The changing priorities of CRESS

At times the CRESS UK team have to make difficult decisions about funding.  As I am sure you can all imagine there is never really enough to go around and priorities do change.

Changing priorities

South Sudan has for over 50 years been at Civil War, political and power squabbles plague the country and the present conflict in Juba  is of grave concern to us all here back in the UK.  It is at times like these that sometimes we need to change our thinking and how we spend the charity’s money.

Francis Candiga  one of the South Sudan Church Leaders CRESS supports managed against the odds to secure three student places at the Leadership Training Institute in Nairobi this year.  However, he was not able to raise the full amount needed for their tuition fees.  Francis was recently informed that if he was unable to pay the balance owing, one of the students would be sent back.

The CRESS team had to do something and having received an unexpected windfall from the Salisbury Diocese and with a little extra funds found were able to send £555 to Francis to cover the monies owing.  One of the students is Daniel Batatis a sponsored young adult who is now 25 and last year, wrote a wonderful letter of thanks to his supporters.

Photo credit: Michael Blyth (www.michaelblyth.co.uk)

Flexibility to put support where it’s needed

The beauty of being a small charity is the flexibility it offers to know sponsored children personally, change where a resource is provided and put funds raised to best use at the right time.  This is just one example of CRESS UK being able to do just that and bring a little joy to an otherwise dark country experiencing extreme difficulties.

If you are interested in finding out more about the fighting in South Sudan you might find this BBC News article of interest.