On 25 April, Nepal was struck by its largest earthquake in living memory. The death toll is already more than 5,000, and 2.8 million people have been displaced.

Many homes have been destroyed by the quake or buried by landslides. One of the most urgent needs is to help families who have lost their homes and to ensure support to local hospitals to enable them to cope with thousands of injured people.

Your donation will go to the International Nepal Fellowship (INF), a Christian charity which has over 60 years experience in community development and medical work in Nepal’s remoter districts. Their medical personnel have already travelled to affected communities to provide support.

INF is working with Nepal’s government and partner organisations to assess how to best respond to the crisis. Donations will be used both to respond to immediate needs and to support long-term recovery and preparedness.

My name is Ian Gibson, and I am a member of St Andrews Church in Oxford. I lived in Nepal for a year and a half, researching the growth of Christianity there. The city where I stayed, Bhaktapur, has been half destroyed, and many of my friends have lost homes and loved ones.

I have started this fundraising campaign in the hope that Christians in Oxford will respond with generosity to the suffering in Nepal. Please donate and share this as widely as possible. I hope to speak in churches around Oxford in order to communicate the horror of the situation in Nepal and put it in the context pre-existing poverty and disorganisation; I also want to describe the growing Christian presence in Nepal and how we can connect with churches and other groups in order to meet the needs of the country as a whole.

If you would like to be involved in the campaign, or to organise an event in your church, please contact me at ian.gibson@anthro.ox.ac.uk or 07748 023920.