Congregation gives cash to help feed villagers in India

A DUNDEE congregation has come together to help feed two Indian villages suffering during t he coronavirus pandemic.

Since lockdown began in India on March 25, many of the country’s poorest areas have struggled with f ood supplies as money has dried up.

However, members of St Luke’s Church in the Downfield area have been fundraising to help buy necessary supplies, and have managed to feed residents in Pondavakkam and Pallawada in the Tamil Nadu state of India.

Anthony Sagaya Raj, a social worker from the Tamil Nadu area and a friend of Rev Kerry Dixon, t he vicar of S t L u k e ’s C h u r c h , shared the villages’ plight with the Dundee congregation over Zoom at a recent online Sunday service.

Almost instantly the congregation dug deep into their pockets to feed the two struggling villages.

Mr Dixon said: “In a previous life I was director of an international charity and from there I made friends with people in India.

“One was Anthony, a social worker, who messaged me to say there are villages who have absolutely nothing during the lockdown.

“These people are daily workers, which means each day they go out to the market square and if someone offers them some hours, they work. Their houses are made of sticks and bits of rubbish, these people are the poorest of the poor.

“Sanjay came to our church via Zoom to tell people about the villages and see if they could help them out.”

The church managed to raise about £1,000 which provided food parcels for 73 families in the two villages.