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Africa Tag

My name is Anna and I am 58 years old.  I live in Gokwe South. I’m a proud member of a group started by the Methodist Church of Zimbabwe Relief and Development (MeDRA) in 2017.

Our group is called kunzwa nekuita which means ‘hearing and doing’. As well as education about health and hygiene, we began an internal lending and savings project to help boost our household income. We started our poultry breeding project with 50 chickens and sell an average of 6 chickens to neighbours at an average monthly income of 800ZLW (A$3.17)

We inject this money back into our group so we can expand our activities. We encourage our communities to maintain clean homes free from litter and practise personal hygiene by washing with soap and water. We’ve also taught our community to erect tippy taps at their homes, dig rubbish tips and use blair toilets.

Recently MeDRA staff visited us to provide COVID-19 awareness to our group and gave us education and communication materials for an in-depth knowledge of the disease. We weren’t sure about the hand washing, social distancing, symptoms of COVID-19 or the referral path for a person suspected of a COVID-19 infection, but we now have flyers and posters so we can prevent the spread of the disease.

As a group we really feel there is a need to reach out to men as they have challenges in practicing measures given by our government on COVID-19 prevention. Many men also believe hygiene is only a women’s issue and do not take awareness campaigns seriously.

I would like to thank MeDRA for supporting us with this education so we can spread the word and keep our community safe from COVID-19. I also feel there is a great need for sanitisers, masks and more training to prevent the myths about the disease from spreading.

If we remain united and practice the regulations, we are very hopeful we can fight COVID-19 in our community.

UnitingWorld’s partner, the Methodist Church of Zimbabwe Relief and Development Agency (MEDRA) is working to raise awareness and stop the spread of COVID-19. While many regular activities are currently on hold due to lockdowns, the team have re-focussed all their energy toward providing vulnerable communities with education and awareness on COVID-19, as well as supplying food and sanitation items like soap and hand washing stations.

You can help by donating today to our COVID-19 appeal. Please give to help save lives and protect livelihoods.

*As a valued partner of the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program, we are eligible for funding that means tax-time donations can go up to six times as far in the field saving lives. We’ve committed to raise $1 for every $5 for which we’re eligible, and that’s where your donation has its power.

Every dollar will be used for immediate COVID-19 responses providing food and sanitation packs, health information and hand washing facilities, as well as fighting to keep poverty at bay long term through sustainable development projects.

Please give at www.unitingworld.org.au/actnow or call us on 1800 998122

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

(10-Minute read)

In the summer between Year 11 and 12 of high school, I spent three months in Africa. My aunt and uncle were missionaries in Tanzania and I stayed with them in their home in Dodoma. Over Christmas, they took a break and we all shared a room in a missionary guesthouse in Kenya. We ate mangoes from the trees and saw lions at a nearby game park. We saw Handel’s Messiah performed by an all-African choir in a sandstone church. I was nearly 17, clueless and naive in the way of young people of the 80’s and pre-internet. An idealist and a romantic with a good dose of Pentecostal fervour.

Back then the airlines allowed smoking in-flight and I turned up in transit in what was still called ‘Rhodesia’ on my plane ticket, full of allergies and knocked around from jet lag. I had only flown once before, Sydney to Melbourne, and could hardly stand up straight or string a sentence together. On the flight to Dodoma, I played ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ on repeat on my cassette Walkman, feeling very Live Aid about being in Africa. I’m not kidding.

I remember rationing toothpaste and driving for half an hour for water every few days. There were police with huge guns at the bank in town; I had never seen a gun before. Regular visits to the local market forced me to consider, for the first time, that fresh produce came from the gardens of people who grew it. I had always been able to just get a banana from my well-stocked fruit bowl.

As a nurse, there were people lining up for my aunt’s attention each morning; she cared for three babies in the next room to mine the whole time I was there. I woke one morning to learn one of them had died.

They had a humble home but a lush garden full of colourful flowers, and when the electricity was working my aunt baked cakes in her much-loved enormous microwave. Processed food wasn’t available and we ate what was grown or able to be bought on any given day. It was good; fresh bread, fresh fruit and veg. I didn’t miss the junk.

One afternoon I wandered off to the nearby football field and, despite there not being a body of water in sight, stripped down to my swimmers, poured reef oil all over my body and lay on the bench seats to bake. Before too long I found myself surrounded by a group of wide-eyed young men trying to proposition me in Swahili. My little cousin soon found me and went running to bring my aunt whose face I still remember. She shooed them away then spent some time trying to figure out how to explain to me why what I had just done was all kinds of culturally inappropriate, and how the boys had thought I was a sex worker.

My time there was formative to say the least.

From the 1980’s onwards I have done stupid things with the most innocent and well-meaning of intentions. More than this, I felt called and compelled with the urgency of Christian service.
I was always the one bringing home the misfits, serving coffee to trans ladies of the night in Kings Cross and generally feeling very earnest about ways I could serve. My time in Africa had pulled me in to the dream of missionary work as a vocation and I bought into the exotic ‘otherness’ with all my heart.

At church I sang songs about being ‘sent,’ one in particular that belted out a promise from God: “ask of Me and I will give the nations as an inheritance for you.” The sense of responsibilitycolonial leanings notwithstandingwas powerful. I finished school and went to Bible College.

Bless my young, sweet self … I was going to save the world.

When my kids came along in my twenties, I wanted them to learn to be generous, I wanted them to grow in an understanding of their privilege, to appreciate all they had. We sponsored children and memorised verses like “speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves and for the rights of the oppressed and needy.” We packed those shoeboxes filled with plastic toys and toothbrushes to send to poor children in overseas communities. My daughter and I cried at footage of Oprah gifting Christmas presents to hundreds of South African children that time. You know the episode, you saw how their faces lit up.

I hoped when my kids were teenagers, they would choose to go on short-term mission trips, perhaps to teach English or help build a school. It didn’t occur to me that they weren’t qualified to do this.

In the days before Instagram, I dreamt of Nat Geo-style photos in remote villages, placing myself in the centre of grateful people, the lighting just so. Perhaps in a t-shirt with an inspirational quote.

And what could be wrong with any of this? It sounds like plenty of people you know, I bet. Maybe you recognise yourself in it.

We are wired for relationship and community. It’s in our DNA to want to help others, and those of us who rate highly on the empathy scale are grieved by the pain of the world and often find our way to decades of service.

Those of us with a justice bent work to address systemic wrongs and advocate for those who find themselves crushed under the weight of these.

And we should. The world is a harsh and unjust place. If we have power we should use it. At UnitingWorld, our team works to support those who are making things better in their context. I will do this till I am old and grey.

But what I have learnt, gradually, awkwardly and with a good deal of humility is that I am not and should never have been at the centre of this.

I thought I had to take God to unreached people groups and serve them in their poverty. I have since learnt that God is already there, and in many cases people already have all they need. Where they don’t, local groups are best placed to serve their own people.

I thought the Western consumer model of ‘the more you have – the more blessed you are’ needed to make its way to the slums. I have learnt we in the West are poorer than many who have very little.

In saying this I don’t want to romanticise poverty, it can be crippling and brutal. In my work I support local partners who are working to connect people with their human right to a dignified life. But what I see is people who don’t believe they are entitled in the way we in the West do, who measure richness by relationships, hairstyles and henna and celebrating seasonal rituals, growing their own food and bearing healthy children.

In our attitudes and the posture we take when working overseas, especially (especially!) when faith and a sense of calling is involved, I have learnt we need to be students. We will never arrive at having it all figured out; how could we? It’s not our context. We are there as guests and allies, not decision makers.

Never is this more true than after an emergency. Emotions run high and compassion and grief move us to respond. Local partners in the Pacific told me after one disaster they didn’t have the funds to receive a container from the port and were forced to spend money allocated to a post-cyclone rebuilding project to receive the unwanted-and-unasked-for goods, which they then burnt as they had no use for them. On another occasion, a team of blokes wondered what they would do with boxes of second-hand bras. Perhaps this sounds ungrateful on their part. But have you ever wondered, after a trauma, what to do with a large, expensive-to-send but not really valuable gift you have no use for and didn’t want?

Often these containers just turn up. When overseas groups do ask, I wonder if they consider the power imbalance and the cultural implications of people being able to refuse? Even in the asking; “how can we help, what do you need, how can we support you,” is better than – “I have a crate load of bikes, would you like me to send them over?” And sending second-hand clothes? The ugly pieces that are stained or have a tear. My friend in Fiji was offended after losing everything in cyclone Winston. “We still have our dignity”, she said.

We give in ways that feel right to us and make us feel good. I know I do. We want to connect emotionally and often want to do more than give cash. The urge to get on a plane and go after an emergency is strong, I’ve done it twice, but 99% of the time, cash is best.

Recently I was with a group of partners from across South East Asia. I heard a story of dolls sent to a Muslim community for children who had been displaced after the 2018 Sulawesi tsunami. The local partners sighed at the thought of the work involved in processing, unpacking and delivering the dolls, especially as they were trying to work out the logistics of food, shelter and medicine. Once the dolls had made their way into the community, it was discovered that when you pressed their bellies, they recited the Lord’s Prayer! The local partners were then accused by government and Muslim leaders of proselytising which is illegal, and almost lost their right to operate in the region.

Because overseas aid can at times do more harm than good and because the international response to the big 2004 tsunami in Indonesia was quite honestly a disaster of its own, the Indonesian Government has rightly banned outside organisations from working there after emergencies without explicit vetting.

Try and imagine every NGO and their branded tents setting up shop after a cyclone. I’ve seen it, it’s a nightmare that often displaces the work of local agencies and mostly serves the priorities of donors and the organisations implementing their funds.

Other partners have told me the Christmas shoe boxes filled with stuff that get sent over to some of their communities often end up in the river or in landfill. They short change the local economy (you can get toothbrushes anywhere in the world) and are confusing for people who don’t celebrate Christmas or who do so without gifts but with ceremony and palm leaves wrapped around poles, and meals made especially for the occasion.

Why do we assume that children are poor because they don’t receive gifts at Christmas?

We need to ask better questions. I’ve needed to ask better questions. Like, how do we support changing the systems that mean that people can’t purchase what they need for their children?

This can be a rough question because it would mean we are no longer in the position of power. People become our equals. We are naturally drawn to this power underlying altruism, as unconscious as it may be. Sit with this for a moment to see if it’s true.

Why not send the funds involved in producing, packing and sending the Christmas boxes, to local organisations working to serve people in their countries? Mostly I think it’s because we want to personally connect and to involve our kids in the tactile act of giving. I get it. I’ve done it. How can we do it differently?

Share the Dignity is asking for toiletries and handbags for homeless Australian women for Christmas, you can drop them into your local Bunnings. Two Good is a company that provides a jar of soup to a person in need for every jar of soup you buy. There are so many other ways our kids can see us act generously and participate locally.

Internationally, get to know and connect with organisations doing good work, teach your kids about them, tell other people, own the story, then support them with cash. (UnitingWorld has just launched an appeal where you can buy gifts-in-kind for Christmas!). Or volunteer with them. If the drive is strong, join the sector. Or test your motivation and ask yourself if perhaps what you want to do is travel and meet people whose lives are different to yours. That was undoubtedly a big part of it for me.

If you go, support local economies and go on a trip that is about solidarity and experience or cultural exchange. Go to see what you can learn. Go where there is an invitation, see where you can come alongside people. Be honest about what you are there for and where its limits begin and end.

“Am I qualified?” is another really great question. You may have seen in the news recently a story about a young American woman who went to Uganda and felt called by God to set up a medical clinic, despite having no medical qualifications. More than 100 children died as a result. Can you imagine doing the same thing in your community?

Because we like to “go,” we unknowingly and with good hearts end up building dependence on our skills without building local capacity or the intention to do ourselves out of a job.

Year after year, I watch professionals get grants and raise funds to take groups to communities for much-needed medical and other services over a week or so. They keep going back. What is really wonderful is when these groups train locals to do the same work and invest in training and education over time, reducing the need for outside services. Not only does this build people’s skills and capacity and strengthen their country, it starts to even out the us-and-them dynamic.

If you’re still with me, have a read of this blog by a young Nepalese man who writes strongly about one-week trips to “serve” in Nepal as a way of easing foreigners’ wealth guilt. It’s not an easy read.

He says, “Aid has the potential to overpower and devastate. It can create an imbalance and weaken spirits” And this line made me sit up straight: “If you constantly make people believe that they need help they will make it their ethos in life. In the quest to empower them, you disempower them.”

At a sector conference I attended recently, a powerful young Papua New Guinean woman posed the question from the stage, “who would we be to you if we no longer needed your aid?” Also a really great question. We get used to a certain way of defining ourselves. “First and third world”, “civilised and sh*thole” countries, rich and poor, black and white. Language matters. Dignity matters.

I know of an organisation that created a poverty simulation experience for Western people to go to on a Saturday afternoon in their city.

I would like to suggest a poverty simulator in Sydney of packed-to-the-brim station wagons. The ones white Australian women are living in with their small children to escape domestic violence. People could pay to see the piles of dirty nappies on the ground outside the cars and donated food leftovers rotting alongside. Actors could role play the ways these women have to use toilet paper from public toilets when they are menstruating and children could act out being hungry at school in dirty uniforms. Or perhaps family groups could take evening bus tours of the poorest neighbourhoods in Australia during their annual holidays. They could drive around the streets where homeless people sleep and take photos to show their friends to encourage them to donate.

I hope that sounds deeply offensive to you. People’s poverty is not ours to experience. In simulation or real lifeIt is never the full story.

My sharpest learning curve has been around my own power. I’m embarrassed to admit that when the topic of racism would come up when my (caramel-skin-coloured) kids were little, I used to say ‘oh I don’t see colour.’ And in my naive way it was true, they were no different or less deserving of anything because of the colour of their skin, which is what I meant. But it’s sort of like when people say, “I can’t be racist because my best friend is black.”

I learnt to stop saying that of my kids, and I understand now that what I was saying is received by people of colour as not seeing them. I didn’t understand the world from their perspective. I thought I did, I had great compassion for suffering, but I had still positioned myself as the one who was coming to fix it. I didn’t acknowledge the world as they experience it. How could I if I wasn’t looking, quite comfortable in my role as saviour? I saw them only as in suffering or poverty. A 12 year-old recently said to me, knowing I was about to travel to Africa, “I hope you don’t get any diseases.” He has absorbed this message too. We must do better.

In this same vein, telling our kids to eat their veg because there are children starving in third world countries is profoundly unhelpful and reinforces the above. Our kids can’t grasp that conceptually, aren’t motivated by guilt and shame and the sassy ones will tell us to pack it up and send it over! We are learning now also that young people are often overwhelmed by poverty and feel something akin to survivor’s guilt. It’s too much and can be traumatic. There are better ways than making them feel bad, to teach them of their privilege and inspire them to become allies.

We play a game with overseas partners where a few people stand on a stage and face two lines formed by the group. The people on stage throw balls deliberately only to the front row. As they are thrown they might call out, “here, have a leadership ball, an education ball, some decision making power balls, wealth balls, some access to health care.”

The people in the back row start to get upset, saying, “hey throw us some balls too,” but the ones in the front are very happy receiving them and quite unaware that there are people behind them not catching anything. We talk about how each row felt and how, for society to become more equitable, the front row needs to give up some of the balls they caught and make space in their line for the people at the back to catch them too.

We like to hold on to our privilege in the front row. How do we start to make space?

I come from the dominant power story, I’m white, educated and middle class and I live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As the dynamic of me in the centre started to make me uncomfortable, I had to learn to be quiet. To listen and learn, to be led by people in communities where I found myself working.

My young family moved to Fiji for three years for my then husband’s job. I found my way into a role at the Fiji Red Cross Society that would change everything. I was part of a team delivering health promotion all over the islands and discovered that if you sit on the mat with people long enough, you hear that they already have the answers. I started a Masters in International Health and found that rather than missionary work where I imagined swanning in to save the day, locally-centred and locally-led community development was going to be one of my greatest teachers.

It started to dawn on me that while white and Western colonisation may no longer be happening formally, it continues in the form of outside groups coming in to build structures that are not needed and nobody asked for, by fly-in/fly-out training that places us at the centre and doesn’t build local capacity. By creating attachment issues while visiting children’s homes and taking photos of cute babies for social media, and of those who are vulnerable, without permission or people’s full understanding.

These things would never be allowed in our context, why is it ok in theirs?

I am learning that if I feel uncomfortable about being challenged by those like the Papua New Guinean woman, I am not being oppressed or discriminated against. Reverse racism isn’t a thing. I am just feeling uncomfortable as the dynamics start to shift.

If the way we work for and give to overseas development is above being challenged or held accountable, and was not established at the invitation of local communities (women and men, not just the blokes); it might be unhealthy, dangerous, or worse.

I get to travel a lot, make meaningful connections and meet incredible people. I don’t take the experiences I have had these last 15 years for granted. While NGO travel is the most unglamorous and exhausting thing going, it has been transformative.

But I have learnt the hard way that there are both healthy and toxic ways to engage. As the ones with the power, we must reflect and be prepared to acknowledge that we may have been part of the latter. Certainly, we are part of and benefit from systems that oppress our sisters and brothers around the world.

In truth, I often wonder what my role is in the work I do. I feel so uncomfortable when people tell me it is some combination of virtuous and noble. I know I’m not the amazing one. In my day job, our overseas partners are courageous, resilient change makers; much braver than me, and they’re as far as is possible from the patronising narratives we have allowed ourselves to believe of people living where they do.

Our team finds ways to support what they are doing, offer our friendship, hear their perspectives and ask how we can learn from them in the Australian context.

Our Africa partners break my heart open. They are vibrant, remarkable people who live through trauma and hardship with grace, joy, dancing and community. I am still processing my recent trip to Zimbabwe and Kenya, where we met with our South Sudan partners – and oh my, the thrill of Africa, the powerful Motherland that pulled me in 30 years ago.

Our India and Indonesia partners live in multi-faith, multicultural settings and have learnt to get along together in ways we could really benefit from in Australia.

Our Pacific partners are affecting generational change around gender equality and making space for women’s voices. Our Bali partners are leaders in care for the earth and holistic poverty alleviation.

All of them are facing the accelerated effects of climate change and increasing natural disasters which are undermining good development. They are all just getting on with it, no one is arguing about the science. My job is really to find ways to get them in same room to learn from one another and to know when to pass the mic. To advocate when they ask me to and to help secure funding for their work.

The role of Western people in overseas development is changing, reforming even. Perhaps not fast enough, but it is changing as people find their voices and push back against unhealthy ways of working.

We have a place as allies and partners. May we have the courage to acknowledge our colonialist roots, remove ourselves from the centre and feel a little uncomfortable.

I have a framed quote on my desk by Gangulu woman, Lilla Watson.

She says “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together”

I cried like an idiot the first time I saw this on the wall at another agency, thankful to be on my way home from a meeting. I am acutely aware that my liberation is bound up in that of the people I work alongside. I am better for knowing them and their generous friendship, their gracious tolerance of the times I have messed it up. Their joy in the midst of impossible circumstances and strength that I borrow in facing my own pain.

What I get to do is life changing, but mostly the life being changed is mine.

With love,

Jane

Jane Kennedy
Associate Director
UnitingWorld

 

You can help fight poverty and build hope with your Christmas gift giving!

Giving gifts from our Everything in Common gift catalogue is a great way to support the work of our overseas partners.

Shop online for gifts like chickens, goats, clean water, education and income opportunities for families to live with dignity. Every gift helps take us closer to the kind of world we all hope for.

Choose a gift. Dedicate it to a loved one. Change lives! Order now online: www.everythingincommon.com.au

Rev John Yor Nyker, the General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS) was recently asked the question, “what does transformative partnership mean to you?” His response gave us some insight into the value that he and his church place on their international partnerships.

“Transformative partnership means many things for me. It means learning new things and new culture from others, which is part of strengthening relationship and friendship between partners and our church. It’s caring for others; sharing each other’s happiness and unhappiness, sadness and joy. When the war broke out in South Sudan, our brothers and sisters in Christ’s service were shedding tears for us.

It is not resources that make partnership. Partnership is the ministry, the Kingdom of God through prayers for each other. Partnership is learning, making friendships and sharing of ideas and opinions. It is learning about the global world … learning how to pass [on] the information about your culture and your way of life. It is important to establish partnership as a part of human life.”

Photo: Rev John Yor eating a melting Tim Tam brought to South Sudan from Australia

UnitingWorld is the international aid and partnerships agency of the Uniting Church in Australia. UnitingWorld supports our partners, the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS), to train ministers and lay leaders and equip them with the tools they will need to teach reconciliation and peacebuilding skills in families and between tribal groups throughout South Sudan. Read more | Meet the peacemakers of South Sudan (video)

 

Last week, the President of South Sudan and the leader of the main rebel group signed a new power-sharing peace agreement, after an earlier ceasefire failed last month. Our partners, the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS) are cautiously optimistic about the newest peace agreement. PCOSS are calling for Christians everywhere to join them in prayers for a sustainable peace.

Believers in refugee camps across South Sudan and neighbouring countries will join faith communities across the world to pray together on Sunday, August 12.

Please join PCOSS and UnitingWorld in praying for:

  • God to intervene in the hearts of leaders so that they may truly embrace the agreement
  • Peace to be sustainable amongst all who are affected, from refugee camps in South Sudan and neighbouring countries, as well as diaspora communities around the world
  • Strength and wisdom to the peacebuilders who work tirelessly towards peace in their communities
  • Healing in the hearts and minds of those who have suffered most from violence and trauma
  • Assistance from the international community that is generous and appropriate to the needs of South Sudan

 

UnitingWorld is the international aid and partnerships agency of the Uniting Church in Australia. UnitingWorld supports the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan (PCOSS) to train ministers and lay leaders and equip them with the tools they will need to teach reconciliation and peacebuilding skills in families and between tribal groups throughout South Sudan. Read more | Meet the peacemakers of South Sudan (video)

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

‘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,

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit
General Secretary

See Original Prayer

How many times can you say that you were involved in a ‘life-or-death’ situation? A situation where your actions and decisions could make the difference between someone living or dying? Once? Twice? Never? What if I told you that as you read this, that’s exactly where you find yourself…

The word ‘famine’ is used relatively frequently in modern language, but it’s actually not something that happens often. On 20 February, the United Nations declared famine in two counties of South Sudan. It was the first time famine had been declared anywhere in more than six years. Some are saying that the current severity of food insecurity in South Sudan hasn’t been seen since a post-war Europe experienced famine in 1947. But what exactly is food insecurity?

A crash course in food insecurity

There are five official categories of food insecurity: 1) minimal, 2) stressed, 3) crisis, 4) emergency, and 5) catastrophe (i.e. ‘famine’). Currently in South Sudan, there are an estimated 4.9 million people in categories 3, 4 and 5. Of these 4.9 million people, it’s estimated that 100,000 people are in category 5: catastrophe (famine). People in categories 3 and 4 are at risk of severe malnutrition, which causes lasting impacts – entrenching people in poverty and disrupting education for generations.

People in category 5 are dying of starvation. Not tomorrow, not next week… now. And the reality is the majority of the people in category 5 are among the most vulnerable; typically pregnant women, children and lactating mothers.

I was speaking to a friend recently about how dire the situation is, and he asked what he thought might have been a silly question. He wanted to know why, when faced with the imminent starvation of 100,000 of South Sudan’s most vulnerable people, the international community couldn’t just “bring them food.” Not a silly question at all, but definitely not as simple as he thought.

And in the coming months it’s about to get more complicated.

$1 today is worth more than $1 in two months

South Sudan is facing more than one crisis. Set among the backdrop of a failing economy, collapsing infrastructure and the constant threat of conflict, famine response is not an easy task. In addition to all of this, May will see the start of the rainy season. Roads will become impassable, and the only option for delivering food and non-food essential items will be by air freight. Air freight is significantly more expensive than ground freight.

Right now aid workers are in a position to be able to ‘pre-place’ food and non-food items into the hardest hit areas, to be distributed now and as the lean season continues. Not only does immediate action mean that we can reduce the number of those 100,000 people who will die of starvation, but it also limits the number of additional people moving into category 5 during the lean season.

Acting at once means that more money can be spent on essential items as opposed to transport costs. More money on food and non-food necessities means more lives are saved.

That’s where you come in

You’re faced with a life-or-death situation, only it’s not your life at stake. Despite this famine happening to people thousands of miles away – people you’ll probably never meet – you can save a life by taking action today. Tomorrow could be too late for the 100,000 in South Sudan who will go to bed on the brink of starvation.

Lots of my friends and family tell me they plan to donate. I tell them: don’t wait.

– Megan

Megan Calcaterra
International Programs Manager, Asia/Africa

Donate now

21 July 2016

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) and UnitingWorld are concerned about the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe, as expressed in a joint statement from church leaders to the World Council of Churches (WCC). UCA President Stuart McMillan has called on the members of the UCA to pray for Zimbabwe and the work of the Church there.

“We cannot ignore the plight of the people of Zimbabwe, millions of whom are struggling to secure  reliable sources of food and income, and are increasingly denied their basic human rights,” said Mr McMillan.

“We pray for our partner the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe and the work of their development and relief agency MeDRA, and all those working to see justice for Zimbabwean people. We will continue to pray, speak out and act alongside our partner as they work to overcome the huge challenges they face.”

WCC statement:


Church leaders in Zimbabwe expressed their concern for their country’s political, social and economic meltdown that has caused increasing civic unrest and violence over the past month.

In a joint statement from eight churches and community organizations, church leaders said they are “concerned about intra-party conflicts that are distracting the government from dealing with real economic and social issues that are affecting the country.”

They called upon the Zimbabwe government to listen to the cries of citizens who are suffering. “There is a need to act justly and mercifully on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged in our nation,” the statement read.

As church and community leaders, they condemned brutality by law enforcement agencies on citizens. “The citizens’ constitutional right to demonstrate and protest must be protected,” they stated. “In exercising this right, we implore citizens to always remain peaceful in their demonstrations.”

Zimbabwe is facing an unemployment rate of more than 80 percent; restrictions on imports that have crippled cross-border business, destroying livelihoods for thousands of Zimbabweans; unnecessary police roadblocks which are fueling corruption; and many other urgent issues.

“Given all this, citizens have lost confidence and trust in our government,” read the statement. “We call upon the government to immediately investigate and prosecute law enforcement agents who are alleged to have brutalized people.”

The government should urgently act and address these genuine concerns of the citizens to avoid total collapse of the state, urged church leaders.

“We call upon the church, which is the salt and light of this nation, to continue to pray and also to speak out prophetically against any unjust system, until we have a peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe in which every citizen’s God-given and constitutional rights are respected,” the statement read. “May God grant us Zimbabweans the courage, faith and hope to face our challenges.”

Daily infringement of citizens’ rights and constant extortion at police road blocks have created a climate of fear in Zimbabwe, said Georges Lemopoulos, deputy general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

“We pray for the three million people in Zimbabwe who are food insecure, and we also pray for churches and community organizations there as they unite to help Zimbabweans reach a meaningful solution.”

Lemopoulos said the WCC stands ready to help amplify the voices of justice and peace in Zimbabwe. “The human costs are too great for us to ignore the plight of the people,” he said.

Article originally published by the World Council of Churches (WCC) of which the Uniting Church in Australia is a member

Read More:

“Feed the world?” Just share the tools – blog on UnitingWorld’s work with MeDRA in Zimbabwe (10 March, 2016)

Churches bring strong voice for justice in Zimbabwe – WCC news (18 July, 2016)