An Urban Saints Group from Northern Ireland have just returned from building a home for a struggling family in South Africa. They took some old Urban Saints clothing out with them to give it a new home too. Now we're hoping to send more Groups out to Mexico next Easter to do the same.
After two years of Covid postponements, they finally got their chance to build a house with our friends at Amor Europe in Delmas on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It was a truly humbling experience for all those involved and a great opportunity to make a difference for a family without a proper home but also to learn from those who live with the daily reality of extreme poverty and racial injustice.
This South Africa trip also provided a further opportunity for Urban Saints. Amor Europe have agreed to help us with our Clothing Redistribution scheme, by finding good second homes for old but still wearable Urban Saints branded clothing. As we grow the range of merchandise available on our online shop, we wanted to give Urban Saints Groups the opportunity to recycle their older clothing and do something to put it to good use. The first batch of clothes went out with the South Africa trip to redistributed to local projects and individuals in need. We're now gathering more items of clothing with the hope of doing the same again in the future.
Find out more about the Clothing Redistribution scheme
There's more to come too. Another Urban Saints Group has approached Amor Europe looking to do a Rebuild-style trip at Easter next year - this time to Tijuana in Mexico. In order to make that trip viable Amor Europe are looking for other groups - whether they are Urban Saints Groups or Energize-subscribing churches - who might want to get involved. The deadline for booking on to Rebuild Mexico 2023 is around 6 weeks away (30th September) so if you are interested you'll need to get in touch with Amor Europe quickly. But we would love to see this trip take place and be filled with groups just like yours.
You can find out more about the Rebuild Mexico 2023 trip on our website and if you are interested in other trips like this - or just want to know more about the work of Amor Europe - you can discover more on their website too:
