This Christmas you can set a symbolic seat for a refugee at your table and donate whatever you would have spent to feed them had they been able to make it. Your donation will fund “parcels of love” – food items that will be given to displaced families.

Christian Aid to the Church in Need (Malta) is inviting families to share their Christmas meal with Christian families who lost everything when they fled their homes in Iraq and Syria. The idea was proposed by Fr Khalil Jaar, who cares for 400 displaced Syrian and Iraqi families at his parish in Jordan, when he visited Malta last October.

All you have to do is set a symbolic extra place at your table and donate whatever you plan to spend per person on your Christmas meal, either at home or in a restaurant. As it has done since the Islamic State forced millions of Christians from their homes, ACN will again this year provide food parcels for 13,500 displaced families from Mosul and Nineveh who found refuge in the Kurdish province of Erbil, which straddles Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan.

You can send a cheque in an envelope marked ‘Share your Christmas meal’ to ACN Malta, 39B, Mdina Road, Attard, ATD 9038.

Donations can also be made through bank transfer to Bank of Valletta plc: IBAN MT89 VALL 2201 3000 0000 40022153 500.

Send an e-mail with ‘Share your Christmas meal’ as the subject to info@acnmalta.org  to let the charity know of your donation.