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Author: UnitingWorld

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Blogs, Campaigns, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India), Women in Ministry (Pacific Region), Women's Empowerment and Peace Building (Maluku, Indonesia)
March 7, 2024

Happy International Women’s Day!  

The theme this year is a great one: Invest in women: Accelerate progress! 

Women’s empowerment and education in places where they are excluded or marginalised has long been a pillar of global development, but lesser known are the climate benefits. 

Women make up a large proportion of the agricultural sector and produce up to 80% of the food in developing countries. When climate disasters hit, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of the impacts and they’re typically already held back by pre-existing socioeconomic disparities.  

Women are also at the forefront of climate action and are key players in sustainable development the world over. By investing in women as early as possible and ensuring their full participation, we can hear their wisdom, follow their lead and make powerful change.  

What about us in the church?  

Our church is blessed to have so many formidable and bold women leading the way in faith and justice, both in Australia and among our partners overseas.  

Here are three women we’ve been investing in! 

Rev Geraldine
Methodist Church in Fiji

Rev Geraldine from Rotuma in Fiji is an Old Testament theologian who is passionate about her community and culture. She is currently completing her PhD in theology, which was enabled through a scholarship funded by UnitingWorld supporters (thank you!)

Rev Geraldine is a strong advocate for theological education and the inclusion and leadership of women for a stronger, more vibrant church.

“We as leaders need to give space for all people to speak. Not just for scholars, but people in the community. They are living the impacts of climate change and the social issues we need to know about to direct the priorities of the church and its theology,” she says.

On climate action, she said, “the world I want to see is one where … humanity respects creation, animals and trees, because there is life in them; and where there is kindness, caring and loving. Because I see God in that world.”

 

Rev Jeny Mahupale 
Protestant Church of Maluku (GPM) 

Rev Jeny (right) is the Project Coordinator of an initiative launched last year, working across six villages to teach and equip people to build and maintain productive kitchen gardens to grow their own food.  

Thanks to UnitingWorld supporters, GPM could access the resources needed to roll out the project in some pilot locations and is now expanding across the villages. Rev Jeny’s team has even been running popular workshops to show communities how to make their own organic fertilisers!  

Rev Jeny is also passionate about peacebuilding (she has been recognised by the United Nations for her work) and a central part of the project is to outreach to Muslim communities to build peace and greater understanding of God’s love for all creation. 

She and her team recently gave away 1,000 tree and plant seedlings in a single day as an outreach of the church, and to build awareness about the kitchen gardens project. 

“Please, as humans, let’s work together for saving the earth – saving our children’s future. Thank you so much for all your support for UnitingWorld and for us in the east part of Indonesia. One plant you give, one vegetable seed you share, is same as you share your breath for other people and nature. Thank You. big hug from Ambon-Maluku, East Indonesia.” 

Sophia Lakra,
Church of North India – Diocese of Durgapur 

Sophia is a Program Facilitator for the Community Development Program we support in Durgapur, North India, and is passionate about expanding education access for those who are traditionally marginalised because of poverty, gender or caste.  

During the pandemic, she kept her school’s vacation program going safely by organising a virtual summer camp! Engaging the children’s creativity kept the children connected throughout the holidays during an isolating time. 

“I want to see a world where all children can access education, and all the children who come to our programs are hopeful for a better future. One way to do it is by making children and all people aware of how to take care of the environment. We can plant trees, save water, take care of plants, animals, birds…,” she said recently.

  

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News
January 22, 2024

Lent Event is inspired by a simple but powerful idea. That every one of us has a role to play in building a world free from poverty and injustice.

It’s especially true of the issue of climate change.

Climate change is worsening every threat to peace, security and human wellbeing in our world.

It’s going to take all of us, doing all we can, with all our hearts, to fight it.

We believe people of faith have a powerful role to play in taking meaningful climate action, as well as inspiring hope and courage to face the future.

Join us for Lent Event. 14 February – 28 March, 2024

Commit to 40 days of faithful action for God’s creation. Start wherever you’re at with a large or small sustainability challenge. Use it to fundraise to help vulnerable communities who are fighting to build resilience and mitigate climate impacts. Raise your voice.

Along the way, we’ll be considering the role of faith in caring for God’s creation through a series of short devotions and video interviews with our partners and theologians.

Here’s a little pitch video with the help from some of our partners sharing the world we want to see…

Sign up today and start inspiring others to join! www.lentevent.com.au

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News
January 7, 2024

The second annual Pacific Australian Emerging Leaders’ Summit (PAELS) took place in December.

More than 70 young Christian leaders from across the Pacific and Australia came together for connection-building, leadership development and dialogue over a week-long program, coordinated by Micah Australia*.

As part of the program, delegates were hosted for worship services at Blacktown Regional Uniting Church and Campbelltown Uniting Church.

At Blacktown Uniting, President Elect of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev Charissa Suli, gave a sermon that encouraged the young delegates to boldly share their stories and their authentic selves.

“Your advocacy and voices are critical in shaping a future where the dignity of all human life and God’s creation is recognised and celebrated,” she told them.

Delegates went on to two days of advocacy training and a day of meetings with more than 50 members of Parliament in Canberra, where they discussed key development priorities for young people and their communities.

Raúl Sugunananthan, Policy and Advocacy Officer for the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly was one of those leaders. He spoke to us at Parliament House about the importance of community organising and political advocacy to make change. Watch what he shared below.

*UnitingWorld is a member of Micah Australia, a movement of Australian Christians to advocate on the most urgent global justice issues facing our world today – extreme poverty, rising conflict and climate change.

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News
December 5, 2023

UnitingWorld’s Annual Report 2023 is now available.

We’re blessed to be a part of a powerful network of people and organisations working together to make sustainable progress to end poverty in our world.

In an era of deepening crises and rapid transitions, UnitingWorld faithfully continues the work of partnering with churches in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. This work enables many to live with dignity and hope, and to realise their God-given potential in their communities.

The work of UnitingWorld is sustained by the love, prayers, and generosity of our supporters across Australia. Our donors have stood with us, funding our long-term programs, and digging deep to support emergency appeals.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our supporters and determination of our partners, in FY23 we reached 257,502 people with tangible benefits, across 27 projects in 12 countries with 22 partners. Our projects addressed poverty, gender equality and climate resilience, and supported stronger governance and management.

Thank you so much!

You can read more about your impact. Click here to read or download.

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News
October 24, 2023

Everything in Common is UnitingWorld’s gift catalogue, filled with gifts that fight poverty through health, education, leadership and income opportunities.

When people give Everything in Common gifts, it directly supports our projects helping people lead lives of dignity and hope.

You can help us make a big difference by becoming an Everything in Common Advocate and hosting a gift stall in your church, school or community group in the lead up to Christmas this year.

We’ll send you everything you need to help your community make a big difference.

Register Now: www.unitingworld.org.au/everythingincommon

Or for more information, reach out on 1800 998 122
or email Mardi at mardil@unitingworld.org.au

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Church Partnership Program (PNG), News, Project Updates
September 25, 2023

Since 2004, the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) have worked in partnership with PNG’s seven mainline churches and their respective Australian partners to promote ‘holistic, inclusive, and sustainable development’ under the Church Partnership Program (CPP).

UnitingWorld and our partner, the the United Church in Papua New Guinea (UCPNG), have been part of the CPP since its beginning. It is now one of the longest ongoing projects of Australia’s aid program. The CPP supports churches to improve their capacity to deliver crucial health and education services, especially in rural and remote areas, as well as a broad range of activities in support of gender equality and social inclusion, peace and prosperity, and disaster risk reduction.

In 2004 it was acknowledged that half the health and education services in PNG were run by churches and church-based agencies. Today it’s closer to 70 percent!

As a result, the CPP’s new phase aims to shift the emphasis from a service delivery model to a social accountability model, recognising that the PNG government needs to be held responsible and that it needs to have the capacity to deliver vital services to its people.

“The new focus of the CPP is about empowering civil society to hold their government to account to provide the country’s health and education services,” said UnitingWorld Head of Programs Peter Keegan. “To do that requires the kind of broad-based collaboration that already exists between churches via the CPP.”

Peter joined other CPP member churches in Port Moresby recently for a two-day forum to “Rethink development in PNG through theological principles and effective governance”.

Speaking at the forum, the Australian High  Commissioner to Papua New Guinea Jon Philp reflected: “Church networks and activities are often seen as a lifeline for the country’s most remote and disadvantaged communities, and they are equally important to PNG’s growing urban population. The success of the Church Partnership Program relies on the reach and impact of this network, along with the collective commitment of the churches, government, the private sector, civil society, and other partners.”

United Church in PNG leading the way on gender equality and social inclusion

One of the remarkable successes of the CPP is that through the partnership, despite each of the seven church denominations in PNG having very different theological and organisational cultures and traditions, they are working together to change lives.

UCPNG is the lead agency on Gender Equality Theology and social inclusion within the CPP and is determined to keep this central to their church’s mission.

As PNG remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman or girl, the task of shifting cultures of men’s violence is a huge, long-term challenge.

The CPP has a critical role to play. Representing 71 percent of the country’s Christian population, CPP member churches wield enormous social influence.

The current phase of the project aims to better leverage the influence of church leaders and increase the community outreach of churches to shift negative gender and social attitudes that are commonly held in PNG towards women, people with disabilities and other socially excluded groups.

Working with media partners, churches will be helped to develop media engagement strategies that enable them to engage multiple forms of media (print, radio, digital) more effectively to maximize the reach and influence of messages of gender equality and anti-violence.

The CPP will also be tracking changes to community attitudes to be able to demonstrate the impact. We’re excited to see the results!

Please pray for the vital mission of the Church Partnership Program as it enters its 20th year of faithful collaboration to improve lives and communities.

For more details on the new phase of the CPP in Papua New Guinea, visit www.unitingworld.org.au/projects/church-partnership-program

 

Photos: UCPNG staff at a recent workshop and talanoa on the impacts of gender-based violence in PNG.

 

The Church Partnership Program is supported by the Australian Government
through the Papua New Guinea–Australia Partnership.

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Uncategorized, Women's Empowerment and Peace Building (Maluku, Indonesia)
September 13, 2023

Reverend Jeny Mahupale is the Project Manager of the livelihoods and peacebuilding project we support in partnership with the Protestant Church of Maluku (GPM). She wrote this letter to partners in Australia about her team’s work to help families across six villages be able to start their own gardens and build local food security.

Dear friends,

Greetings from beautiful Maluku!

We often tell each other here that Maluku is filled with the ‘grace of God’. There is an abundance of beauty and natural resources, people are kind and hospitable and have a strong sense of local wisdom.

The main challenges here are poverty and malnutrition among families, as well as the effects of conflict, COVID-19 and recent earthquakes. And here in the east, Maluku and Papua have always been overlooked from the rest of Indonesia and suffer unequal development.

So, the church has a big role to play.

Before we started kitchen gardens in the community, the Protestant Church of Maluku (GPM) built our own to show people what was possible. So many of them have come to learn!

We started our garden by improving a vacant area that used to be landfill and, just a few months later, we now have sixteen garden beds filled with water spinach, kale, pumpkin and other vegetables on the way.

We even sold our organic spinach to a local restaurant!

We quickly realised how great it is for our physical and mental health too: clearing the land, preparing the soil, creating organic fertiliser, planting the seeds, watering. We understood that this work is not just about gardening and food production, it’s about our whole lives.

Through the process we developed better relationships and attention to the soil, the weather, the environment and each other.

We feel like we grow as the garden grows. We want that for the whole community.

UnitingWorld is our only international partner, and I want you all to know that we see you as part of this community, serving here with us.

Thank you for helping us to grow strong as an organisation ourselves. Over the last ten years you’ve helped us to stand on our own two feet and we hope the partnership continues to get stronger and stronger.

Please pray for the people of Maluku and that we at GPM can keep living, keep serving our communities and keep giving life to those who really need it.

We are all praying for you in Australia too.

In peace,

Rev Jeny Mahupale,
Protestant Church of Maluku

P.S. Here’s some of what we’ve been growing and harvesting in the community lately! We’re planting tomatoes this week too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want to help?

We’ve launched an appeal to support our partners in Maluku and Timor-Leste to tackle the food crisis and build local food security.
Please visit www.unitingworld.org.au/foodcrisis to donate.

 

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Community Health & Infant Nutrition (Timor Leste), Women's Empowerment and Peace Building (Maluku, Indonesia)
September 8, 2023

There’s a food crisis in two of the poorest places in our region.
Our partners have a plan to beat it.

Malnutrition, particularly among children, has been a huge problem in Timor-Leste and Maluku (East Indonesia) and now there is a hidden hunger crisis being made worse by the rising cost of living, global conflict and climate change.

In Timor-Leste, the prevalence of stunting, impaired growth and development caused by malnutrition, in children under five is 47 percent, among the highest in the world. In Maluku, 34 percent of children under five are stunted.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made things more difficult; reducing wheat production, wrecking supply chains and inflating the price of food imports. Experts say the global food situation is set to worsen with the ongoing conflict and will continue to hit the poor the hardest.

We asked our partners how we could best help, and they told us they had a sustainable, local solution to the crisis. Gardening!

Hundreds of families growing their own food right where they live.

The Director of our partner FUSONA* is passionate about equipping families to tackle the food crisis themselves.

“We want every family and community to have the opportunity to produce their own food to eat and improve their health. And if they want to earn an income they can plant extra to sell,” he said.

“People will apply their own time and energy to generate their food and income. We will provide seeds, equipment and education, and accompany families at every step of the way.”

Part of the project will be to educate people about the importance of good nutrition and sanitation.

“So far, we’ve been successfully showing people how to grow sweet potato, eggplant, spinach and green mustard… people have been coming to the church to learn more and join in,” he says.

“I believe we can impact thousands of lives with this approach and reduce malnutrition for children in Timor-Leste.”

We’ve launched an appeal to support our partners in Timor-Leste and Maluku to tackle the food crisis and help ensure as many children as possible do not go hungry. You can find out more about their projects and donate at www.unitingworld.org.au/foodcrisis

*FUSONA is the development agency of our partner church, the Protestant Church of Timor-Leste (IPTL)

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Campaigns, Community Health & Infant Nutrition (Timor Leste), News
August 24, 2023

Act2 is a major transformational change project focused on shaping the future of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). As part of the Act2 Project, every Uniting Church member, council and community is being invited to take part.

We’ve contributed our perspective through a written submission, and in an online forum where we were joined by international partners. Rev Dr Cliff Bird from the United Church in the Solomon Islands (UCSI) was a panellist in the forum and shared some generous feedback about what partnership with the UCA has meant to UCSI.

“Our understanding of mission has evolved since we entered into partnership with the Uniting Church in Australia. It has been broadened and enriched as it has moved from a narrowly spiritualistic understanding to a more holistic understanding,” he said. “We now share a greater focus on practical concerns like ending poverty and violence against women and taking faithful action on climate change. These were not seen as core business of the church, but now they are part of our life and understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.”

Rev Dr Bird also pointed to how the partnership has strengthened UCSI as an institution. “Our decision-making processes have improved along with our ability to look inwardly. It has resulted in us becoming more accountable and transparent and create more rigorous policies and procedures. We’re so grateful to be able to share knowledge and expertise, stories and resources back and forth with our partners in Australia as elsewhere.”

In our written submission to Act2, we highlighted some strengths of the UCA and major challenges as we see it. We also provided some ideas for change and how we and our international partners could help:

“As Christianity becomes a minority faith in an increasingly diverse and secular Australia, we have much to learn from our partner churches who come from multifaith contexts, and who fight poverty and injustice with dogged determination without diluting their identity as Christians or being reticent about sharing God’s desire to know and love all people.”

You can read our full submission here.
You can watch the recording of the online International Partnerships and Ecumenical Relationships forum here or read a reflection/summary of the discussions here.

If you’re reading this, you care about the mission of the Uniting Church – please contribute your thoughts and ideas to the Act2 project. Discerning the shape of the UCA in future needs all the wisdom we can gather.

Find out more about the Act2 Project and how you can engage at www.act2uca.com.

 

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Uncategorized
July 19, 2023

In the final months of the financial year, you, our supporters, helped us reach our target of $500,000 to support the life-changing work of our partners.

The funds we raised together helps us to co-invest with the Australian Government and make a bigger impact through our poverty alleviation and climate change projects.    

Thank you to everyone who helped us get there! It will go a long way to help end poverty and injustice in our world through the love and dedication of our partners in in the Pacific, Asia and Africa.

Each one of you was part of the story we told. Komang and his family were able to discover a whole new future, free from poverty, because of the network formed by you and others working together to make powerful change. 

We are now in the middle of collecting reports, information and stories on what was achieved in the last financial year, and we look forward to sharing our Annual Report with you later this year.