***NEW: Social events for refugees at St Peter’s in Winchester, Wednesdays, 10 -1, every week. Find out more here. Volunteers needed to help! Contact us***
NEW: Sheila Wade from Portsmouth Caritas gave a talk in the Parish about the situation in Ukraine and the best ways to help – full of direct, straight-talking information. You can read a report here.
As a Parish, St Peter & the Winchester Martyrs has three main roles:
Pray
Encouraging all to pray
Publicizing opportunities to gather and pray – at our own and other churches
Offer practical help
We will try to list opportunities and point people in the right direction for appeals, financial and material. We are updating frequently, and have tried to address people’s questions about offering a home to Ukrainian refugees.
Think
We are all finding the situation hard to cope with. Fr Mark and Fr Anthony are speaking to our feelings in their homilies, and the Seriously God spiritual campaign proved helpful to many.
We have made a page outlining events, appeals, and responses, in line with the ideas above. We are updating these pages regularly, so please check back.
This is a summary of the advice from the Portsmouth Caritas:
What can we do here in the UK, here in Portsmouth Diocese?
- Donate money to the DEC appeals to allow the relief agencies including Caritas to continue their work with refugees as they arrive in neighbouring countries. Assistance with physical and emotional, psychological and spiritual needs starts from the moment they arrive.
- Consider joining the Homes for Ukraine scheme here in the UK, either as a host or as a supporter [more on this on our Ukraine update page].
- Write to your MP to protest about the Nationality and Borders bill currently going through parliament. Ukrainian refugees are not unique in their suffering, they are just “closer to home”
- Pray for peace
Go to the dedicated Ukraine page on the Caritas Portsmouth website where you will find more information on how you can help.
We will update our pages as necessary: please let us know if there is anything you would like to know or to add to it and we will do our best to do so
