‘And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.’ Colossians 3:15
Lent is a time of repentance, fasting, and preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time of reflection regarding the suffering, death, and resurrection of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is also time for self-examination and reflection, for us to redirect and rededicate our attention and action, prayerfully, to the most crying needs in our society.
Let us heed Pope Francis’s call to a day of prayer and fasting for peace in South Sudan the Democratic Republic of Congo, to be held on 23 February, in the first week of Lent according to the Gregorian calendar. Let us join in prayer and fasting, as part of the global ecumenical movement in light of the ongoing social- political tension, violence, and the suffering of the affected peoples in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan.
In the DRC, 4.3 million people are displaced throughout the country and 13.1 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance throughout the country this year.
In South Sudan, 2 million people have fled the young nation as refugees and about 1.9 million people are internally displaced, over the past four years of conflict- with 7 million people inside the country – that is almost two-thirds of the remaining population – still need humanitarian assistance.
Children, young men, and women have been among the most affected. Millions of women and girls are exposed to gender-based violence in these crisis-affected areas.
The churches and communities are dedicated and present in these communities, accompanying the affected people through these challenging times. We acknowledge the courageous and hopeful work that carries on each day to serve the people in need. May the prayers of all Christians on 23 February for the gift of peace be a sign of solidarity and closeness to those suffering in South Sudan and DRC.
May God bless you and your ministry during this season of Lent,
The President of the Methodist Church in Fiji (MCIF) is to join the crew of Fiji’s iconic traditional sailing canoe the ‘Uto Ni Yalo’ this week, as it sails to Matuku in the Lau group of islands.
Rev. Dr Tevita Nawadra Bainivanua will join the Uto Ni Yalo in Moala and participate in activities on the island that focuses on building community resilience to climate change as well as explore opportunities to advance traditional seafaring as a means of reducing Fiji’s eastern islands reliance on fossil fuels.
He and his wife will then sail on the Uto Ni Yalo to Matuku where they will join in environmental and climate change awareness activities as well as officiating the induction of the Divisional Superintendent of the Methodist Church’s Matuku Division.
“I have followed the voyages of the Uto Ni Yalo and heard a lot about their work and mission from their volunteer chaplain Rev. James Bhagwan,” said Rev. Dr. Banivanua.
“The church’s symbol of its New Exodus is a Drua sailing through rough seas. The work of the Uto Ni Yalo Trust is an example to the church of visionary courage and commitment to care for the ocean and environment and resilience in the face of climate change through sustainable sea transport.”
“I’m grateful to the Trust for accommodating me on their voyage and look forward to a taste of what they experience in their voyaging.”
Uto ni Yalo Trust secretary Dwain Q alovaki says that the Lau group of islands is highly biodiverse in reef fish that support wellbeing and livelihoods. The Lau voyage is an opportunity to progress community-led solutions to climate change among our maritime islands by employing a faith-based approach to environmental stewardship.
It doesn’t matter where I travel across this world of ours – China’s lakeside Colleges, India’s dusty villages, a storm-chewed community in one of Fiji’s most lush northern valleys – it’s always the mothers who sidle up to me for a chat. Maybe I’m a bit unusual – the white woman grinning at their kids among the men who come here as dignitaries, diagnosticians or dispensers of cash. These women hold quiet power in their communities – they’re tellers of stories and keepers of knowledge. And they’re keen to connect.
Today it’s Anna: mother of two, intelligent, articulate and gently spoken. She talks about her village, Nausori, squeezed tight in Cyclone Winston’s fist as houses and people alike are shaken and stirred. Her sister’s home was taken apart while the whole family ran, taking nothing with them, to a neighbour. They still live there today. Anna’s sister is pregnant. The government has stepped up, but with more than 60,000 people left homeless in Fiji after Winston, the job is huge.
This is what’s left of the family home.
As we talk together, women gather in the nearby church, praying and singing. Their voices drift across the valley, right on dusk, and I wonder yet again about the place of faith in this country. The majority of people are believers of one kind or another, although the traditional Christian denominations have recently lost some ground to other flavours, from the spice of Pentecostalism to Adventist wholefoods. Hindus have always existed reasonably happily alongside the majority Christian population, and so have Muslims. It’s hard to say what they all make, collectively, of the constant battering the Pacific takes from natural disasters. Fijians – and you’ll know this if you’ve been there on holiday – are a friendly, laid-back people. They pitch in. They accept life. And they love their church. Why?
Because the church stands strong when everything else is shaken.
We’re helping this village and others “Build Back Better” – hat tip to Australian Aid through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. UnitingWorld’s support happens in partnership with the local church, which is respected and revered. It’s not Australia. There’s little scepticism here. In fact, the sight of a shattered church high on the hill in the middle of a village is so demoralising for Pacific people that it’s often repaired first – a defiant sign that the phoenix rises from the ashes. The local church is a place of respite not only for people in need throughout the year, but people shelter in her arms during cyclone and storm. It symbolises strength, unity and the certainty that something bigger is at play in the universe. As we leave the village in the growing darkness, children are playing outside the church, where light spills from within and prayers are rising. It’s not even a Sunday.
Churches in Fiji are taking the lead in the “Build Back” campaign – not just in the obvious ways, with bricks and mortar, but assisting with long term plans to plant the right crops for the changing climate so that communities can stay in rural areas, helping train carpenters so that the ‘drain’ of skills to the city doesn’t continue. God’s people are determined to get on with the business of living in ways that demonstrate the hands-on approach of Jesus, proof that God is alive and well in the Pacific. This is a culture where faith is still central – the Bible is the ‘go to’ for everything in life and the church is a genuine change maker in society. Call it gospel living, call it what you like. People of faith make a difference. The Pacific church restores hope, sets a light on a hill, rebuilds what is broken, sorts out practical stuff like where to find food and comfort. In short, the church is a mover and a shaker. And people respond with love.
That’s why we continue not only to learn from our Pacific neighbours, but to draw hope from their example. So many of our people over the years served faithfully in the Pacific as missionaries – in word and deed. This is their legacy. So many Pacific people now find their homes within the Uniting Church of Australia, sharing their gifts with us. Our bonds are strong.
Please share the news of our most recent project together: saving lives by preparing communities to withstand disasters before they strike. $1 invested now can save $15 in the aftermath of a cyclone, storm or flood. Every dollar adds up. Please give if you’re able.
The Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) has called for the urgent implementation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and for leaders to hear the voices of Pacific Islanders – the most vulnerable people to the impacts of climate change.
The PCC made its statement during a meeting of church leaders in Auckland, New Zealand this week.
The meeting comes as Fiji prepares to chair the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23), the annual climate change conference of 196 countries to be held in Bonn, Germany in November.
The statement calls on governments to increase their pledges to keep the global average temperature rise below 1.5℃, and to support local and community-based approaches to risk management and climate change resilience.
The Pacific Church leaders said: “We exercise our prophetic voice as churches and believers of the faith to amplify the cries of our people and Moana (ocean) who are directly or indirectly affected by climate change and encourage the spirit of stewardship among ourselves as custodians of God’s creation.”
“We recognise the existing local knowledge and community strengths as an important factor in building a more sustainable and climate resilient Pacific. We call for full consultation and participation of our communities in national climate adaptation planning processes… and to create a new culture of proactive rather than reactive risk management.”
UnitingWorld this week launched an appeal to support our partner churches in the Pacific as they build critical resilience to disasters and climate change. Our partners have highlighted their urgent need for disaster preparation and how it will save lives in their communities.
The PCC also issued statements on nuclear proliferation in the region and a series of ‘calls to action’ on the self-determination of Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville, the French territory of New Caledonia and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Pacific church leaders also called on churches in Australia and New Zealand to be spaces where Pacific Island diaspora communities are affirmed of their identities.
The PCC is a fellowship of 27 churches and nine member councils of churches in 17 island states across the Pacific. The Uniting Church in Australia is a member.
Almost exactly two months after our son died in 2004, some 250,000 people were killed by a series of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. It was described at the time as the worst tsunami event the world had ever seen. I didn’t watch any of the footage. That kind of graphic imagery simply wasn’t needed to help me share a tiny fraction of the pain and loss countless families were experiencing around the world in that moment.
Death, especially unexpected death, doesn’t just leave us gutted. It leaves us helpless and angry. In the outpouring of grief and gifts following the Boxing Day Tsunami, as well as in the expressions of love we received after Hugh’s death, there was a common theme: if only we could have done something – anything – to prevent this cavernous loss.
Here’s the astonishing fact. Often we can. We just choose not to.
Massive-scale loss – of life, homes and livelihoods in natural disasters – is preventable. So are the deaths of individuals like Hughie, babies who die at the rate of 2000 a day from complications arising form dirty water. Each of these lives matter no less than Hugh’s.
Preventable.
We’ve heard a lot about how to prevent the deaths of children from disease, but natural disasters seem to fall into a different hand-wringing category altogether. They’re so random! So mercilessly destructive!
True, and an earthquake measuring 9.2 on the Richter Scale underneath the Indian ocean is always going to create havoc. But here’s the thing. The sheer number of lives lost and ruined by natural disasters can be dramatically reduced.
Here’s how:
Investing in early warning systems and planning for evacuation, especially in isolated regions and areas where poverty is widespread – co-incidentally often the places where natural disasters strike hardest
Training leaders in life saving responses before, during and after emergency, and giving them the resources they need to carry them out
Building housing and shelters in areas that are less likely to be hammered by storms, floods, quakes and the slow death march of changing climate
Planning for water and food supplies that can survive sudden shocks so that people don’t fall critically ill or lose their means of making a living after disaster
In the years following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011, which killed almost 16,000 people, all these steps were put in place. It cost billions of dollars. But the result is that people live with a great deal more security – not certainty, but security – about their chances of surviving natural disasters, short and long term.
It’s simply not the case for others in the Asia/Pacific region, where 70% of the world’s worst natural disasters wreak their unholy havoc. These nations are too poor, too under-resourced, and too far from the media spotlight to thoroughly invest in the kind of changes that would increase survival rates. They only hit the headlines once their men, women and children are washed up on beaches or buried alive beneath the mud.
And that’s when the world suddenly digs deep to give, to grieve and to ask one another: “How can Mother Nature be so cruel?”
There’s actually a better question to ask, but few of us will confront it head on. It’s along the lines of “How can human beings be so short-sighted?”
Classrooms being ‘built back better’ in Fiji
If we know how to save lives today, why do we wait until it’s too late?
Of course, the answer to that question is as complex as humanity itself. Some of us are genuinely unaware of how effective Disaster Risk Reduction is, how to go about supporting it, or how it’s desperately needed in parts of the world where poverty already robs people of so much. Some of us are only moved by the plight of our neighbours once we see them clutching their children and wading through waist-deep water, or burying their loved ones. And all those reactions are human.
But here are the facts. Just $1 invested in preparation before a disaster saves $15 in recovery efforts later. That means the money you invest today is 15 times more effective than giving it after the disaster hits. The economic kickbacks of preparing communities to plan, build and shock proof are astronomical. But the lives saved are even more impressive.
If only there was something we could have done? There is. Don’t let others die while we’re wondering.
The Uniting Church in Australia Assembly Standing Committee has approved the appointment of Dr Sureka Goringe as the National Director of UnitingWorld.
Dr Goringe is currently UnitingWorld’s Associate Director of International Programs for the Pacific region and a previous Chairperson of UnitingWorld’s Relief and Development National Committee.
The General Secretary of the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly Colleen Geyer has welcomed Dr Goringe’s appointment.
“Sureka is a dynamic and passionate advocate of the Uniting Church’s overseas mission work who’s built strong relationships with our church partners in her current role.”
“I look forward to working with her as she takes up this key leadership role, and to Sureka’s continued contribution to our shared expression of God’s mission to change lives for the better around the world,” said Ms Geyer.
Dr Goringe succeeds outgoing National Director Rob Floyd, who is taking up the role of Associate General Secretary in the newly created Assembly Resourcing Unit.
“Rough day at work, hey?” says my fifteen year old with a grin when she comes home and notices the first draft for our upcoming UnitingWorld campaign.
“We don’t believe in charity,” declares my scrawl on a large sheet of paper, folded in two.
It’s a tagline probably worthy of the raised eyebrow. For years when they were younger, whenever other kids asked our girls what their parents did, they tended to reply that we ‘worked for charities.’ It was easier than explaining the ins and outs of overseas aid or social entrepreneurship here in Sydney. Everyone gets the concept of charity: “Generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill or helpless”. Good stuff, right?
“Open it up,” I tell Jem. “You have to read the next bit.”
Inside: We don’t believe in charity. We believe in solidarity.
“Ah,” says Jem. “Nice.”
“We believe in solidarity.”
None of us want to be regarded as ‘charity cases.’ We’d much rather just be people – with strengths and weaknesses, sure – but always essentially just people. Charity is a beautiful word of course – it’s always meant love and brotherhood, generosity, kindness. But it sometimes feels like it also has overtones of pity, distance: “I’m giving because I feel sorry for you, and you’re so helpless, so here: please take this.” Even better than charity, I think, is solidarity – the idea that our equal and shared humanity is what matters most, even if the details of our experience are sometimes quite different.
Eduardo Galeano wrote: “I don’t believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”
Solidarity recognises that beneath the cards that life has dealt us, we’re equally human, with equal strengths and weaknesses, even if they’re vastly magnified by our circumstances. Making the quiet effort to redistribute our resources is a respectful (if inadequate) attempt to recognise this. You could argue it’s just semantics, but I think it’s actually important.
In West Timor I met Betcy, a mum probably around my age.
Betcy has four children, and although she’s functionally blind she used a low interest loan from the Church of West Timor to start a small business selling used clothes and saved enough money to build her own home. It has almost-reliable electricity, a shared bed for the three boys, and a brand new water tank to safeguard their often-dirty water supply. When she speaks about the dreams she has for her children (another small loan to send her eldest to university to study engineering, for example), and when she proudly shows me the wardrobe where her children hang their school uniforms, or shyly grins at the antics of her eight year old daughter chasing the family dog – we share one of those wordless ‘mum’ moments. That’s about all it takes.
Betcy and her daughter
I come home here to my house with the two bathrooms, the car that conveniently beeps as I mow down my recycling bin on the way to my children’s excellent schools, and Betcy stays with me. She’s with me in the knowledge that I have a huge amount of practical resources to share, simply because I was born in a different place, through no merit of my own. She’s here in the knowledge that resilience, courage, love and aspiration are universal, and that my children are not the only ones who deserve to have those dreams nurtured. She’s alongside me in the certainty that “poor people” are not helpless – they’re determined, creative and capable. And they may be in some cases geographically removed, but they share many of my life experiences.
Most especially, I realise that any one of us could be Betcy if the world tilted its axis just a fraction and the lottery of birth placed us somewhere where rains stubbornly refused to fall or life is shattered in a hail of bullets; if our parents had to choose between sending us to school or finding us work to do to help keep the family fed. All of this knowledge and the shared humanity it points to – that’s solidarity.
This knowledge changes how I live, what I think, how I use my money and my time. Before you offer me a sainthood, I’m a reluctant learner. Always.
Does this lead to generous acts and donations? Hopefully. But not just edge of my life, got-a-bit-left-over donations from pity. Ideally, this is using the resources I have in an attempt to express genuine respect for people who are fully human, fully deserving of the same opportunities as me and my family, and fully able to make use of them. Giving money this way might mean I go without something I’d kinda like. Because three quarters of the world go without things that kinda-keep-them-alive, and they have every much a right to that life as I do.
For me, solidarity will always be more meaningful than charity. So no, Jem, it wasn’t a rough day at work. It was another good one, and I’m grateful as always for everything I learn with UnitingWorld and with our partners in West Timor, Fiji, India, China, Vanuatu and South Sudan. Most especially, I’m grateful for the confronting and motivating fact of our equal, beautiful and shared humanity. I’ll continue to learn and be challenged by how to respond to it.
– Cath
Support determined, creative and capable people freeing themselves from poverty by making a tax-deductible donation to our End of Financial Year campaign before June 30:
The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has announced a consortium of eight church agencies, as one of the successful agencies that tendered for the Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP).
The “Church Agencies Network Disaster Operation” (CAN DO) consortium comprises of Caritas Australia (consortium leader), Act for Peace, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency Australia, Anglican Board of Mission, Anglican Overseas Aid, the Australian Lutheran World Service, Transform Aid International (Baptist World Aid Australia) and UnitingWorld.
The AHP is a five-year $50 million commitment from the Australian government which brings together six NGOs (Care, Caritas/CAN DO, Oxfam, Plan International, Save the Children and World Vision) to rapidly respond to global crises.
The AHP also has a new strategic focus on Pacific preparedness and resilience work. This new focus, in particular building capacity of local organisations, will enhance the effectiveness of the CAN DO networks ongoing disaster preparedness work through its extensive network of churches across the Pacific.
Speaking at the AHP’s launch in Brisbane today, Foreign Minister Bishop said the partnership will increase the capacity of local organisations and communities to manage crises.
“Building on the NGOs’ extensive regional networks, we will help to ensure Pacific nations are more resilient to disasters, and can more quickly rebuild and return peoples’ lives to normal,” Ms Bishop said.
CAN DO Chair, Anthony Sell, said the network members will use their extensive network of Church partners throughout the Pacific to reduce the disaster risk of highly vulnerable urban, rural and remote island communities.
“As individual agencies we already play respond well to natural disasters. By joining together into a strong network, we can make an even greater difference, especially to vulnerable communities in neighbouring Pacific countries,” Mr Sell said.
“CAN DO enables us to pre-position, prepare and resource churches to be first responders. We will apply our strong, lifesaving programs to help the most vulnerable in these communities,” Mr O’Callaghan said.
All members of CAN DO are signatories to the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Code of Conduct. CAN DO is a member of the Australian Humanitarian Partnershipbetween the Australian Government and some of Australia’s leading international NGOs. The AHP has a strategic focus on Pacific preparedness and resilience work, in particular building capacity of local organisations across the region to manage disasters more effectively.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Australia’s worst maritime disaster, the sale of Margaret Reeson’s books will support UnitingWorld’s work in the Pacific.
On 1 July 1942, the Japanese ship Montevideo Maru was sunk by an Allied submarine off the coast of off the coast of Luzon, Philippines. It was later revealed that it was carrying more than 1000
Montevideo Maru memorial at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra
prisoners of war, mostly Australians, all of whom died in the sinking. The tragic event remains Australia’s worst maritime disaster.
A lesser told story, is that among the prisoners were ten Methodist missionaries who had been captured by the Japanese in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea and were being transferred to Hainan, off southern China.
Margaret Reeson, a prominent author, historian and leader in the Uniting Church in Australia has written two books on the sinking of Montevideo Maru, recounting the untold stories of the prisoners, survivors and the families who waited years for reliable news about their loved ones. Margaret herself was a Methodist missionary who worked in the Highlands region of Papua New Guinea in the 1960s and 70s.
To mark the 75th Anniversary of the Montevideo Maru, Margaret Reeson’s two books are on sale and 75% of the proceeds will go to UnitingWorld’s work in the Pacific.
A Very Long War (2000) $20
Describes the deep impact on those affected by the sinking of the Montevideo Maru, the families of the missing and the wider Rabaul community.
“A respectful narrative, beautifully told…shocking stories treated with insight and restraint. A book of hope and healing.”
“A tragic and largely uncommemorated episode of Australian war history, although this sensitive book, generously illustrated, goes some way towards rectifying that omission.” —The Australian
Whereabouts Unknown (1993) $24
The moving story of those who disappeared after the fall of Rabaul in 1942, the mystery of the loss of over 1000 POW’s with the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, and the pain of wives and families who waited in vain for news. It also recounts the experiences of a handful of Australian nurses, captured and transported to Japan, four of them Methodist missionaries.
To be totally honest, I didn’t think a beauty salon business was going to make the most compelling ‘poverty alleviation’ story I’d ever seen. Um – why are people in this highly disadvantaged part of the world popping off for a manicure? Surely they have better things to be doing with their money?
This, I confess, is the narrative running through my sweat-addled brain as we haul up in a hilly neighbourhood outside West Timor’s capital of Kupang, where motorbikes clog the winding streets and the air is thick with humidity. And then I meet Ana and Aron, clearly delighted but also a bundle of nerves to host us in the small home they share with their four year old son Ryder (…I know. I’m not sure where that came from, but Ryder is wearing Power Ranger shorts pulled up to his chin, and he’s entirely awesome).
It’s a beautiful house, tended with loving hands. Stones line the paths; there are handmade shell windchimes and mobiles; plants and colourful pots are carefully arranged around the door. Whatever else you think you know about ‘people living in poverty’, plant this one right here: creatives are creative no matter where you find them and how much money they have to “spare”.
Simple humanity is a complex thing to deal with. Taking in the scene of creative domesticity before me, a handmade wind-chime hits hard: you are like me. You value beauty and self expression. It’s life-giving. You’ll fight to preserve it no matter what. And that makes you no longer ‘other’ – the poor West Timorese woman – but a mum like me, finding the hopeful and the happy, the quirky, in the midst of the mess.
Many of us are curiously reluctant to acknowledge simple humanity in people who have less – the right to leisure time, investment in beauty, choice. Somewhere deep and un-named there’s a sense that surely every cent, every moment should be spent surviving. Yet here’s the truth: the same tiny fires of elation are lit in hearts everywhere by things we all share – the joy of making something perfect with your own hands; the first smile of a child; sunsets, stars and potted plants.
These are the vital reminders that we are all human, equally wonderful and worthwhile but not equally resourced. Why? A simple toss of the dice places some of us here and others there. And this is a deeper challenge to us than simply being able to hand out cash or charity to ‘the deserving poor’ – for whom we can feel sorry because they’re so unlike us. It serves up some bigger questions and unsettles us deeply.
Ana, it turns out, has a spinal birth defect that means she stands only 1.3metres tall – she’s tiny and has struggled all her life with pain. She walks a little unevenly but she’s tenacious. Her husband Aron and son Ryder both have eyesight problems – Aron is functionally blind and Ryder has recently had cataract operations. He turns his head like a little bird to follow the sound of our voices and gallantly attempts to see us using his unaffected peripheral vision. The three of them sit close on a bench outside their home and tell us about the business they run together.
Beauty and massage, they tell us, are the heart of their work – hair cuts and shampoos and sometimes nails; massages for tourists and people who need them for health reasons. Not everyone in West Timor lives on $2 a day. They came up with the idea because Aron is good with his hands and can work easily without sight. He has a mobile phone, fully voice equipped – while we’re talking he takes a message and lines up an appointment, shyly chuffed to be able to show his business in action. He has strong hands, Ana tells us, also proud of her husband. And her passion is for cutting and styling – people will always need haircuts.
The low-interest business loan the pair manage through TLM – the social services agency of the Protestant Church in West Timor – was a godsend. It meant the family could turn a small profit – afford Ryder’s cataract operation, restore the well that is their only water supply, invest in the equipment they both need for their businesses, and also to plan for the kind of schooling Ryder will need as a child with a disability.
Because make no mistake about it – life for people with disabilities in the developing world is beyond tough. No social security. No NDIS. No respite, counselling or advice from experts. Ana, Aron and Ryder are pretty much on their own in a city where eating means working – crooked spine, sightless eyes, whatever your challenge.
Here’s what’s impressive about this model of poverty prevention: microfinance loans give people the skills and confidence to run businesses in a vast range of areas, doing stuff that they know other people need. It allows them the dignity of real work – and in Ana and Aron’s case – creative work that gives them what’s clearly a certain amount of joy. And why should we, in the ‘let’s go to Uni, choose our careers and live happy, fulfilled lives’ be the only ones to experience that? Why shouldn’t Ryder, in his hand-me-down Power Ranger pants, have the same dreams as our own kids?
Here’s the confronting truth of the human condition – any one of us could be Ana or Aron. Opening our hearts and hands to this reality is freeing – helping us to live with solidarity, generosity and simplicity; assessing how much we really need to be happy; and where and how we find beauty. It’s in standing together to bring life to each other that we discover what it means to be fully human.
UnitingWorld is a valued partner of the Australian Government, receiving flexible funding under the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) each year to implement development and poverty alleviation programs overseas. Every donation you make to this project will be combined with funding from the Australian government to reach more people. We have committed to contribute $1 for every $5 we receive from the Australian government. Your donation will allow us to extend our programs.
That means your gift will go five times as far toward ending poverty and providing dignity for families like Ana and Aron’s in West Timor, Bali and Zimbabwe.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
