Christian Aid, Monsoon partnership to boost Afghanistan’s silk industry; WCC assembly, an opportunity for praying, listening and sharing; Islamist backlash – The storm is just beginning; Condemnation for killing of Brazilian landless rights leader
Christian Aid, Monsoon partnership to boost Afghanistan’s silk industry
Monsoon and Christian Aid are partnering on an exciting new project to lift thousands of women in Afghanistan out of poverty through silk production. The project will run over the next two years and work with 1,500 women and their families.
Silk production in Afghanistan goes back two thousand years and the silkworm project will be based in Herat, western Afghanistan, which was once a stop on the ancient Silk Road trade route.
The women participating in the project are either widows or from women-headed households but all face a daily battle with poverty.
They will be given silkworms and trained to cultivate the silk cocoons. Work will also be carried out to improve the efficiency of processing centres, where the cocoons are spun into silk thread.
Some of the women will receive looms and additional training to produce silk goods like scarves and handkerchiefs to sell in the local market.
In addition to giving the women key skills, the project will enable them to secure a living that can be used towards better healthcare and education.
Profits will be ploughed back into silk production to ensure a long-term future for the women that is not reliant on aid.
Olivia Lankester, Head of Corporate Responsibility for Monsoon said: “Monsoon started out sourcing hand embroidered silk kaftans from Afghanistan and so this new venture, helping women to revive the silk industry in Afghanistan, is the perfect way to celebrate Monsoon’s 40th anniversary this year and build a better future for thousands of families.
“We have decided to work with Christian Aid because they operate through experienced local partner organisations who know how to empower local communities, have had a presence in the country for almost three decades and therefore are ideally placed to run the project for the Monsoon Accessorize Trust.”
Christian Aid has already been helping thousands of women in Afghanistan generate income through the harvesting of silk cocoons from silkworms in their own homes. Serena
Di Matteo, Christian Aid Country Director said the new support from Monsoon would enable the existing project to reach even more people.
“Women suffered under the Taliban by not having access to education or given the freedom to make a living – the silkworm project provides them with a way to make a living, improve their role in society and therefore provides them with a future that they would not have had before,” she said.
“After 30 years of conflict the Afghanistan economy has suffered, and with the international community pulling out the economy will continue to suffer.
“Market development projects which revive existing crafts such as silk production are critical to provide jobs for the most vulnerable and boost the country’s economy.”
WCC assembly, an opportunity for praying, listening and sharing
The World Council of Churches (WCC) 10th Assembly will be an opportunity for praying, listening and sharing together.
The event will provide participants a chance to listen for the voice of God, leading them to justice and peace in the world.”
These were the words of Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC general secretary, who spoke with the press in Seoul, Republic of Korea on 29 January.
Along with Prof. Dr Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima, vice-moderator of the WCC Central Committee and moderator of the assembly planning committee, Rev. Dr Henriette Hutabarat Lebang, general secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia, and WCC staff members, Tveit is in Seoul finalizing plans for the WCC assembly.
The WCC 10th Assembly will be held from 30 October to 8 November this year in the Korean port city of Busan.
At the press conference, Tveit introduced the WCC, its work and the theme of the assembly, “God of life, lead us to justice and peace”.
He explained that the WCC is a worldwide fellowship of churches bringing together more than 560 million Christians globally, in more than 110 countries. He said that among its diverse membership are Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Anglican churches, while the WCC also works in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Church.
“Through the WCC assembly, hosted by the Korean churches, we hope to respond to God’s calling for Christian unity and common witness in the world,” said Tveit.
“The WCC assembly in Korea,” Tveit said, “will make important statements on Christian unity, social issues, peace concerns for the Korean peninsula and global conflicts.”
During his visit to Korea, Tveit will be meeting with several Korean church leaders. He is also scheduled to meet the Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
On Sunday evening, 27 January, Tveit preached at the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church in Seoul, which is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in Korea. The worship service was attended by more than 12,000 people.
The storm is just beginning
By Benjamin Lazarus, The Commentator – European countries with sizeable Muslim populations would do well to be cautious in the face of an Islamist backlash
It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. – Bernard Lewis: ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’ (1990).
Whenever there are sectarian problems in Africa, the Middle East or Europe, Islamism is more often than not the root cause. The recent insurgency in Mali is simply the latest episode, and as Islamist rage spreads across regional fault lines in Africa and the Middle East, the battle between the West and Islamism is clearly intensifying.
In 2010, this conflict was described by the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as an ideological war against the cultural and religious equivalent of revolutionary communism.
He believed this conflict would play out as a ‘generational-long struggle’, a view recently echoed by the current British Prime Minister, David Cameron.
It has long been assumed if the Israel-Palestine conflict was resolved, political Islam across the globe would quieten down, and we would co-exist peacefully. I have even recently heard this same spiel from the mouth of a senior British UN Representative.
This notion – that creating a Palestinian utopia would quell the rage boiling beneath the surface of so many Islamic communities worldwide – is idle, ignorant and absurd.
More at – http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2563/the_storm_is_just_beginning
Condemnation for killing of Brazilian landless rights leader
British and Irish churches’ global development agency Christian Aid has condemned the fatal shooting of Brazilian landless rights leader Cicero Guedes on Saturday 26 January 2013.
Mr Guedes, aged 54, a sugar cane cutter, was the leader of the landless people’s movement (MST) and was killed while returning home from a meeting on his bicycle.
Christian Aid’s country manager for Brazil, Mara Luz, said Mr Guedes had worked tirelessly for Brazil’s poor.
“Cicero Guedes is one more peasant leader murdered in recent years only because he was defending the distribution of land and resources in one of the most unequal countries in the world,” she commented.
“The reality is that living a full life is still difficult for many people in Brazil. This coming Sunday, a special service will be held in memory of Mr Guedes in the cemetery Campos da Paz, which means ‘Field of Peace’.
“MST, a partner organisation of Christian Aid, hopes that peace can be a part of the daily life in rural areas of Brazil,” said the agency spokeswoman.
The shooting took place near an abandoned sugar plant which MST members have occupied amid a legal battle between the landless and the heirs of its deceased owner.
MST, who had occupied the land for six years before being evicted by police in 2006, launched a second occupation of the same site in November.
The Christian Aid report The Scandal of Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean outlines the scale of inequality in the country.
It says: “(In Brazil) just three per cent of the population own two-thirds of all arable land. Although there has been progress – the Landless Movement (MST) has resettled more than one million poor people since 1984, while the Quilombolas have gained collective land titles for 185 communities – there is no doubt that the ‘agrarian aristocracy’ is still firmly in place in Brazil. The trend is now moving in the direction of further land concentration and the expansion of a myriad of public and private sector businesses.”