Welcome to Christian Concern for One World
Raising awareness of global issues in churches in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire.
World AIDS Day 2008: New CCOW Resource
How can we mark World AIDS Day? 
CCOW is delighted to offer you a new resource -- "Keep the Promise" -- to help your church mark World AIDS Day. To download the resource, click on the title of this post, then go to the end of the post, and you will find the downloadable pdf file.*
"Keep the Promise" contains some suggestions for marking World AIDS Day -- if your church uses an advent wreath, for example, you could tie a red ribbon around the first candle on Advent Sunday. Or if that's not in your tradition, you might want to light a special AIDS candle, or hand our red ribbons to your congregation.
It also contains prayers. One is from the Baptist Union -- and we are grateful to the Reverend Dr. Rosemary Kidd for her contribution. One is from CAFOD, which has produced a special World AIDS Day liturgy this year. (You can download it at http://www.cafod.org.uk/worship/hiv-and-health ). Two are from clergy in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, with which the Anglican Diocese of Oxford is linked. And one is from the United Church of Zambia, with which the Wessex Synod of the United Reformed Church is linked. The latter three prayers were submitted by the linked areas especially for this resource, to enable churches there and here to pray together about this vital issue. Please do take up this opportunity. If you want more worship resources, you can also look on the resources page of the Christian HIV AIDS Alliance.
And finally, the resource offers information about what 12 different agencies are doing to combat HIV and AIDS. There are inspiring stories: Methodist Relief and Development Fund, for example, shares a piece about a Malawian woman whom MRDF partners have helped to farm her land so that she can support her family and even donate to a local orphanage. Strategies for Hope shares comments made by a Zambian group that used SFH resources to change local attitudes towards women's rights in marriage. We can praise God for all that is happening . . . and do think about taking a collection or getting involved in some way.
Going beyond the resource, if you want to find out more about getting involved, there's also a super opportunity coming up in the ACHIVA conference. We mentioned it in our last events bulletin -- wonderful speakers and a chance to see how your church can become involved in community-based responses to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The director of the Bishop Simeon Trust -- another wonderful charity working on HIV and AIDS in South Africa -- will be one keynote speaker, as will Basil Eastwood, chair of local charity Cecily's Fund, which educates children affected by AIDS in Zambia. CCOW will be there -- and we'll hope to see you!
There's also an opportunity to support another AIDS charity, I-Themba, which focuses on South Africa, on the 29th of November, when author Chris Mann and actress Janet Suzman give a benefit at St John's College, Oxford. Visit our events page for details.
Please do let us know what you are doing for World AIDS Day . . . and if we can be of help. Any comments on the resource are also welcome!
116, 993, 629
That's the number of people who "Stood Up" against Poverty between 17 and 19 October according to the UN's "Stand Against Poverty" website -- almost 2% of the world's population. Pray that this enormous show of global concern may inspire world leaders to keep their promises. Pray, too, that churches' participation may inspire Christians worldwide to continue and increase their work for God's Kingdom of justice and love, and may be a witness to God's love.
The financial crisis and its implications (click title for full post)
Many churches recently will have pondered the readings associated with Saint Matthew -- readings which remind us amidst these turbulent times of the joy and the hope that we possess, whatever the financial climate, in Christ . . . and of God's call to us to put our trust in God, rather than silver and gold (or their modern paper equivalents). These are sources of both comfort and challenge. How do we think through them? And through the profound implications of the financial crisis, not only for us in the UK, but for those who suffer in poverty globally? In this blog post over the coming weeks, we'll be posting material about what's happening and what some of the implications are, particularly as they relate to our commitments to combat poverty.
31 October 2008: Luke 12:13ff: Simplicity and freedom
Today's Gospel in the cycle I use for morning and evening prayer.
"And he said to them, 'Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.' Then he told them a parable . . . ."
Reading the parable that I recall my childhood Bibles titling "The Rich Fool" is, as ever, challenging. After all, the man's contented comment, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry" could have come out of any of the financial planning brochures that today's banks offer! So Christ's words pose a direct question to us and our systems -- where are we seeking to put our confidence . . . in the building up of "a solid cushion of wealth"? Or in God?
31 October 2008: The Global Financial Crisis -- Which Developing Countries Are at Most Risk?
Dirk Willem te Velde at ODI has written a background paper on this topic, and is also maintaining a blog. He points out that the countries most at risk are those (a) that export directly to crisis-affected countries, (b) those heavily dependent on commodities (where prices are falling) or on tourism (where numbers are falling), (c) those dependent on remittances from crisis-affected countries, on Foreign Direct Investment, or on aid, and (d) those with high current-account or budget deficits.
Those various categories include quite a large number of countries. There are, of course, some counterbalancing factors (Zambia will get less money for its copper as per (b), but is also having to pay less for oil). But what will be the impact of slower growth in the affected countries . . . on poorer households? On the achievement of the MDGs? The paper makes some comments on this, and also some suggestions about policy under the circumstances.
After Black Gold
When Joe Human retired from his job at Oxfam to the Lake District, he knew he wanted to keep campaigning for justice. But on what topic? Having arrived in the “incredibly alive and engaged community” of Keswick, he found himself joining an embryonic group that engaged with Fairtrade and wider trade issues. It was the beginning of a Fairtrade exploration that has taken him from local guesthouse dining rooms to the Ethiopian village of Choche. Amongst Fairtrade Town groups, the Keswick Fairtrade story has semi-legendary status. A large part of this has to do with their work on hospitality and tourism. While Keswick itself is a small place of about 5,000 residents, “we are,” Joe explains, “one of the most densely 'bedded' places in the country.” The 30,000 tourist beds themselves weren't of particular interest to the group, but the breakfasts that go with them are, as were the tourist cafes and restaurants that abound in the area. As part of its Fairtrade Town bid, the group launched a major campaign attempting to persuade local tourism businesses to serve Fairtrade products for breakfast and at other meals. The result? The town now has an astounding 150 tourism businesses that are engaged with Fairtrade.
About four years ago, though, the Keswick group decided to go one step further, and to see if they could develop a relationship with people in a producer community. They decided to seek out a community producing coffee (“There's quite a lot of coffee drunk in Keswick”) and expressed a preference for an African community, so that the link could help counter the negative images of Africa in the media.
An opportunity arose when Tadesse Meskela, the star of the film Black Gold, came to present the town with a Fairtrade award in 2005. Seeds were sown, and it was agreed that some of the Keswick group would go to Ethiopia to see whether they could link to one cooperative in the union Meskela represents. They went, and found Choche.
Choche is the legendary birthplace of coffee. It is a small, Fairtrade-certified cooperative in Southwest Ethiopia, about 200 miles from Addis Ababa, where about 1,000 farming families are growing coffee.
Like all Fairtrade-certified producers, the farmers in Choche are guaranteed access to the Fairtrade market, but they are not guaranteed that they will be able to find buyers. At present, in fact, they are able to sell only a relatively small proportion of their crop under Fairtrade conditions. Nonetheless, the visits which Joe and others have made to Choche over the past three years have shown the benefits of even this limited participation in the Fairtrade market.
Over the past three years, “[the Fairtrade premium] has helped the school to expand,” he notes. “[The community has built] 4 new classrooms, a library and toilet block. They've improved the community water supply through the capping of 3 springs, and they've built a new health post.”
Over time, the hope is that the Choche group will find more Fairtrade buyers, enabling it to follow in the footsteps of another Ethiopian community the Keswick group visited, Afursa Waro in Yirgacheffe, where they sell most of their coffee on the Fairtrade market. There, where there had been no school, “they now have a very smart new school that is transforming the education of the children. It will enable them to have greater choices in life and not to be coffee farmers.” This, Joe notes, is one of the tremendous benefits of Fairtrade – far from locking farmers into a particular crop, it enables farming communities, over time, to expand their options.
The visits from Keswick to Choche were reciprocated this summer, when two of the Choche farmers journeyed to the UK – a critical step given both sides' desire for the link to be “a relationship of mutual exchanges, mutual benefit.” Having people involved in exchanges at both ends has been “enormously powerful”.
For the Keswick community, indeed, the whole experience of linking has been transforming. It has “humanised” Fairtrade, Joe says. And “at another level, it's deepened our understanding of the levels of poverty that are involved and how Fair Trade is one important, very important development process, through which farming communities can be helped out of poverty.”
Joe adds: “We tend to talk about Fairtrade as transforming, or having the potential to transform other people. It also has the potential to transform our lives if we engage with it in more than just a shopping way. . . .I think it enables people to understand that we are players in a global trading system -- the free trade system -- which can have for poor producers, like Ethiopian coffee farmers, a devastating effect of their lives when it works against them.” For the Keswick group, their link has shown quite clearly what happens to the “losers” in the global trading system. “Small producers … can end up starving. And I don't use that word lightly. That is what happened in the coffee crisis in the period 2001 to 2004. People in Ethiopia were starving because the world price of coffee had collapsed. And they had to open feeding stations. It wasn't because there was a shortage of food. It was because there was a shortage of money to buy food.”
By contrast, Joe notes: “[Our link] has helped people to see ... that trade, when it works for people … is a development agency. Trade isn't something that you do independently of your lives. For people who depend on coffee or bananas, it's absolutely vital that they get a decent price for their crop, in order adequately to feed their families, but also in order to facilitate the process of economic and social development for their communities.”
To hear and see more about the Keswick/Choche link and discuss Fairtrade questions, come to the meeting!
"Cautiously optimistic" responses to new accord in Zimbabwe
Cautious optimism, relief, a sense of the fragility of the accord and an awareness of the need for healing and rapid action to help those at risk from famine seem to be some of the predominant responses to the new accord signed between Zanu-PF and the MDC.
Catholic Archbishop of Harare Robert Ndlovu said in an interview with CAFOD staff: "I am cautiously optimistic, I think the differences have been very deep and it will take a lot of courage and a lot of humility on the part of our political leaders, to really turn the situation around.
Obviously it is never too late to change such situations. But one of the worrying things at the moment is that the nation needs a lot of healing. There has been a lot of violence in the last few months and there is a lot of bitterness amongst people."
The Archbishop also called for freedom for NGOs working to relieve the food crisis in the country, and for increased assistance from regional governments.
Christian Aid partners in the area have also called for the beginning of a process of healing and restorative justice, and for work on a new constitution and on famine relief.
In the UK, the Archbishop of York, who has been strongly critical of the Mugabe regime, commented: "This is a step in the right direction on a path that will hopefully lead to a full restoration of justice, democracy and a final end to the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe.
There will be understandable caution amongst the international community who will be concerned that any aid that follows today's announcement will find its way to the poor of Zimbabwe and not to those who have abused power over the past three decades.
Hope and Inspiration at Greenbelt (click for full story)
27 August 2008
As ever, the Greenbelt festival this year offered a wide range of activities, talks, music . . . not to mention the usual combination of beautiful views. . . and lots of mud!
Of all the many things on offer, how do you pick any to feature? It's hard . . . but here are two that stood out. The first was Neema Crafts, a project that offers an opportunity for disabled people in Iringa, Tanzania, to learn new skills and find work with dignity. The project was founded by CMS mission partner Susie Hart, and Neema's activities were featured at the CMS tents. Some of the Neema dancers performed a wonderful interpretation of the parable of the wise man who built his house upon a rock (pictured 
above). Neema's beautiful crafts were on sale, and the intrepid could even have a go at making the elephant dung paper which forms the basis for some of the crafts. (Andy Hart, Susie's husband, is pictured left holding some of the raw materials . . . .)
Conversation with Andy and a browse through the Neema booklet (available on loan from CCOW) revealed, though, that what we saw was only a fraction of what, by the grace of God, was happening in the area. The Neema projects have given new hope to people who, in many cases, had experienced much rejection. And Andy, who works in the rural development department of the Diocese of Iringa, is involved with several projects that help local communities to purify water, farm bats for fertiliser, and generally improve their health and well being through sustainable, low-cost mechanisms. With all these projects, the Harts and their co-workers have been given several small miracles in terms of people who arrive with particular skills at just the right moment . . . and they are seeing some fine progress. Inspiring stuff.
An Inspiring Evening with Canon Gideon (click for full story)
(Canon Gideon with friends. Photos provided by Alison Williams, John Whitley)
July 2008
Canon Gideon Byamugisha is a man whose ministry on HIV and AIDS has inspired people around the world. He is in the UK now to speak to bishops and their spouses at the Lambeth Conference, where his topic will be The Crucial Witness: The Response of Church Leaders to HIV Stigma and Discrimination.
For many years, Canon Gideon has worked with Oxford-based charity "Strategies for Hope," which produces materials focused on community-based approaches to HIV prevention, care and support, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. What Can I Do?, a SFH book and video based on Canon Gideon's experiences as the first African priest to disclose his HIV+ status, has helped to transform attitudes towards those living with HIV in many countries. Canon Gideon is also linked to Oxford through the long-standing support of his work in Uganda by many local contributors to the Friends of Canon Gideon Foundation's Hope Institute.
Last Tuesday, Canon Gideon updated local friends and supporters on the directions his ministry is taking, and some of the continued challenges faced by people working on HIV and AIDS-related areas.
Two themes stood out: the need to help young people affected by HIV and AIDS to flourish, and the need to combat stigma.
The plight of young people who have lost their parents to AIDS is close to Canon Gideon's heart. For this reason, he and his wife look after numerous orphan children, to the point that he jokes, "If you come to my home, you may think you have entered a primary school!"
Praying and Acting for Zimbabwe (click here for more)
"Compelling evidence of violence, intimidation and outright terror; the studied harassment of the leadership of the MDC, including its Presidential candidate, by the security organs of the Zimbabwean government; the arrest and detention of the Secretary-General of the MDC; the banning of MDC public meetings; and denial of access to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, all have convinced us that free and fair elections are not possible in the political environment prevalent in Zimbabwe today." (ANC Statement on Zimbabwe, 23 June 2008)
"'You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt.22:39). Electoral processes and outcomes are not an excuse for breaching God's commandments. The sun will still rise on June 28, 2008, well after the elections. May our present conduct help Zimbabwe rise too to assume its rightful place among the nations of the world." (Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference statement, June 2008)
The deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe over the past few weeks has been the subject of immense concern for many. Aware of violent attacks like those described in this article from the New York Times and this video, how can we respond as Christians?
In recent statements, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference have requested our prayers.
"Journey to Justice" offers inspiration on debt relief . . .
The "Journey to Justice" event sponsored by Jubilee Debt Campaign on 18 May 2008 offered an inspiring reminder of all that has been accomplished on debt relief . . . and the great amount of work that remains to be done.
The message was clear: debt relief has had extraordinary results and transformed millions of lives. Tanzania, for example, has hired 62,000 new teachers. Mozambique has immunised more than a million children. These are very real causes for thanksgiving and rejoicing. But, at the same time, only 20% of unpayable debt has been cancelled. Countries still face a huge burden because of illegitimate debts (including "odious debts" made to previous oppressive regimes). Some countries are re-accumulating debts. . . . There is much more work to be done.
Highlights of the day included:
- An interview with Jubilee 2000 Coordinator Ann Pettifor and campaigner Sheenagh Burrell, looking back at the Birmingham Chain in 1998 and the "ballistically motivated" volunteers who made it possible
- a showing of Anthony Minghella's "Hole in the Bucket" film clip, made for Jubilee 2000 and still as powerful as when it was first broadcast (to see the clip, go to http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Hole20in20the20Bucket+3673.twl )
- Video messages from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu (see the messages at http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Videos20from20the20day+4404.twl )
- A panel of politicians including Caroline Spelman, MP; Andy Reid, MP; and Paul Tilsley re-affirming the "real continuity of commitment" of politicians from all parties to debt relief
- A panel on lobbying and campaigning featuring Maria Elena Arana from CAFOD, Muhammad Imran from Islamic Relief, Daleep Mukarji from Christian Aid, and Max Lawson from Oxfam that reaffirmed the importance of grassroots action ("They listen to us . . . because they're effectively listening to you" Max Lawson) and treating "development issues from the perspective of justice" (Daleep Mukarji)
- A panel of religious leaders representing the Hindu, Christian, Jewish and Sikh traditions
- A panel of Southern debt activists, including Lidy Nacpil from Jubilee South, Zambian MP Given Lubinda, Muyatwa Sitali from Jubilee Zambia, and Latoya Richards from Jamaica, who spoke of the impacts of structural adjustment and debt, the difficulties with conditionality and the need to "stop illegitimate debts from happening" afresh
- An address from another former Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, who called for new participatory mechanisms for structuring and managing loans, greater transparency, and the channeling of relief funds into broad-based development
- A look towards what needs to happen next -- and the reasoning behind JDC's new "Pick up the Pace" campaign -- with Stephen Rand, Nick Dearden and Sarah Williams of Jubilee Debt Campaign
- An address by Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of Civicus and chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty ("The White Band Campaign"), also available at http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Videos20from20the20day+4404.twl
To find out more about JDC's "Lift the Lid" campaign on illegitimate debt and its "Pick up the Pace" campaign calling for increased debt forgiveness, go to www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk .