CRS was established in 1971 by Canon Subir Biswas of St Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta (or Kolkata, as it is now known), in response to the repercussions of the civil war in what is now Bangladesh. Thousands of refugees poured over India’s North East border into Kolkata, swelling existing slums, and creating new ones. CRS has subsequently evolved from providing relief into a non-governmental development organisation, which is what it is today. The aim is not to provide aid or give hand-outs, but to help people in need, regardless of faith. This is done through community committees. The aim is to build self-sufficient communities in slums and villages, by training and paying teachers to provide education, providing doctors to offer healthcare, and enabling the empowerment of women, in particular by teaching them skills which provide an income source. By these means, the communities are enabled to plan and manage their own progression. While CRS, by virtue of its link with St Paul’s Cathedral, is a faith-based NGO, it has no proselytising role. CRS is managed through the Executive Committee, the majority of whose members are laity, and both the members of CRS staff, and the people in the slums they seek to empower, are made up of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and people of no faith at all. The Friends of CRS is a UK registered charity which exists to support and provide funding for the work of CRS in Kolkata. Historically, the Friends have been, and continue to be, CRS’s largest single source of funds. The Trustees of the Friends (who are all unpaid volunteers) work closely with the Director and staff of CRS, through electronic communication and visits to Kolkata (the most recent of which was in November 2014).
