Spicma

13/05/2026

Give a hungry family a loaf; they will eat for a day. Give them seeds, tools, and training; they will eat (and earn) indefinitely. That is SPICMA’s founding purpose.

Basankusu diocese, DRC, is an example. The people are mainly subsistence farmers, but grow the same crops as everyone else. In the oversupplied local market, that only makes them poorer. A high proportion of young men with little or no work means drink and drugs proliferate.

A year ago, Mill Hill Missionaries arranged some local youth into groups and taught them to grow other, more valuable, crops. Although that initiative is doing well, productivity is low, so the priests asked us to help them buy tools and other equipment.

We sent £2.750 and they bought tools, seeds, buckets, and other essentials. Their report included photographs of these being delivered and put to use - please indulge our little joke in the captions. This group has some 40 members who have cleared fields, planted beans, and begun cultivation. Crops are sprouting, new skills are being learned, family income and food security are improving, and delinquency is receding. https://spicma.org/donate/

06/05/2026

Famine and widening food insecurity are inevitable consequences of US military aggression against Iran. That ought to weigh heavily on the conscience of a world that understands this war mostly in terms of oil prices.

The real issue has been identified by the UN World Food Programme, which estimates an additional 45 million people will be pushed into acute hunger as a result of the war, with about two-thirds of these living in Africa.

Rising Food Crisis: Nigeria Among Top 10 Nations Facing Severe Hunger Crisis

16/04/2026

Sudan is the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster. Some two-thirds of its 50m people need help, of whom one-third is homeless, and an entire generation is being robbed of education. Famine is spreading fast, especially in Darfur, stronghold of Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the rebel group fighting Sudan's armed forces. The UN says the ensuing atrocities “bear the hallmarks of genocide”. Please pray for the innocent victims of Sudan's civil war.

02/04/2026

Anai Primary School, Uganda, has about 1,400 pupils. One of the older classroom blocks had fallen into dangerous disrepair - leaking roof, broken windows and doors. It also had a dust floor, harbouring jiggers (burrowing fleas). Both teachers and pupils found it distressing and studies suffered.

SPICMA sent £7,900 for a new block and received recently a full report from Fr Isaac Ojuk, parish priest. He said the new block had not only boosted both teaching and learning performance, but had enhanced the community’s trust and sense of ownership in the school.

As ever, thanks and prayers go to our benefactors who make such results possible, helping to transform prospects for some of the most forgotten, deprived, and overlooked communities in the developing world. www.spicma.org

23/03/2026

Here is SPICMA's annual report for 2025 - £360,000 in grants to 90 projects across 15 countries. All done by a couple of volunteers, but with the essential support of donors across the UK and elsewhere. Heartfelt thanks and prayers go out to them. www.spicma.org

17/03/2026

Sanitation is one of SPICMA’s top priorities in the developing world. When Poullart des Places School, Nyamirama, told us of the dire state of its old pit latrine (first photograph), with just four dilapidated and unsanitary places for 287 girls aged 15-24, including 219 boarders, we sent £6,700 for a new six-cubicle block. The people in this area are mainly subsistence farmers who cannot even begin to afford this.
As the other photographs show, the result is impressive. The smart, easy-to-clean, and sturdy new lavatory block is now in daily use, boosting the health and self-confidence of all. As always, we offer thanks and prayers for our generous donors who have made this possible. www.spicma.org

02/03/2026

Natural disasters affect the poor most of all. Last October, Cyclone Montha struck Vijayawanda, Andhra Pradesh, India, cutting off nearly 50 villages across five parishes. These communities of poor day-labourers and hardscrabble small farmers were left without homes, work, food, clean water, schools, and healthcare.
SPICMA could send only £3,000 for food, clothing, medicine, and books, but the local priests put it to good use and an even greater disaster was averted. Over 270 of the poorest were given dry-ration kits. The children got books and pencils to support their continuing education.

25/01/2026

The Sisters of Our Lady of Fatima teach 700 boys and girls at their school in the small village of Chippagiri, Andhra Pradesh, India, a drought-ridden area where most people are impoverished day-labourers, nearly half of them illiterate.

Imposing as the school building is, it had no access to clean water and, as the number of pupils ballooned, the cost of buying good water became so great that maintenance of the school and its 25 teachers was threatened.

SPICMA sent £3,700 for the installation of a water treatment plant. Now, the school has ready access to all of the clean water needed. Class attendance has improved, water-borne illnesses have dropped, and, as the photographs show, the children and the staff are delighted.

24/12/2025

SPICMA wishes all of our benefactors, beneficiaries, friends, and followers a blessed and peaceful Christmas and a very happy New Year.

21/12/2025

Sometimes, we have to forego helping development projects in some of the world's poorest and most deprived areas in order to prevent a crisis becoming a disaster. We sent £2,500 to buy emergency food supplies for the people of Divine Mercy parish, Tambach, Kenya, who were rendered homeless and destitute by a landslide.
Fr Boniface, the PP, is a gifted photographer. He expressed his thanks with these moving portraits of his displaced and anxious parishioners.