get behind this year’s efforts to tackle the greatest issues of our time 70 years on, including discrimination against women, climate change and tax-dodging.

Leading the call in Scotland this week are two Christian Aid supporters from very different generations, united in their desire to stand alongside the poorest communities in the world and help overcome poverty for the next generation.

Anne Booth-Clibborn from Edinburgh has been supporting Christian Aid since it was set up in 1945, and 5 year old Shona Brown from Clarkston will be going door-to-door to raise funds this year – as she has been doing since the age of three.

Shona is hoping that families and individuals across Glasgow and East Renfrewshire will give what they can to help make a difference – with the same generous spirit that brought Christian Aid to life in war-torn Europe in 1945.

Anne, who was 19 at the end of the war, spent some time in occupied Germany and saw for herself the widespread devastation.

At that time, it was Church of Scotland Minister Douglas Lister, a chaplain with the British Army in Germany, who called upon churches across the country to help refugees who had been left with nothing, by sending blankets, food and other necessities.

Spurred on by the response, other churches began sending essentials and the organisation Christian Aid was conceived.

Anne said “On the evening of May 8, 1945, as a 19 year old army ambulance driver, I was outside Buckingham Palace with hundreds of thousands of others celebrating the end of the war.