If you’re struggling to find the perfect Christmas present for your parents – and you can’t face boring old bath salts or novelty reindeer socks again – why not choose a gift that could actually help change someone’s life?

From children’s mosquito nets to school desks and text books, Present Aid’s Christmas catalogue is bursting with unique virtual gifts which help benefit some of the world’s poorest people, particularly those who now face the often devastating impacts of climate change.

“Surviving in the jungle on crocodile bits and witchety grubs on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here was hard, but hundreds of thousands of people across the world face a fight for survival every year because of changing weather patterns,” explains actor and presenter Joe Swash. 

The poorest pay the highest price 

Indeed, although poorer countries are least responsible for climate changing carbon emissions, they are also the most vulnerable to the knock-on effects, with millions of families now facing crop failure, landslides, flooding, hurricanes, drought, displacement, disease, and starvation.

Just one example is the plight of Nicaraguan coffee farmers who are finding it almost impossible to grow high quality coffee beans these days due to much hotter weather and unpredictable rains linked to global warming.

Chocolate Starter Kit

To help these farmers find a new source of income, Present Aid has designed a Chocolate Starter Kit (£42) consisting of hardy cocoa seedlings and expert training for growing heat-loving, organic cocoa instead.

Miguel Angel Zelaya, 48, is one such farmer who lives with his wife, Aurora, five children, and two grandchildren, in the picturesque hill-top village of Santa Rosa, El Cua, in the country’s north-central highlands.

 “Our coffee yields have already dropped
to about a sixth of what they were just a few years ago and we realised that if this hot weather continues, there will be no coffee farms left by the time our children grow up,” Miguel explains.

 “Obviously we were very frightened by this idea, but then we got our cocoa seeds and training with Christian Aid’s partner Soppexcca, and I’m pleased to say that early yields are very promising and we’re optimistic about the future,” he says.

Miguel’s daughter Darling Zelaya, 19, couldn’t agree more.

“I’ve never tasted real chocolate myself. I’m told that you English people love it so my family growing cocoa is great for everyone, isn’t it?” she laughs.

By Emma Pomfret for Christian Aid