DOZENS of children caught up in the devastating conflict in Syria have been given a ray of hope thanks to St Peter’s Church in Hale.

For its 2016 Lent Project, the church fundraised for Manchester-based charity Syria Relief through a variety of events, including a Ploughman’s Lunch, a Holy Week Shoeshine in Hale, Queen’s 90th Tea Party at the Cottage, Hale.

Money raised at this events, coupled with church collections, brought the fundraising total to £6,455. One of the charity co-founders, surgeon Dr Mounir Hakimi, visited St Peter’s this month to thank the church for the donation.

Keith Neal, church warden at St Peter’s, said: “The relentless media reports on the civil war in Syria leave most of us in a state of helplessness and paralysis.

“The political situation seems so intractable that we are tempted to think there is very little we can do. But we are wrong.”

Syria Relief is a UK-registered charity founded in 2011 by a group of British Syrian medical professionals living in and around Altrincham.

The charity’s registered office is in Timperley and the operations office is in the British Muslim Heritage College, Whalley Range. The charity also has offices in Turkey and neighbouring countries and several in Syria.

Due to the trustees’ connections in the country, Syria Relief has a solid network of management and logistics staff on the ground inside Syria – currently numbering around 1,600.

The trustees began with emergency medical aid, but swiftly expanded to cope with growing need, branching into food aid, education, specialist psychiatric treatment and prosthetic limb clinics.

The money given by St Peter’s will be used to sponsor five orphans for a year - £360 per orphan per year. The rest will be used to provide schooling for 27 children for a school year. Profiles of the five orphaned children have been given to St Peter’s and the church will receive progress reports.

“Syria Relief puts all its efforts into providing humanitarian aid to people living in Syria. We were told that 12 million people are still struggling to survive in Syria while a similar number are now refugees, most in neighbouring countries,” added Keith.

“We wanted to have a local link and make personal contact with people involved in Syria, and to have a specific target for the use of the funds raised, with the possibility of feedback to help us appreciate the outcomes.”