|TOP|The Churches in Partnership scheme (CHIP) organised by the relief and development agency World Vision will soon see fourteen people from churches across the United Kingdom sent to Addis in Ababa in Ethiopia.

The CHIP initiative allows a real relationship to be developed between British churches and communities in the developing world and encourages giving, praying, learning and visiting. The visits especially allow churches the opportunity to see the projects that they support.

The group will visit Lideta for ten days. Lideta is a poor community found around the central market of Addis Ababa with HIV/AIDS a serious problem in the area which continues to contribute to such problems as the large number of orphans, street children and child-headed households.

High unemployment, poor sanitation and inadequate social services are also serious problems in the community which World Vision is attempting to alleviate by providing healthcare, education, employment, sanitation and housing.

|QUOTE|One member of the group, Alison Glover from All Saints Church Allesley in Coventry, said: “I’m both excited and apprehensive. I’m excited about meeting some of the people who have to live in such difficult circumstances. I think we will have a lot to learn. But I’m also apprehensive about the impact it may have on me and my ability to communicate their needs when I get back.”

A member of the World Vision board, the Reverend Helen Sammon, previously worked as a medical doctor in Africa and will be co-leading the group. She said: “It can be an extraordinary time of transformation, and for me a privilege to be with them, helping to reflect on and understand what they see.

"It’s in giving and receiving that we can be united across cultures – from here we can and should give of our material wealth, but in doing so we become aware of our own poverty and of how much we can receive from Africa. We receive the warmth of their welcome and openness, their commitment to family and to God, their ability to allow time to be a servant, not a master.”

Sammon continued, saying: “We learn how much we take for granted and how little we trust in God, and how ungrateful we are for all we have – I’ll bring all those things back and share them with my church here.”

The group will be given the opportunity to spend time with some of the children they sponsor, who live in Lideta. Countries such as Armenia, Zimbabwe and Cambodia are also included in the CHIP scheme.

Members of the group will have the opportunity to spend time with the children living in Lideta that they are sponsoring. Other countries in the CHIP scheme include Armenia, Zimbabwe and Cambodia.