CWS Update February 2010
>>Haiti Appeal. CWS supports NZD $27 million for relief and reconstruction read more
>> ACT Alliance. CWS a founding member of new global giant
>>New resources from CWS - World Water Day worship and the latest Youth Topics. Details
>>Haiti: Slowly a return to normal life: CWS partners get in food, water and tents. More
>>Climate change results disappoint: The campaign continues after world leader failed to listen to the voices of millions. More
>>Sudan - Rescuing the Peace: The next 12 months will be
critical for the future of Sudan as the country faces elections and a
referendum by 9 January 2011 on self-determination in the South. Read more
>>Palestine - Hopes for 2010 by Bernard Sabella: let
us hope that 2010 would witness a serious start towards working out a
genuine and lasting peace in spite of the doubts that many of us have. Read more
>>State of the World’s Indigenous people. The UN in
its in its first State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples’ report
expressed concern for the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples, 5 per
cent of the global population. Read more
>>Fiji CWS partner ECREA's latest successes
>>Lent Study Resources featuring a CWS Partner plus the EAA's Ash Wednesday Fast. More
CWS appeals for Haiti
CWS is supporting the initial ACT (Action by Churches Together)
Alliance appeal for NZD $27 million to provide immediate relief
assistance in Haiti following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake on January
12. ACT members working in the country lost offices and personnel but
have been swift to respond to the desperate need that existed even
before the earthquake struck. Reports suggest 60 - 80% of capital
Port-au-Prince were destroyed and latest estimates of the death toll
have reached 150,000. More than one million people are without shelter
with no immediate prospects of shelter in camps. An estimated 130,000
have already relocated outside the city.
ACT members are distributing food, tarpaulins, blankets, water,
water purification tablets, medical supplies to tens of thousands of
affected Haitians in and beyond Port-au-Prince as well as sanitation,
health care and psycho social care. They are also planning to offer
cash for work schemes, assistance in agriculture and income generating
activity, and reforestation programmes. Many challenges face the
response effort including the weakness of government and institutions
to coordinate relief efforts, lack of transport and congestion in the
city, logistic difficulties, shortage of materials in country and the
effects of the government strategy to resettle displaced people in
rural areas where there are no resources to spare. There is a high
risk that security for humanitarian workers may become unsafe.
CWS was relieved to hear that contact had been made with community
development partner, the Institut Culturel Karl Leveque (ICKL). One
staff member is still missing. The ICKL offices were destroyed in the
quake. CWS staff member, Nick Clarke visited the organisation in Haiti
in May last year and said that of all the places he had visited in
recent years Haiti was the one that “least needs or deserves anything
like this. The reality for many Haitians is that they are already
trapped in what is a very harsh form of poverty,’’ he said. Donate online or phone 0800 74 73 72
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ACT Alliance - A New Global Giant
The newly merged ACT International and ACT Development will be formally
launched on 24 March, 2010 with Zambian-born John Nduna as General
Secretary and former CWS director, Jill Hawkey, as deputy. It as
already started operations, with the response to the Haiti earthquake
its first test.
The ACT Alliance was formed last year and includes 150 agencies,
churches and aid groups throughout the world. It has a common income
of more than USD $2 billion per year with a staff of 40,000 including
volunteers. The new ACT alliance will undertake emergency and
development work as well as advocacy. CWS is a founding member.
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New CWS resources
Give Us a Chance is the latest edition of Youth Topics. It focuses on
the United Nations Millennium Development Goals with an eye-catching
poster with activities for young people. Please order from cws@cws.org.nz
CWS worship and background material for World Water Day on March 22
will this year focus on water quality. They will be available from the
office or website from 12 February.
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Haiti: Slowly a return to normal life
Slowly food and water have started moving in Haiti. Aid workers have
been struggling day and night to distribute goods and relief materials,
as Haitians use their imagination and initiative to create new lives
for themselves. Commercial activity is slowly recovering as an
increasing number of vendors return to the streets of Haiti's
earthquake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. The streets are still
full of rubble. Women try to clean up so, sometimes needing to hold
cloths to their faces to mask the smell of decomposing bodies.
The ACT Alliance has set up tented camps in a soccer stadium in the
Santa Teresa area of Petionville, offering shelter for the homeless
population. There, ACT photographer Paul Jeffrey found Haitians in full
swing, building makeshift homes, doing so with humour and surrounded by
the comings and goings of family life. They have given the narrow
passages between their shelters names on pieces of cardboard nailed to
temporary homes. In these communities, they try to carry out their
daily chores.
Water is a scarce commodity in Port-au-Prince. ACT has delivered a
10,000 litre water bladder to a makeshift tent city at a
partially-destroyed school in the Pean district of Port-au-Prince. A
portable water system for the homeless families has also been set up
and operates alongside an existing rainwater harvesting system.
Although the school was partially destroyed, the system was able to be
repaired by ACT personnel.
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Haiti: Cancel the debt
CWS is supporting the growing international demand to cancel Haiti’s
USD $890 million debt to multilateral debts and countries. Over half
of the money is owed to the International Monetary Fund and the
Inter-American Development Bank. Despite having USD $1.2 billion
written off last June, the country is scheduled to pay USD$10 million
this year to the International Monetary Fund. However the IMF is
considering changing the debts into grants. The World Bank has already
announced $100 million in grants to Haiti and will waive payments for
five years on the $38million owed to it and is "working to find a way
forward to cancel the remaining debt."
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Climate Change results disappoint
Global efforts by churches, international organisation, community
groups and concerned citizens failed in their efforts to pressure
global leaders to make a fair deal at Copenhagen’s climate change talks
in Copenhagen. While an agreement was reached, the Copenhagen Accord
was widely reported as a ‘Cop -Out’ (referring to the name of the talks
COP 15) as it is non-binding and not ambitious enough to make a
significant difference in global temperatures. Even the announcement
of USD $100 million a year for adaptation is not committed new money.
Political leaders did not agree to the 2 degree level identified by
scientists as necessary.
At the summit Archbishop Desmond Tutu handed over half a million
signatures to the secretary of the meeting urging them to commit to
cutting emissions by 40% from the 1990 level by 2050 and limit the rise
in global temperature to two degrees. New Zealand churches joined
bell-ringing efforts in support of more substantive commitments from
the meeting which was negotiated in secret by the world’s most powerful
nations. CWS will continue its education and advocacy efforts in the
coming year.
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Sudan: Rescuing the Peace
The next 12 months will be critical for the future of Sudan as the
country faces elections and a referendum by 9 January 2011 on
self-determination in the South. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) brought an end to the two-decades-long war between North and
South Sudan has not been fully implemented. There are widespread fears
that the country will slip back into war as violence increases. More
than 2,500 people were killed and 350,00 fled their homes during 2009,
a higher toll than reported in Darfur. Much of the violence is taking
place in remote rural areas, where the communities are poorest and the
victims are mostly women and children. The competition over natural
resources and the failure to implement the CPA are the main causes, but
it is the proliferation of small arms that is fuelling the violence
between south Sudan’s many tribes.
The Government of Southern Sudan has disarmed some civilians and
built a new police force but this along with the UN peacekeeping
mission (UNMIS) has not been sufficient to maintain security. The
year’s erratic rainfall has disrupted cultivation, destroying
livelihoods and contributed to the deteriorating humanitarian
situation. Agencies including ACT members working in the region
prepared a briefing paper, ”Rescuing the Peace in Southern Sudan”,
urging greater global attention to security and development concerns,
increased development opportunities for Sudanese and more effort from
all parties.
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Palestine: Dr Bernard Sabella reports on Christmas 2009
“…Politics is like a stage and most people just sit back and watch the
show. The most important factor for the overwhelming majority is
whether the political situation would allow them and their children to
lead a normal life. Certainly, there are issues that need to be
resolved but until this happens, most people prefer not to waste their
energy on the rarely rewarding peace process. Palestinians have grown
to be pragmatic. No, they do not acquiesce to Israeli military
occupation but at the same time the overwhelming majority among them
does not opt for violent resistance. The injustice that they see
happening on the ground with home evictions and other transgressions in
East Jerusalem, the separation wall, control mechanisms, checkpoints,
settler provocations and land grabbing make them want to see violent
resistance and wish that all settlers would disappear from their land
once and for all. But all of us know that the settlers and the
settlements will not disappear without a genuine and lasting peace
agreement.
On the economic side, things in Bethlehem appear to be good with the
arrival of thousands of pilgrims and tourists. One souvenir shop owner
on Manger Square told me on Christmas day that business is good. He
praised Russian pilgrims’ purchasing power and contrasted it to the
weak American one. No, he was not making a political statement but who
knows? The more tourists and pilgrims arrive in Bethlehem and in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories the better for all. The economic cycle
that their presence generates touches all sectors. Most often, however,
tourists and pilgrims visiting Bethlehem end up staying only for a
couple of hours which limits the potentially positive economic impact
of their visit. Many shop owners and hoteliers in Bethlehem wish that
the tourists and pilgrims would stay overnight and thus liven up the
town especially around Christmas time.
The conflict in the Holy Land is not a simple one between Palestinians
and Israelis. In a world where many of the young people in the Arab and
Muslim countries are jobless and with no real prospects for work, study
and future betterment, the Palestinian issue remains close to heart and
is a strong motivation to act. The frustration that is generated by the
absence of a just and lasting peace will for years act as an impetus to
carry on arms and to attack the forces that are seen responsible for
this grave injustice. The failure of the Western powers, and in
particular the successive American Administrations, in helping resolve
this conflict once and for all make them appear as responsible for the
injustice as much as the Israelis. In fact, some would argue that the
Western powers were responsible for creating the problem in the first
place.
… The future of this Land cannot be one based on occupation, power and
control. Without a just and lasting peace, there are no prospects for
Palestinians and Israelis to come to see each other as equal. The
longer it takes to arrive at such a peace, the more complications there
will be not simply in Palestine and Israel but in the region and
elsewhere as well. So, let us hope that 2010 would witness a serious
start towards working out a genuine and lasting peace in spite of the
doubts that many of us have.”
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State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
The UN in its in its first State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples’
report expressed concern for the world’s 370 million indigenous
peoples, 5 per cent of the global population. The report released on
14 January 2010 stated that they make up around one third of the
world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people and suffer
disproportionately higher rates of poverty, health problems, crime and
human rights abuses. More than 50 per cent of indigenous adults suffer
from Type 2 diabetes and suicide rates are considerably higher
especially among youth.
The great majority of the world’s 6 - 7,000 languages are spoken by
indigenous peoples and many, if not most, are in danger of becoming
extinct in the next 100 years. About 97 per cent of the world’s
population currently speaks 4 per cent of its languages while only 3
per cent speaks 96 per cent of them.
They face racism and discrimination and while often considered
inferior, are increasingly recognised for their unique relationship
with their environment, traditional knowledge and spirituality.
Indigenous people are also stewards of some of the most biologically
diverse areas, maintaining an immense traditional knowledge about their
ecosystems. However there are many external efforts to profit from
their culture outside of their control, providing them no benefits and
often causing a great deal of harm. The report is available at: http://www.unpo.org/content/view/10586/83/
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ECREA achievements in Fiji
CWS partner, the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy
(ECREA) achieved a number of advocacy successes in 2009. Despite the
efforts of influential business men who deferred the decision, the
Prime Minister issued new wage regulations on July 1 increasing the pay
for many workers. ECREA’s research and advocacy contributed to the
case. In response to an ECREA proposal the government has given ECREA
a community lease for land to accommodate 100 houses for people
currently in squatter settlements. People provide sweat equity and
contribute half the cost over 12 years. ECREA collected 27,000
signatures on a petition against increased bus fares for children in
the Suva area. They met with the prime minister and showed how the
increases had caused a significant drop in school attendance. The
government agreed to pay the fares to the end of the year and look at
the situation in the future.
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Lent Study Resources
From Cries of Anguish to Stories of Hope is a weekly resource looking
at the way women around the world are struggling against violence. The
first study, including background information, biblical reflection and
prayers features CWS South Indian partner and is available from the overcoming violence website.
Fast for Life! Ash Wednesday observance
The Ecumenical
Advocacy Alliance of which CWS is a member is inviting people to fast
on Ash Wednesday. The 17 February "Fast for Life" is a time to reflect
on our own consumption and commit to doing what we can to contribute to
global food security. It may be either an individual or group action.
More
than one billion people are suffering from hunger around the world.
Despite the goodness and bounty of God's gifts to us in creation, so
many people experience scarcity: famine, hunger, deprivation and want.
At the same time, there are people in all parts of the world who suffer
the effects of "too much": too much salt, sugar, fat, calories. These
are all dimensions of the unsustainable consumption of food. Our
individual decisions, as well as collective ones, have increased the
divide between the haves and the have nots. As a global society, our
sense of balance and right relations is further strained.
Please join us:
i) Fast from food as a symbolic gesture in solidarity with people living with hunger.
ii) Fast from fossil fuels - park your car and walk, ride a bike, or take public transport to help reduce greenhouse gases.
iii) Fast from over-consumption by leaving your wallet at home and commit to 'buy nothing' on 17 February.
iv)
Organize a worship service on Ash Wednesday to reflect on the
inequalities that allow for hunger and over-consumption in this world.
v) Share your resources on food consumption, reflections and prayers on Facebook on the Food for Life Campaign page:
Resources for worship, study and action are available from the EAA
Click here for PCUSA Guidelines on fasting
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