Christian Aid Week: 9th - 15th May

Christian Aid Week is running from 9th to 15th May 2004. This year's theme is 'We believe in life before death'. Christian Aid is calling on people across the UK to help give desperately poor people all over the world the chance of a better future.

Christian Aid Week is the UK’s longest running and most successful door-to-door fundraising week. Over seven million people get involved each year. It started in 1957. Last year more than £14.3 million was raised with the help of over 350,000 volunteers.

This year, Christian Aid is offering Internet users the chance to start again and find out what their lives could be like if they were born somewhere else in the world at www.LifeSwitch.org The site enables surfers to swap their life with someone else's in a different country. All visitors have to do is choose a country; submit details and check out a few testimonials and the company disclaimer; wait a few seconds while their profile is matched with someone else's in the country chosen; and then read the outcome.

The week will be supported by national print, and television advertising is calling on the public to 'Help people in the third world stand on their own two feet.'

Christian Aid is an international development agency working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice. It works with some of the poorest communities, helping people irrespective of race, religion, culture or background to get a better life.

For the first time Christian Aid is encouraging people to raise sponsorship money online via www.justgiving.com/caweek by setting up their own fundraising page and asking their friends and relatives to sponsor them.

To find out what’s happening around the country, simply log onto www.caweek.org