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Project Updates

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Community Livelihood Support, News, Project Updates, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India)
March 26, 2026

UnitingWorld is partnering with the Church of North India – Diocese of Eastern Himalaya to support a tea plantation community in India’s Darjeeling region. A community of 190 people are still recovering from a plantation closure that stripped them of income, housing and food security overnight.

With few transferable skills and increasingly severe climate impacts, including heavy rains, landslides and soil erosion, families have struggled to rebuild their livelihoods.

Senior Project Officer Rose Donovan recently facilitated a four-day consultation and planning workshop with Diocese staff and community members to design a project to help people adapt to the changing climate and find alternative incomes.

“The community took us on a very intimate walk, showing us how they grow their food, their water sources and the landslides scattered throughout the area, and welcoming us into their homes,” said Rose. “They shared their goals and dreams fortheir community, each family longing to shape their own future.”

The Diocese has already employed a local woman as field officer. She had been planning to migrate more than three hours away in search of work, but can now stay and serve her own community.

Over the next three years, our partners will be helping families through climate resilient farming, improved livestock management and access to markets, as well as vocational training and career guidance for young people. They will also be working with the entire community on a disaster preparedness plan, including building awareness on drainage issues, good land management and how to reduce landslide risks.

Diocese Program Manager Sanjay Khaling said, “the community is enthusiastic about working together, and while it is a huge learning process,they are ready to get started.”

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Community Livelihood Support, News, Project Updates
March 26, 2026

When migrants suddenly started turning up in Bali from the nearby island of Sumba, many people assumed the worst. Would they be a strain on housing, jobs and social harmony? One more group of outsiders to be tolerated or pushed aside?

But for Rev Betha and her team at MBM (the development agency of the Protestant Christian Church in Bali), the arrivals weren’t a problem to be solved but an opportunity to love their neighbours in need.

“In our outreach to new migrants, they shared that the primary driving factor for leaving Sumba to seek work in Bali was extreme poverty,” Rev Betha explained.

“Their condition is largely caused by drought, infertile land and limited access to water, which make it difficult for villagers to make a living.”

Climate change sits at the centre of this shared challenge. “These changes have led to reduced rainfall and prolonged dry seasons, resulting in drought and crop failure,” Rev Betha says, with ripple effects across health, livelihoods and family safety.

For many years, MBM has worked alongside vulnerable communities in Bali. But when Rev Betha stepped into leadership in 2023, she felt called to respond more deeply to the plight of new
migrants.

“Climate change and poverty have driven many people from Sumba to migrate to Bali in search of work, often without adequate skills or an understanding of cultural differences.

As a result, many Sumbanese migrants in Bali face a type of ‘double’ poverty. First in their places of origin, and again in their destination areas. These realities strengthened our conviction at MBM that we must expand our ministry to Sumba.”

As well as supporting families who have already migrated, MBM devised a plan to help people still at home in Sumba, before they become stuck in Bali facing hostility and fewer opportunities.

MBM has partnered with UnitingWorld and the Sumba Christian Church to make this work possible, building trust through shared faith.

“We hold the conviction that it is God who sends us to accompany the vulnerable and the poor with compassion,” Rev Betha reflects. “We believe that God goes before this good plan and faithfully sustains our work.”

We will be sharing more about this growing partnership, and ways to support the project, later in the year. Pease uphold Rev Betha and her team in prayer.

 

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News, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India)
March 4, 2026

This International Women’s Day, the global theme is ‘Balance the Scales.’ It is a call to address the structural barriers that continue to deny women and girls equal access to justice, opportunity and political power. For UnitingWorld and our partners, it is a theme we see reflected every day in the communities we work alongside.

Anya grew up in the Mirabai settlement, a low-income community in Durgapur, in northern India. Her father works as a driver and her mother as a housekeeper, together earning around AUD$100 a month to cover all household costs for a family of five. From an early age the odds were stacked against her. The life script for girls like Anya is a familiar one: leave school early, contribute to the household, and marry young. Her parents were hoping she would marry quickly, as often happens very young in their community. Poverty and social pressure made that script feel inevitable.

But it was not.

Since 2011, UnitingWorld has supported the Church of North India – Diocese of Durgapur to run an Education and Social Empowerment project in Anya’s community. Through study centres, life skills workshops, career counselling and vocational training, the project has transformed lives for many community members, giving young people the tools to write a different story for themselves.

For Anya, that meant access to a study centre and a teacher, Sophia Lakra, who invested in her potential. With that support, Anya completed primary school, went on to further study, joined computer classes and pursued her passion for basketball. She is now enrolled in a college degree and the National Cadet Corps, and is preparing for competitive exams she hopes will lead to stable employment.

Today, she also volunteers at the same study centre where her own journey began, helping to teach the next generation. “I would have drowned in darkness,” she reflects, “if the project and Ms Lakra had not guided me to the light of education.”

Anya’s story illustrates what balancing the scales can look like in practice: not sweeping policy change alone, but consistent, community-level investment in young women’s education, confidence and agency.

There are many more children in her settlement still without access to quality education. The work continues.

If you can support UnitingWorld’s partners as they expand this work, we would love to have you alongside us!

 

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). Thanks to ANCP, we’re making a huge difference together; lifting families out of poverty and helping people improve their lives.

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Blogs, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India)
November 11, 2025

When Sohadi Soren received a single goat through her local self-help group, she never imagined how much her life could change.

A mother and grandmother from a small rural village in eastern India, Sohadi was struggling to make ends meet after the sudden loss of her husband. Her family survived on a small plot of land, growing rice and vegetables mostly for their own table. Money was always tight.

Then came the goat.

The gift was part of a community development program supported by UnitingWorld through the Church of North India, Diocese of Durgapur. With training and encouragement from her group, Sohadi began to raise and breed goats. One became two, then three, and before long, she had a small herd.

Over time, Sohadi sold goats to pay off her family’s debts and even buy back land that had been mortgaged. The income helped her invest in cows and a threshing machine for her crops. Today, she provides for her grandchildren, pays for their schooling, and helps others in her village do the same.

“With that one goat I was able to change my family’s life,” Sohadi said. “I wish more people could have the same opportunity.”

Her story is just one example of how practical gifts—simple as a goat, a water pump, or a handful of seeds—can grow into lasting hope.

Through Everything in Common, UnitingWorld’s annual gift catalogue, every card and donation represents love in action. Goats that become herds. Seeds that become gardens. Clean water, education, small business support and more — all helping families overcome poverty and build brighter futures.

This Christmas, you can help more families like Sohadi’s turn small gifts into life-changing opportunities.

Choose  that fight poverty and build hope
www.everythingincommon.com.au

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Women's Empowerment and Peace Building (Maluku, Indonesia)
October 30, 2025

In Ambon City, Maluku, Linda Narua’s love of gardening began as a quiet hobby. Today, it’s helping her neighbours eat well, earn more and reduce reliance on imported food.

Through training and seeds provided by UnitingWorld’s partner, the Sagu Salempeng Foundation (SSF*), Linda turned her backyard into a thriving kitchen garden. She now grows kale, tomatoes, mustard greens and chillies, building food security in her community and cutting the need for foreign imports, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

When her vegetables started flourishing, Linda began sharing them with neighbours, who praised their freshness and flavour. Encouraged, she attended further training, learned efficient farming techniques, and started selling her produce locally. Her friendly approach and excellent quality soon won loyal customers, and she even began promoting her garden on social media to reach more people.

Now, her once-small hobby is a source of family income and community pride. Linda inspires other women in her village to plant their own gardens, reminding them that even small spaces can feed families and strengthen local resilience.

“I’m proud that my garden helps others,” she says. “We can all make something good grow.”

Supported by UnitingWorld, the Maluku Livelihoods and Peacebuilding helped 577 people like Linda start a kitchen garden in 2024-25. Six village governments were assisted to organise a kitchen garden competition that attracted an additional 120 participants. SSF also worked with villages to plant 2179 trees for disaster mitigation and adaptation. 

*The Sagu Salempeng Foundation is the development agency of our partner, the Protestant Church of Maluku.

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News, Partnering Women for Change (Pacific Region)
August 11, 2025

UnitingWorld launches regional initiative to support faith-led collaboration on gender justice

UnitingWorld and its church partners in the Pacific have launched the Oceania Faith Communities Advancing Safety and Equality project, with support from the Pacific Women Lead at the Pacific Community (PWL at SPC) program.

Each of our church partners brings unique strengths to efforts to end gender-based violence and promote equality and, by collaborating more closely, they can build on each other’s progress and create greater impact together.

The project meets the need expressed by the churches for stronger networks and opportunities to learn from one another by establishing a new Community of Practice (CoP) for Pacific churches working to advance gender equality, safeguarding and theological change.

The CoP will serve as a regional hub for collaboration, joint learning and advocacy, connecting women leaders, theologians and safeguarding focal points to share and develop resources, strategies and training. There will also be mentoring by theology experts for key gender leaders in the region.

Women and girls will be the ultimate beneficiaries, as churches deepen their commitment to safety, inclusion and the promotion of women’s leadership.

When theology is life-giving and affirms the dignity of all people, it becomes a powerful force for change, says Reverend Siera Bird, UnitingWorld’s Manager for Gender Equality and Safeguarding:

“Churches are already deeply embedded in their communities. By building their capacity and connection across the region, we’re equipping them to lead efforts for gender equality, social justice and family safety in ways that are culturally grounded and sustainable.”

The project is driven by a steering committee made up of leaders from seven Pacific church denominations* as well as the Pacific Conference of Churches and the Pasifika Communities University. The broad collaboration has the potential to reach more than 989,000 people across the region.

The CoP will co-create theological and practical resources, including a new biblical-theological framework exploring gender, masculinity and femininity, and support joint campaigns for gender equality and social change. It builds on years of UnitingWorld’s partnership with Pacific churches and is one of the first regional initiatives of its kind to bring faith-based actors together around these goals.

The first online event, taking place this August, will explore the intersection of gender and climate. It is an opportunity to explore how climate change affects individuals differently depending on gender, and share experiences and practical solutions, helping build stronger collaboration around gender equality in climate resilience work.

*Denominations: Methodist Church in Fiji (MCiF), Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV), Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC), United Church in the Solomon Islands (UCSI), United Church in PNG (UCPNG), Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu (EKT) & Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga (FWCT).

You can help make a difference for women and girls in the Pacific
through gender justice – donate now!

The Oceania Faith Communities Advancing Safety and Equality project is an initiative of UnitingWorld and its Pacific partner churches, with funding and technical assistance from the Pacific Women Lead at the Pacific Community programme.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Government, The Pacific Community (SPC), nor any affiliated organisations.

 

Pacific Women Lead (PWL) aims to promote women’s leadership, women’s rights and increase the effectiveness of regional gender equality efforts. The Pacific Community (SPC) is the key implementing partner of the regional Pacific Women Lead portfolio, through its PWL at SPC program.

 Pacific Women Lead is supported by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

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Campaigns, Village and Economic Development (West Timor, Indonesia)
February 17, 2025
A huge thank you to everyone who gave any of the life-changing gifts from our Everything in Common gift catalogue during Christmas, and to everyone who made a donation. At time of writing, you’ve helped raise more than $350,000 through the catalogue, supporting our partners to impact their communities in so many different ways. Thank you!

New for Everything in Common 2024 was our Healthy Kids and Mothers card, helping provide care and nutrition to expectant mothers, newborns and families in the Alor and Rote Islands in Nusa Tenggara Timur (West Timor Province), Indonesia.

These islands are home to some of the poorest communities in Indonesia, where many people still live off the land in traditional subsistence lifestyles. With the rise of imported foods and uncertain growing seasons, families struggle to get the food and nutrition they need. Mothers and babies are the hardest hit, with malnutrition leading to high-risk pregnancies and stunting of children.

Our local partner, the Christian Evangelical Church in Timor, and their development agency TLM are determined to make change, both now and into the future.

Working in eight villages, our partners are:

  • providing health checks and education for pregnant women, new mums and their children
  • distributing locally-grown fresh vegetables and resources for families to grow their own food
  • installing clean water sources in villages that need it.

Looking beyond, our partners are using the villages as models to inspire others, working with local governments and church communities to tackle the heath crisis for good. We’ll keep you updated about progress with stories like Irma’s (shared below).

First published in UnitingWorld Update 2025-01 – download the full magazine PDF here.

“She is so healthy…”

Our church partner in Nusa Tenggara Timur (West Timor Province), Indonesia, distributes vegetable seeds for expectant mothers to provide for healthy nutrition during pregnancy, and for the family in the future.

Irma (pictured) said “growing vegetables is good for pregnant mothers, health workers … told me that. [When] I gave birth to my third child, she is 3.8 kg. She is so healthy, maybe because I consumed a lot of vegetables.”

This project was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). 

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Community Health & Infant Nutrition (Timor Leste), News
August 14, 2024

UnitingWorld has been supporting our partner in Timor-Leste to help communities prepare for and respond to the impacts of El Niño.

As a small island nation, Timor-Leste relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture and imported food. Since September 2023, the El Niño weather event has led to drought-like conditions, irregular rainfall, and flash floods during the country’s main planting season.

The nation was already grappling with rising food insecurity, with twelve out of fourteen municipalities facing drought and almost a quarter of the population in Timor-Leste currently food insecure.

Our partner FUSONA* has been working alongside other church agencies as part of CAN DO** and local government bodies to roll out new large-scale projects to address climate change and keep people safe during disasters.

FUSONA is now working in three communities identified as most vulnerable because their crops were destroyed in flooding in 2021 and 2022. The project has provided seeds, tools and training in disaster preparedness and is working to improve access and preservation of water supplies.

As part of the project, schools are being engaged in disaster risk reduction training to equip youth to be able to help their communities during emergencies. Youth will also conduct tree planting in their schools and wider community to reforest vulnerable areas and reduce disaster risks.

With improved knowledge of food production, processing and storage and how to mitigate disaster risks, the project will help whole communities be better prepared and resilient to future disasters.

Timor-Leste Community Health Update

Timor-Leste has one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children in the world.

Our church partner IPTL and FUSONA have decided to shift the focus of their work from running health clinics to addressing food insecurity among the rural poor in three communities.

The decision was made based on the resources and technical capacity available in FUSONA and the increased capacity of the Timor-Leste government to provide health care services.

The first phase of the redesigned project is already underway, expanding the kitchen garden activities to 100 new families in vulnerable areas, providing seeds, tools and training to help people grow nutritious food on their land.

This was made possible thanks to your support. Thank you!

Header photo: Paulina in Same Timor-Leste was helped to expand her food garden thanks to UnitingWorld supporters and our partner FUSONA.

*FUSONA is the development agency of the Protestant Church in Timor-Leste (IPTL), a partner of UnitingWorld and the Uniting Church in Australia.

** The Church Agencies Network – Disaster Operations (CAN DO) is a consortium of Australian faith-based agencies.  

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Campaigns, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India)
July 25, 2024

Laboni (pictured above with her mother) grew up in a typical rural village in West Bengal, India, where education is out of reach for many because families are too poor to invest in it.

Stuck in a cycle of poverty like this, going to school never seems as vital as the tasks of daily survival. Children grow up to help in the household or in the fields as soon as they are able; girls are married off young.

“My family was eager to marry me off at an early age,” Laboni now reflects. “It was not just because of my family but also according to our tribal culture; every girl between the ages of 13 and 15 should get married.”

Our church partner, the Church of North India-Diocese of Durgapur, saw the situation and believed that things could, and should, be different.

They supported Laboni’s education, and she became the first in her family to ever finish school. Today she’s pursuing her dreams: working on a university degree and hoping to return to her community as a teacher to inspire others to follow in her footsteps.

“The girls of my village [now] see me, and they are encouraged to study. I’ll tell them to go further,” says Laboni.

“I would urge every girl to stand on her own feet. We girls can participate in the development of our family, society and village.”

Thanks to UnitingWorld supporters and our partnership with the Australian Government, our partners also helped transform Laboni’s whole village and beyond, providing hundreds of families with income-generation support, training in agriculture and animal husbandry, and family health interventions.

The Diocese of Durgapur now runs 27 study centres currently supporting 420 children and a community development program working across 25 villages and two urban slum communities. Since they began the project, our partners have helped more than 2,000 children like Laboni with high-quality education support and career skills.

The wider community development work has grown to impact 1,698 households and 7,691 people with income-generation support, training in agriculture and animal husbandry, and family health interventions.

Laboni’s village is now a different place because of the love, hard work and dedication of our partners spanning more than a decade.

That’s why we believe this type of sustainable community development, led by local partners is the most effective weapon we have against poverty and injustice.

It’s an incredible blessing that we can play a part in creating such profound and lasting change. 

You can play a role too. Your support can help expand this live-changing work in India and beyond.

Click here to join our network of faithful monthly givers working together to build a more just and equitable world. Or find out more about this project here.

     

This project is supported by the Australian Government
through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

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News, Social Empowerment for Excluded Castes (India)
July 15, 2024

In the final months of the financial year, we told the story of Laboni, who grew up in a tribal village in remote West Bengal, India.

It’s a place where education is out of reach for many because families are too poor to invest in it. Children grow up to help in the household or in the fields as soon as they are able; girls are married off young.

Our church partner, the Church of North India – Diocese of Durgapur, supported Laboni’s education, and she became the first in her family to ever finish school. Today she’s pursuing her dreams: working on a university degree and hoping to return to her community as a teacher to inspire others to follow in her footsteps.

“The girls of my village [now] see me, and they and they are encouraged to study. I’ll tell them to go further!”  says Laboni.

“I would urge every girl to stand on her own feet.  We girls can participate in the development of our family, society and village.”

The impacts of our partner’s education support won’t stay with Laboni and her peers but will be felt for generations to come…

THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our End of Financial Year Appeal to enable our partners to give opportunities for people to live whole and hopeful lives, as God intended.

Together we raised $496,000, an incredible result! It will be combined with funding we can access from the Australian Government, which will help us make an even bigger impact on poverty and injustice in our world.

Here’s some more of the change you’ve helped create!

Just 20 years old, Simran is a tailor earning an income of around AUD$91 a month. The job represents a huge change for her whole family – and not just materially. Simran’s three elder sisters are all married, and Simran says her parents had been preoccupied with seeing her wed.

Simran met a Community Facilitator from the Diocese of Durgapur, who encouraged her to undertake training at their Stitching and Tailoring Centre. Her training allowed her to secure her first job as a tailor.

“Initially, my father discouraged me from taking up the tailoring job thinking that it might not look good for our family,” Simran says. “But he has since changed his perspective.”
Now, as a working woman, Simran is independent, contributes to the household income, and is eager to encourage other young women to consider a career before marriage.

Back in 2013, Sahadi’s family lived off what they could grow on a small patch of land – paddy, mustard and vegetables. Then Sahadi joined a Self-Help Group established by UnitingWorld’s partner in Durgapur. Within a year, she had received, as an investment from the group, a single goat and livestock breeding training – a huge opportunity she was eager to make the most of!

When food and water are scarce, it’s no small task to keep a goat alive and successfully breed it. But Sahadi was incredibly determined and over the past ten years she has increased her goat flock to 15! Already this year, she has sold seven goats and added an extra AUD$551 to the family income. Her entrepreneurial spirit on fire, Sahadi also invested in three cows – one for domestic use, the others for sale at market bringing in an additional AUD$147.

When a submersible water pump arrived in his village, courtesy of UnitingWorld partners in Durgapur, Dinanath Mahar was delighted. He’d watched his parents struggle as the land was so difficult to farm without irrigation.

And now – WATER! Dinanath underwent training with the Community Development Program and began cultivating crops, including sesame, mustard, paddy, and potatoes. The outcome? An additional AUD$991 per year. The family invested the money back into their farm, buying a second-hand power tiller and a motorcycle to move around the property.

For the first time, they could afford better health care and education. Dinanath’s granddaughter was born in a private health care facility, the first in her family with this start in life. Dinanath’s daughter-in-law, observing how effective the program was, joined also and is now breeding goats, bringing yet more income.