Last month, Little Amal, a giant puppet, visited Oxford towards the end of an 8,000 mile journey from the Syrian-Turkish border to highlight the plight of refugee children. The town centre was heaving with excited families. They watched as Alice (another huge puppet) showed her around the city and then waved her off towards Birmingham, Manchester and, eventually, Cop26.

The event was particularly poignant in the light of the images we have been seeing on our screens: desperate families at the airport in Kabul in August, overcrowded boats crossing the Channel and, most recently, refugees trapped on the Polish border in Belarus.

This week I received an email from Asylum Welcome, thanking the University Church for £3,000 we have given towards their work with the Afghan refugees who have arrived in Oxfordshire in recent months.

At the moment most of the 150 Afghan refugees in Oxfordshire are living in transit hotels, waiting for long term accommodation. Asylum Welcome is helping them to access healthcare including Covid vaccinations, education and employment, and with English language lessons.

Thanking us for our ‘incredible donation’,  Gilberto Estrada Harris, Asylum Welcome’s Manager of Fundraising, Development and Communications, quotes an Afghan father: ‘On the first day we arrived at the hotel, the team welcomed us like a brother and sister. They support us with everything we need. GP, doctors, everyone has been so helpful. The kids are so excited to be at school. We could not have dreamed of this.’

The Faith in Action team is in touch with Asylum Welcome about arranging presents for the Afghan children at Christmas: watch this space for more information.

In December there will be an exhibition in the De Brome Chapel about the work of the Faith in Action and Green Teams, and the causes we support, including Christian Aid’s work with pigeon pea farmers in Malawi (see the epistle of 22 October).

Meanwhile, Christian Aid is looking for volunteers to help with its Big Christmas Sing at the Town Hall on the evenings of 30 November and 1 and 2 December, featuring  primary schoolchildren from around Oxfordshire. They need help with stewarding, the raffle and bucket collections from 5pm to about 8.30pm on each of these evenings. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Philip Evans on  pevans@christian-aid.org or 07814 141 812.

To donate to Christian Aid or Asylum Welcome please visit https://www.universitychurch.ox.ac.uk/content/campaigns and download the form.