CHRISTIAN AID NEWS

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NEWS IT’S TIME TO BITE BACK AT HUNGER THOUSANDS OF CHRISTIAN AID volunteers are set to play their part in Britain and Ireland’s biggest houseto-house collection when Christian Aid Week 2013 kicks off on 12 May. And whether you plan to join those going door-to-door, hold an event or simply donate money, every penny you raise during Christian Aid Week will help to transform lives around the world. This Christian Aid Week, we’re focusing on projects around the world that are supporting communities to find ways not only to survive but also to thrive, with enough food to eat not just today, but tomorrow too. The story of Sikhanyisiwe Ndlovu (Skha), from Zimbabwe – whose photograph appears on the cover of this issue of Christian Aid News and inspired the poster image we used on the last issue – is typical of how this change can happen. With support from Christian Aid partner Dabane Trust, Skha helped to build a sand dam, which provides her community’s garden with water. Not only has her diet been transformed through the vegetables she can now grow, but she is also able to provide school uniforms for her children with the income from selling surplus produce. The kale she is holding in this picture will be dried at the new food processing centre that Dabane Trust helped the Gwanda communities to set up: it keeps for up to 18 months, so people can eat nutritious vegetables even during the dry season. ‘Life is now better because I can now cultivate my garden,’ she says. ‘When I look at my children, I see that they are so much healthier than before.’ Thanks to this innovative project, the future in this dry part of Zimbabwe looks more hopeful. • See pages 16-19 to find out more about what our partners are doing in Zimbabwe, Bolivia and Kenya to change the lives of thousands of people. HAITI LIGHT FANTASTIC AS PARTNER WINS ENERGY PRIZE NEW HOMES FOR HAITIAN QUAKE VICTIMS THIS BEAUTIFUL PEACH and green painted house has 51m² of space, three rooms, a veranda, a toilet and a bathroom. In January, Christian Aid partner Haiti Survie handed over 120 houses like this to internally displaced families affected by the 2010 Haiti quake. These latest homes were built in Bayaha in north-east Haiti. They are in addition to the 92 supplied in another community, Anse Pitre, using funds from the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, of which Christian Aid is part. More than 700 people attended the latest handover ceremony. Haiti Survie has also distributed 600 goats in a livelihood project, and over 50,000 saplings of fruit and forest trees. A CHRISTIAN AID PARTNER specialising in solar lighting – d.light design – has won the US$1.5m Zayed Future Energy Prize, for demonstrating leadership in sustainable energy. Since partnering with Christian Aid in 2010, d.light design has provided solar lighting for more than 1,300 poor Indian households without access to the national grid, using funding from Christian Aid’s In Their Lifetime appeal. The solar lighting company, which started in 2007, has just launched the next generation of lanterns – which are longer-lasting and maintenancefree – and aims to use the prize money to distribute the new product to up to 100 million people. 10 Christian Aid News
AFGHANISTAN Less than 13 per cent of women in Afghanistan are literate SHOCK OVER MURDERS OF LAND RIGHTS ACTIVISTS BRAZIL WILL YOUR CHURCH HELP CHANGE WOMEN’S LIVES? CHRISTIAN AID IS SEARCHING for churches to help us improve women’s lives in some of the poorest areas of Afghanistan by supporting a new community partnership. We’re looking for churches, or groups of neighbouring churches, to pledge to raise £5,000 over the next three years for a new women’s rights and literacy project in the north-east of Afghanistan. This amount will be matched by the European Commission at a ratio of 3:1 – meaning that each £5,000 raised will effectively be worth an amazing £20,000 towards the project. We will also be counting on churches’ prayer support. With three updates a year, churches in the community partnership will be kept informed of the project’s progress, as well as having the opportunity to learn and pray about some of the key issues facing Afghanistan today. Tabitha Ross, communications and information officer for Afghanistan, said: ‘It’s difficult to think of a worse place to be a woman than Afghanistan. Women there were famously banned from accessing education or leaving the house alone under the Taliban rule, and the position of women and girls in the country is still far from enviable. While 43 per cent of Afghan men are literate, less than 13 per cent of women are, and Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Furthermore, in many communities women are excluded from decision-making processes, meaning that they don’t have a say in the decisions that affect them or their children.’ With the support of churches, this project will enable women in some of the poorest regions of Afghanistan to have a say at last in the decisions that affect them and their communities, to learn to read and write, and to receive funding to start small businesses. Could your church support this project? To find out more, please visit christianaid.org.uk/partnerships, email communitypartnership@christian-aid.org or contact your local Christian Aid office. Christian Aid/Sarah Malian THE MURDERS OF TWO LAND rights activists in Brazil in the space of under two weeks has horrified Christian Aid. Both victims had been involved with the Landless People’s Movement (MST), one of our partners in Brazil. Cicero Guedes, 43, was a leader within MST. He was shot dead in Rio de Janeiro state as he cycled home from a meeting in late January, near a former sugar plantation where he had led an occupation of the land by families with no land of their own. Less than a fortnight later, the body of his friend Regina dos Santos Pinho, 56, was found at her home. She too had been murdered, although at the time of writing, police investigators and MST suspected that her killer’s motive was sexual, rather than being connected to a land conflict. Commenting on Mr Guedes’ death, Christian Aid’s country manager for Brazil, Mara Luz, said he had worked tirelessly for people living in poverty in Brazil. ‘Cicero Guedes is one more peasant leader murdered in recent years only because he was defending a fair and needed distribution of land and resources in one of the most unequal countries in the world. ‘MST hopes that peace can become part of daily life in rural areas of Brazil, but the reality is that living a full life continues to be a dream for many.’ There is a shockingly high murder rate among those who work on land conflicts in Brazil. Records kept by the respected Pastoral Land Commission show that on average between 2007 and 2011, a land conflict-related murder occurred every 12 days. • IN COLOMBIA, land rights continue to be an issue of concern after the bullet-proof vehicle of Father Alberto Franco, a key member of our partner Inter-Church Peace and Justice Commission, was fired at outside his home. Father Franco was not in the car, but Christian Aid has condemned the attack as an attempt to intimidate our partner. Christian Aid News 11
Page 1: CHRISTIAN AID NEWS Issue 59 Spring
Page 4 and 5: THE BIG PICTURE 4 Christian Aid New
Page 6 and 7: NEWS LEBANON From left to right: a
Page 8 and 9: MALI NEWS RISING REFUGEE TOLL CONTI
Page 12 and 13: CAMPAIGNS The IF campaign lit up Lo
Page 14 and 15: CAMPAIGNS WHY WE MUST TAKE ON THE T
Page 16 and 17: LIFE AND SOUL SPECIAL CHRISTIAN AID
Page 18 and 19: CHRISTIAN AID WEEK CHRISTIAN AID WE
Page 20 and 21: FRONTLINE Stories from around the w
Page 22 and 23: INPUT Inspired? Enraged? Send your
Page 24 and 25: LIFE AND SOUL The way we lead our o
Page 26 and 27: EVENTS We work with some of the wor
Page 28: LAST WORD A reflection on playing a

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