Have you ever wondered where your tea comes from? Churches are celebrating the most British day of the year on Friday (21 April) by reaching out to the tea pickers of Bangladesh! Friday marks National Tea Day - a day to celebrate the British love of tea and the 36 billion cups a year brewed nationally!

Staff at The Leprosy Mission were keen to kick start a series of tea parties and those held by supporters will raise money to help protect the health and livelihoods of the tea pickers of Bangladesh.

Leprosy Mission teams have been shocked to discover the tea gardens of Bangladesh are home to the highest leprosy rate they have seen. Nobody would have guessed leprosy would be so rife among the workforce of the beautiful tea gardens. The lush emerald slopes and the clean air epitomise health and vitality. Yet since Leprosy Mission workers began working in the tea estates of Sylhet in 2017, 1,600 new leprosy cases have been found and treated. The more the teams look, the more cases they find.

Many new cases have been found through the setting up of pop-up clinics, and Leprosy Mission teams are now working in a third of the tea gardens of Sylhet in Bangladesh. They are desperate to extend their work to all the tea gardens. There is real urgency before nerve damage caused by leprosy robs the tea pickers of the movement in their hands and therefore their ability to work.