People, Partners & Progress: 60 stories for 60 years

P E O P L E • P A R T N E R S • P R O G R E S S

60 60 STORIES

for

YEARS

The last 10 years, the next 60

By The Primate of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz

All I can say is wow!

That is how I feel about all that has transpired in the 10 years since the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund celebrated its 50th anniversary.

In these 10 years we have seen PWRDF continue to offer incredible support in the midst of humanitarian crises around the world. We have also seen the development of a plan for In-Canada Emergency Response. Since the Syrian Refugee Crisis, we have seen an upsurge in the settlement of refugees. We have deepened partnerships with Indigenous Peoples in addressing the injustices they bear.

In the midst of these 10 years we saw the launch of a Food Security campaign that was picked up with great interest across our Church. We also witnessed the launch of programs under the banner of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

The truth that “all mothers and children count” touched the hearts of people everywhere and the results are amazing.

Story after story speaks of the impact of this major development. It has put PWRDF on the radar of Global Affairs Canada in a very positive way. We are regarded as an agency known for its excellence in leadership, commitment to due process, competence in program delivery and integrity in the all-important task of accountability for how funds are expended.

In these 10 years PWRDF has said thanks and farewell to two Executive Directors, Cheryl Curtis and Adele Finney, and welcomed Will Postma. We have seen a number of staff retire and we rejoice in the appointment of many others bringing fresh insight and energy to the work of development partnerships, public engagement, communications and volunteer support. Our Board of Directors has been blessed by the expertise and enthusiasm brought to its work by all its members.

As Primate of our Church it has been a privilege to see much of PWRDF’s good work up close through visits with staff. Having served as president of the Board for nine years I decided to step aside in 2016 and make way for new leadership. Our Vice President at the time, Maureen Lawrence, was elected and continues to give incredibly fine and spirited leadership. The Youth Council has continued to grow in its witness to the values and works of PWRDF. Support for our Diocesan Representatives has been enhanced. Regional gatherings and Diocesan Forum at the biannual National Gathering continue to equip these servants of PWRDF in good ways, giving them ever increasing competence and confidence for the work entrusted to them by their bishops.

In these 10 years PWRDF has been guided by three strategic plans. In 2017 3

we participated in a major “Institutional Evaluation” resulting in some 70 recommendations for going forward. At the same time, we had another round of conversation concerning branding.

While for now the name endures, we are celebrating a new logo. It is fresh, colourful, open and holds great potential for how it can creatively feature both continuing and emerging work with PWRDF. Wow! A lot really has happened in the last 10 years!

As our 60th anniversary is celebrated, I am glad to see that it is being marked modestly, but meaningfully. I commend these 60 stories to your joyful reading.

Each of them is a celebration of partnership in the interests of our shared vision of “a truly just, healthy, and peaceful world.”

Looking to the future, we ask for continued wisdom, courage and steadfastness in answering the call “to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8) That, my friends, is the very heart and soul of who we are and what we are about in this ministry grounded in the teaching of the prophets and the gospel of Jesus.

Maureen Lawrence, PWRDF Board of Directors President, speaks with partners in India.

My awakening to PWRDF.

CANADA

By Maureen Lawrence, Board of Directors President

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t the end of the ‘60s my husband – an Anglican priest – and I were working in the Diocese of the Arctic. Coming from the Diocese of Down in Northern Ireland I had never heard of The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, but when the famine occurred in Biafra due to the Nigerian Civil War, PWRDF was part of a relief effort. My husband explained the situation of extreme famine to the Cree and Inuit with whom we lived. At that time hunters and trappers, they responded with incredible generosity, because, they told us, they were familiar with starvation. I found this both shocking and inspiring.

Since then my support of PWRDF grew exponentially. I read of the work with interest, bought the Christmas cards and made donations for celebrations and remembrances. However, I was committed to other volunteer organizations. Ten years ago I was nominated to the PWRDF Board of Directors because they were looking for someone with governance experience and because I was so passionate about the work. I have been on the Board ever since and complete my term this year.

Working on the Board has been a huge positive learning experience because it exposed me to the commitment of so many volunteers and staff. The Parish Representatives and Diocesan Representatives who promote and support PWRDF across this vast country inspire congregations.

They introduce people to the work of PWRDF, explaining that funds are raised to support programs with partners in Canada and overseas.

The Board members, all elected, ensure that the finances are kept in order, that the organization is not at risk and that we are in compliance with

government regulations. We are all inspired by the members of the Youth Council, so enthusiastic with such wonderful new ideas.

However nothing would actually happen without the staff, highly qualified professionals from diverse backgrounds and who among them speak at least 12 languages. These folks care about their work, they agonize over the challenges and rejoice in the successes. They share their knowledge generously and have the respect of our partners and Global Affairs Canada. PWRDF recently had an institutional evaluation and staff, with the board, are addressing the evaluators’ recommendations.

So, why do I do what I do for PWRDF? I do it because I have seen the results of the work over the years. I have seen lives improved unbelievably, infant mortality rates plummet, food security greatly improved, girls able to attend school, wells dug and so much more. I do it because I have met so many inspiring volunteers and staff who ensure that through PWRDF we are addressing the Marks of Mission of our faith.

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PWRDF’s All Mothers and Children Count program is improving nutrition and food security in its program countries of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Mozambique.

Our first grant was small.

CANADA

By Zaida Bastos, Development Partnership Program Director

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t was 1973, and just $43,490. Since then the cooperation between PWRDF and Global Affairs Canada has grown steadily. When the government established the Canadian International Development Agency in 1968, its mandate was to “support sustainable development in developing countries in order to reduce poverty and contribute to a more secure, equitable, and prosperous world.” In March 2013, CIDA was folded into the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) and it was later renamed as Global Affairs Canada.

Throughout these name changes, the Canadian government maintained its commitment to its original mandate. Canadian Government grants are designated funding and must be invested on specific activities and countries agreed upon between PWRDF and the Canadian Government through a Contribution Agreement. One of the conditions of receiving funding is that the recipient organization contributes to a match: each dollar that PWRDF contributes towards a given project, the Canadian Government matches with an amount depending on its commitment to a specific program or cause. This funding has allowed PWRDF to have a greater impact in improving the well-being, health, clean water, food security and sexual and reproductive rights in many rural, poor areas, hard-to-reach communities in developing countries.

The last eight years have been extraordinary in growing the Government of Canada’s support to PWRDF-funded projects in the areas of maternal, newborn and child health, preventive health, food

security and gender equality and equity. A fiveyear project that ended in 2017 in 252 villages in Burundi, Mozambique and Tanzania benefitted 1,040,247 people, including 420,190 children of ages under five, who received full vaccinations and other health services to reduce child mortality rates.

Presently, PWRDF is implementing the All Mothers and Children Count program in Burundi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania. It is the largest PWRDF project ever funded by the Canadian Government, with $17,697,444 from Global Affairs and the remaining $2,788,459 from PWRDF. When the project ends in 2020 PWRDF projects that well over 1.5 million people will have better access to health services, clean water, and improved nutrition and food security.

The Canadian government’s support is a testimony of the trust it has in PWRDF. It also validates the response of Canadian Anglicans to the needs of their brothers and sisters around the world and the aspiration of a more just, healthy and peaceful world.

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Young musicians perform at a music studio for youth. The studio was among several initiatives supported by PWRDF donations after the Fort McMurray fires.

In times of crisis, Canadians come through.

ALBERTA

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WRDF’s history is founded on the desire of Canadians to support other Canadians in times of crisis. And never more so than in the last 10 years. Floods, ice storms and wildfires have permanently scarred the landscape of cities and countrysides in many parts of Canada.

Azaria Photography

In May 2016, the disaster was particularly harrowing, with an outpouring of generosity to match.

A lighting strike landed in the bone dry forested slopes around Fort McMurray, Alberta, and in a matter of hours the sky had grown thick with black smoke. As families scrambled to evacuate, Canadians in other parts of the country were shocked at the rapid devastation. In three weeks, $220,000 had been donated to PWRDF to support Fort McMurray relief efforts.

Those funds have been integral in supporting recovery and healing. In the short-term, donations

went to the cost of emergency supplies and immediate needs. But over the two years that followed, those donations made a real impact on healing. They funded summer camps, the revitalization of an empty lot into a community garden, a music studio for youth, pet blessing services and more.

“PWRDF funds have been pivotal in enabling and inspiring us to meet some of the physical, social and spiritual needs of our community,” writes the Rev. Dane Neufeld, Rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Fort McMurray. “We are very grateful for the opportunities they have afforded.”

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Children attend a school in Haiti that PWRDF funding helped keep open after the devastating earthquake in 2010.

‘Life is not over because of this.’

HAITI

K

enson Vilmé is the coordinator of an Episcopal school in Léogâne, Haiti that was destroyed after the worst earthquake to strike Haiti in 250 years, yet he still found reason for optimism.

“Life continues. You have to get up and still keep living,” said Vilmé.

Thanks to the work of PWRDF donors and partners a tent was provided and classes continued in the wake of the disaster.

More than 200,000 people died and millions were displaced when the earthquake hit on January 12, 2010 and almost immediately Anglicans responded to the disaster. Survivors of the quake worked tirelessly to free others from the rubble, set up camps and distribute relief supplies all while working around destroyed infrastructure.

Donations poured into PWRDF, leading to the largest humanitarian response of the last 10 years. PWRDF received more than $1.9 million for Haiti relief eligible for matching funds from the Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada). The funding was allocated to ACT Alliance and the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s relief and development arm to assist the Haitian people.

PWRDF’s support of ACT Alliance’s Rapid Response program helped to provide households

with food, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, blankets, mosquito netting, bedding and emergency shelter needs. The program also provided psychosocial support to survivors.

PWRDF and partners worked with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti to provide temporary shelters, toilets, and showers to 145 families.

Following the quake, Keltie, a 37-year-old single mother of five, was living in a five-byfive shelter with a dirt floor along with her three youngest children. She received one of the temporary shelters and things started looking up.

“Before I had my new home, I felt like a back door, old and broken and hidden from people’s eyes,” said Keltie. “Now I feel like the front door, which is shiny and strong for the world to see.”

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Children recover through play through the Pediatric Learning Initiative in Rwanda, where PWRDF has helped provide training for staff and volunteers on childhood development and illness.

A little extra training goes a long way.

T

heoneste, a young boy from Rwanda, was involved in an accident at a young age and was feared to have brain damage. Livine Nisingizwe and Alice Umulisa, volunteers from the Pediatric Learning Initiative, began playing cognitive games with him and providing him with toys to help development.

The Pediatric Learning Initiative helps children develop cognitive abilities and highlights the importance of play on early childhood development. It is managed by Partners in Health Rwanda, an organization supported by PWRDF.

Within days Theoneste’s cognitive abilities began to improve and his memory was noticeably better. His mother was so happy to see the improvements he made and was grateful for the encouraging support of the PLI volunteers.

This training is part of PWRDF’s All Mothers and Children Count program, which receives a 6:1 funding match from Global Affairs Canada. Many healthcare workers at PIH Rwanda are getting extra support to improve the lives of women and children.

Nurse Nyota Pascaline received training on the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses.

“The knowledge and skills that I acquired from it

are very useful in my daily work,” she says. Nyota is now providing better quality healthcare in Rwanda, can diagnose illnesses in children under five, and counsel parents on treatment and prevention.

Partners in Health has also supported the Health Center Malnutrition Program at Nyamirama Health Center. Social workers have been trained to make home visits, allowing them to observe potential causes of malnutrition that may be missed during hospital visits. “When you are facing problems in your life and when you have visitors come to your home it is comforting,” said Saidate, after a social worker visited her and her newborn daughter.

PWRDF’s All Mothers and Children Count program has helped to revolutionize healthcare in Rwanda and along with Partners in Health has saved the lives of hundreds of mothers and children in the country.

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RWANDA

Peter Goodwin, PWRDF Diocesan Representative for the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia, is an avid participant in the annual Ride for Refuge.

PWRDF is my passion.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

By Peter Goodwin, Diocesan Representative for New Westminster, B.C.

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joined the PWRDF committee at St. James Church, Vancouver more than 30 years ago, inspired by its founder Father Lloyd Wright. Fr. Wright’s passion for PWRDF was exemplified by his purchase of a neon sign to stream the latest news from PWRDF during coffee hours!

I accepted his invitation in the late 1980s to fill his position on the diocesan unit which I maintain today having assumed the role as Chair and Diocesan Representative for more than 12 years.

As an Anglican since birth and a retired social worker I remain passionate about PWRDF. It provides a truly heartfelt means for me to live out my Faith, a faith reflected in the vision and mission statements of PWRDF and that are rooted in Christ’s teachings, such as found in the Gospel of St. Matthew 25:35-40.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me…

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Over the past 10 years I have been involved with PWRDF Food Security programs. I participated in the week-long Sharing Bread Learning Exchanges at the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia meeting guest partners from

Tanzania, Cuba, Bangladesh, and individuals involved with food production and food security from across Canada. I was honoured to be a member of the Food Security delegation to Cuba in March 2015 and to witness work being done by two partner organizations, the Cuban Council of Churches and the Episcopal Diocese of Cuba.

Following the trip our diocesan unit fundraised to build a greenhouse at the parish of St. Mary the Virgin Itabo which had hosted our delegation and stated the vital need for a greenhouse.

It is a pleasure to work with the wonderful staff at PWRDF, Board and Youth Council members, fellow diocesan unit members, dedicated parish representatives, and diocesan clergy and staff in an effort to find creative means for sharing the ever inspiring and impactful stories of PWRDF with fellow Anglicans. A true honour was having been made an Honorary Associate of PWRDF in 2017 and recognized by my diocese in this regard.

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Bicycle ambulances have been adopted by multiple PWRDF partners even earning PWRDF a Civil Society Effectiveness Award from the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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f that’s true, then PWRDF’s former partner in Mozambique should feel pretty chuffed. In 2010, SALAMA created bicycle ambulances to make health care more accessible. Bangladesh partner UBINIG like the idea so much that in 2012, they built their own bicycle ambulances. Both projects were part of maternal, newborn, and child health programs funded by PWRDF and Global Affairs Canada.

“UBINIG staff really liked the idea of bicycle ambulances,” said Zaida Bastos, PWRDF’s Director of Development Program, who oversees both projects. “So they made it work in their own context.”

UBINIG determined tricycle ambulances were a better solution for hilly, disaster prone areas. As well, rivers need to be crossed and this inspired the construction of boat ambulances, complete with stable tricycle ambulances. Each river has its own challenges, and each ambulance is unique. Five tricycle ambulances and two boats were built in 2012, and another four ambulances and one more boat were built in 2013.

The Outreach Team at the Church of the Epiphany in Sudbury began supporting bicycle ambulances as its International Project in 2012.

They raised $3,000 that year and $5,465 in 2013.

“Given the extreme remoteness of many villages and the impossible costs of purchasing and maintaining modern ambulances, our parishioners

are excited to help out with the provision of something so concrete, practical, innovative and adaptable as bicycle ambulances,” said Mary Donato, a PWRDF volunteer in the Diocese of Algoma. “We are pleased that PWRDF has given us the opportunity to help out in this way and we hope to continue our support.”

The bicycle ambulances also spread to Burundi, and in 2014, PWRDF received a Civil Society Effectiveness Award from the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, who praised PWRDF for connecting with hard to reach rural areas.

Thanks to the availability of bicycle ambulances, the number of babies delivered in health care facilities has increased by 9% in Bangladesh, 29% in Mozambique and 59% in Burundi. As well, villages in Mozambique that have access to bicycle ambulances reported a 14% drop in maternal deaths compared to villages without bicycle ambulances.

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MOZAMBIQUE

The red tractor is showing its age, but has been a dependable work horse in the rural Cuban communities it serves.

This is the story of the little tractor that could.

CUBA

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n 2008 the Cuban government opened a window of opportunity for citizens to acquire assets. Five remote communities of approximately 1,200 people desperately needed a tractor to help them with their farming work. The villages also lacked public transportation and decent roads. With the financial support of PWRDF through the Cuban Council of Churches, Pastor Roberto Rodrigues and his community bought a Russian-made tractor.

The tractor was named “Abriendo Caminos” which means Opening Trails. And it has brought so many blesssings to Purialito, Pablo Perez, Poco de Petroleo, El Cinco and Barquero in the district of Placetas, the Province of Sancti Spíritus in Cuba.

Abriendo Caminos is a multi-tasker. With typical Cuban ingenuity, the community has created several types of carts to hitch to the tractor so it can be adjusted to the required tasks or functions. During the rainy season, it is impossible for children to walk through the muddy roads to school, so every morning, Abriendo Caminos – with Pastor Rodrigues at the wheel -- dutifully picks up the children at a gathering point and takes them safely to school. On occasion, Abriendo Caminos has done ambulance duty in the middle of the night to take a sick patient to the nearest health centre

eight kilometres away. And community gatherings would not be the same without Abriendo Caminos transporting people from place to place. Praises to Abriendo Caminos are plenty and generous from the people of the five communities, spread across a radius of 10 km. They say that Abriendo Caminos is the feet of the community. It takes them everywhere and keeps them close to each other.

After 10 years Abriendo Caminos is showing its age and a life of hard work! Throughout the years, coats of paint have tried to give it a face lift to keep a rejuvenated appearance, but there is only so much that a paint brush can do. Pastor Rodrigues and his community send a message of gratitude and friendship to their Canadian Anglican sisters and brothers for the gift of a little tractor that has helped their community so much.

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Marion Delaronde shows off a puppet used to teach and preserve first nations language and culture at the Kanien’kehaka OnkwawÊn:na Raotitiohkwa Language and Cultural Centre.

‘Everything we are is in our language.’

QUEBEC

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o says Callie Hill, a Tyendinaga First Nation member and executive director of Tsi Tyonnheht Onkwawenna Language and Cultural Centre. Language describes our understanding of our place in the world and our relationship to the created order and to the creator, she adds.

Losing language is one of the tragedies of First Nations first through colonization, and then with the residential school system. But a partnership between PWRDF and the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitióhkwa Language and Cultural Center (KORLCC) aims to change that.

Based in Kahnawake, Que., KOR uses puppets to teach children the Mohawk language and culture.

The puppets are effective at holding the children’s attention, says Marion Delaronde, the director of Tóta tánon Ohkwá:ri (the KORLCC puppet show).

Delaronde, a Mohawk, is also a filmmaker and hosts a TV series for kids. “Each episode focuses on something in the natural world … tells of our relationship with it. The children learn to give thanks for that thing,” she says. The episodes use

mnemonics to teach culture and history, such as the 50 chiefs of the Iroquois confederacy, or one word in each of the five languages of the confederacy.

Other episodes teach thankfulness and peacefulness using traditional legends like the Corn Husk Doll.

KOR’s language-revitalization program hopes to breathe life into the community’s cultural identity, by being one small light in the national cultural landscape. Canada was once home to more than 70 distinct First Nations languages, but now only a handful — such as Cree, Ojibway, Oji-Cree and Dene — remain strong and viable, according to Statistics Canada. Mohawk is one of those aboriginal tongues that is under threat of being lost, and KOR, with PWRDF’s financial help, is fighting to keep it alive.

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Mwamedi Maiga cares for his goats he received as part of a joint partnership between the Diocese of Masasi and PWRDF to help improve food security in rural villages.

It takes a goat to raise a village.

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wamedi Maiga lives in the village of Mnero Membeni in the District of Nachingwea with his wife and five young children.

He is HIV positive, which makes him extremely vulnerable to health problems. He was one of many identified by PWRDF partners at the Diocese of Masasi as needing immediate help. Adequate nutrition is a critical component of treating HIV and AIDS because medication is not nearly as effective in someone who is malnourished.

Through a food security program that was matched

by Global Affairs Canada, Mwamedi received a pair of goats, and his life changed immediately.

The nanny goat produces milk daily. The Maigas consume one litre and sell the surplus milk to people in a neighbouring village. This steady income allows the family to pay school fees for the children, and to buy drugs and food staples to enrich their diet. Once his goats had bred, Mwamedi passed the first baby goat on to another family in need, as is the practice in the program.

Passing it on not only benefits one family, it benefits whole villages and beyond. Mwamedi now has six goats. The five nannies produce up to four litres of milk a day.

Awatu Mponda and her grandmother, Fatuma Musa, were given goats in another village.

Awatu developed epilepsy as a child. After both her parents died, her grandmother became her primary caregiver, which significantly increased

her responsibilities. Awatu helps out as much as her condition permits – collecting water and firewood – to lighten Fatuma’s workload. So when they were given a goat, they named her Sikitu, which means no need to complain about poverty or bad health.

Just two months later, Sikitu delivered a female kid. With help from families involved in the project, Fatuma built a goat shed for Sikitu. “Awatu and I don’t know what it takes to buy milk these days because our lovely Sikitu provides us with three litres of milk every day,” said Fatuma.

“Our life has started to change since we received our goat,” said Fatuma. “Great thanks to the Diocese of Masasi and your partners PWRDF and [Global Affairs Canada], and please tell them that with this project people are now believing that Awatu was not only a dreamer of hopes to improve her life, but also a performer as her dream has turned into a reality.”

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TANZANIA

Refugees at a camp near the Thai/ Burmese border where PWRDF supports DARE, a drug and alcohol addiction recovery program.

Pam Rogers had a hunch.

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efugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border were filling with displaced Burmese people, and the Torontobased addiction counsellor knew that was a recipe for substance abuse. She had seen the impact of displacement and cultural isolation on First Nations communities, so wrote to a fellow addiction expert in Thailand asking if they needed help. Her friend wrote back quickly: “Please come.”

By 2000, after six months of assessing and learning and listening, Rogers and local leaders founded a recovery program with support from PWRDF, the Burma Relief Centre and Norwegian Church Aid. By 2005, the group was renamed DARE (Drug and Alcohol Recovery and Education Network) and now operates in five camps as well as in the migrant community. In 2015, DARE expanded to villages across the border in Karen State, Burma.

One such camp is the Mae La Refugee camp.

It’s the last place you might expect to see a game of Ultimate Frisbee, but the sport has been a mainstay here for years. The Bangkok Soi Dawz Ultimate Frisbee team has adopted the camp as their official charity and they regularly donate shirts, shoes and other equipment, as well as training.

“If you’re angry, you throw a ball. It gets it out of you,” says Rogers. The Frisbee program is just one of the many wellness initiatives in the

THAI/BURMESE BORDER

camp that nurtures teens, in order to prevent the addictions that plague so many of the people living there. The most common substances abused are alcohol, methamphetamine, marijuana, opium, tobacco, glue and heroin.

The program has grown and changed over the years, but the real change is in the people who recover from their addiction. “The people are so happy when they recover, they didn’t know they could,” says Rogers, adding that many people were convinced addiction was a form of punishment.

According to DARE statistics, the program (which is now published in a manual in Karen and Burmese languages), has a 61% non-relapse rate.

Most Western addiction recovery programs average 25%. The success of the program, says Rogers, is that it is based in the communities and run by the people of the communities.

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Veliswa Hlekani, shown here with her daughter in their vegetable garden, received antiviral treatment for HIV thanks to PWRDF and is now strong enough to support her family by growing crops.

A garden can grow hope.

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eliswa Hlekani was diagnosed with HIV in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2015 that she was sick enough to need antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Sweetness, the community health worker in her village began to visit Veliswa even more regularly to help her to take her medicine properly, ensure she’d eaten well and encourage her to be strong.

Sweetness is one of 74 community health workers supported by Keiskamma Trust in 47 villages in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. They are the front line of health care and support for hundreds of families like Veliswa’s. The project is focusing on preventing HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis among pregnant women in the Ngqushwa district of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is supported by Global Affairs Canada.

Once Veliswa began her ARV regimen, Sweetness made sure she received a food package from Keiskamma Trust. Without enough good, healthy food to eat, ARVs can be fatal to someone

SOUTH AFRICA

weakened by HIV/AIDS. But with food, the medications work wonders. Soon Veliswa was well enough to begin to support her daughter and two sons again.

In April 2016, Veliswa was able to start a vegetable garden. She learned to grow spinach, carrots, beetroot, cabbage and onions. The harvest from her first crop will feed her family. But Veliswa is looking forward to having even more seeds to grow more vegetables and expand her garden. This will not only feed her family but will provide the family with an income.

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PWRDF’s Youth Council, shown here in New Brunswick in May 2018, meets semiannually and brainstorms ways to inspire youth to get involved in with PWRDF. Clockwise from front: Mike MacKenzie, Laura Muzyk, Charlotte Lilley, Asha Kerr-Wilson, Sarah Stephens, Jame Mesich, Duncan Chalmers, Alexandra Hennderson, Leah Marshall and Jessica Steele. Back right, PWRDF Board liaison Murray McAdam, and Kim Umbach, PWRDF Volunteer Management Advisor.

We are investing in our future.

CANADA

By Mike MacKenzie, PWRDF Youth Council Member-at-Large

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n 2010, members of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund Youth Council – a cross-Canada network of youth and young adults ages 16 to 30 – formalized their identity with the following statement of purpose: • We are youth challenged by our faith, values, and beliefs to create positive transformation in ourselves and in the global community.

• We value the power of youth and grassroots development in building relationships both locally and globally.

• We will share the stories of our partners to inspire youth to be leaders, educators and advocates for living justice.

This statement of purpose guides Youth Council as we engage other youth and young adults in the work of PWRDF. With representation from all provinces within the Anglican Church of Canada and a number of ecumenical partners, it’s our job to share stories about the life-changing work of PWRDF partners with other young people both inside and outside the Anglican Church.

We do this by meeting twice a year in dioceses and territories across the country, where we interact

with community agencies and local churches. We tell them about the crucial work of PWRDF, and in turn hear about important social justice work happening in the community. Between meetings we commit to speaking and preaching in our own dioceses, and support important projects like the recently wrapped National Youth Project – Right to Water Initiative.

As a current Youth Council member, it’s been a true joy and honour to amplify the stories of PWRDF and its partners. This work reminds me that “building a truly just, healthy and peaceful world” is nothing less than our call and our identity as Christians. It has both re-ignited my passion for equitable, sustainable development and added a new dimension to my faith. And it reminds me (and hopefully others!) that youth and young adults aren’t just part of tomorrow’s solutions, but today’s as well.

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PWRDF partner CoCoSI broadcasts a radio show addressing issues of HIV, adolescent reproductive and sexual health and violence against women.

Maria thought she would die very soon.

EL SALVADOR

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widowed mother of one, Maria (not her real name) and her daughter are both HIV positive, born before Maria knew she had the virus. She was struggling as a single mother with a significant health diagnosis for herself and her daughter.

Then, when her daughter was 12, Maria met staff from PWRDF partner CoCoSI (the Committee Against AIDS). They connected with her through the HIV Clinic at the hospital in Sensuntepeque, Cabañas and began home visits, then invited them to a support group run by CoCoSI at the hospital.

Through this support group Maria met José, and with their families they have made a new life together. They live in a small adobe home with a little store that sells chips and pop. José has a bit of land where he farms corn, and another patch for beans. It is enough food to somewhat sustain the family, when José is healthy.

But they have to be careful. Secrecy and isolation describe how many HIV/AIDS sufferers live in El Salvador, even today. If it were discovered that Maria, her daughter and José are HIV positive, they would lose all their business. CoCoSI is working to change this.

CoCoSI was founded in 1999 by teenager Elizabeth Membreño and her friends. They were aware of the lack of HIV education and prevention in their rural communities. CoCoSI provides opportunities for youth to plan and run workshops in schools and the local prison on inequality, gender-based violence, discrimination, bullying and hate crimes against people of non-conforming genders. Team members provide transportation and food costs for people travelling so that they can get to the support group meetings. They will even help with money to get to the hospital for appointments or to get medications from the clinic at the hospital.

In 2010 CoCoSI received a Red Ribbon Award from the United Nations HIV and AIDS program.

“When I was diagnosed in 1996, it was extremely difficult for me,” says Maria. “Now it is like nothing to take care of myself. We need CoCoSI to keep helping us and we will be okay.”

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Naba Gurung, PWRDF’s Humanitarian Response Coordinator, helps a woman carry a bag of rice during PWRDF’s response to flooding in Nepal.

When disaster calls, Naba Gurung answers.

A

s the Humanitarian Response Coordinator for PWRDF, he helped lead responses to four hurricanes in the Caribbean, a drought and famine appeal in East Africa, a wildfire in British Columbia, flooding in Nepal and a mudslide in Peru. That was just 2017.

Yet Gurung says his job takes him to places and to people he never in his “wildest dreams thought of going and meeting.”

What he really loves is being a part of effecting change. In his native Nepal he had been involved in community-based international development work, then later did his Masters in International Environment and Development Studies in Norway.

He arrived in Canada as a skilled immigrant intending to pursue a PhD at Western University but took an eight-month contract with PWRDF instead. Sixteen years later, he’s still here.

Because PWRDF is not an implementing agency, “we don’t do the projects ourselves,” says Gurung. “We have the office in Toronto, but our development projects happen all over the world, in countries where we have long-standing relationships, including programs in Canada itself.”

PWRDF relief projects, he says, are primarily implemented by members of the ACT Alliance, a coalition of more than 140 churches and churchrelated organizations that work together in more

INTERNATIONAL

than 100 countries to create sustainable change in the lives of the poor and marginalized. “The main advantage of ACT is they are deeply rooted in the communities they serve,” says Gurung. He and other PWRDF staff are involved in setting up strategies, policies, guidelines and procedures of the Alliance.

The system is effective because of the simple chain of communication – organizations on the ground, who know the context and the specific community they’re engaged in, send an alert to the regional office about who is doing what, who’s most vulnerable, most impacted. That information is then circulated to the rest of the members, including PWRDF.

Gurung works closely with the regional offices, reviewing appeals and advising where necessary.

For example, ACT recently took his advice and included the emergency response work of Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza into the appeal that is responding to the treatment and care of those affected by the Gaza conflict.

33

Women gather to weigh their children at a hospital in the Diocese of Masasi, Tanzania, where PWRDF has assisted in building a reproductive and child healthcare building.

This is how a hospital is born.

I

n 2008, PWRDF built an HIV/AIDS counselling and testing centre with partners in the Diocese of Masasi. The project was a special intervention to supplement Tanzanian government services in education on HIV/AIDS prevention and provision of counselling, testing and treatment services. An environmental study was successfully conducted and one building with eight rooms was built and used as a base to provide mobile voluntary counselling and testing services to 16,000 people in surrounding communities.

The design of the centre encouraged people to get tested because they could discreetly enter without people knowing that’s what they were doing.

In 2010, with support from Global Affairs Canada, the centre added a reproductive and child health care services building. The Tanzanian Ministry of Health provided health professionals and expanded the services. Soon it became necessary to build living quarters for a nurse, a trained midwife and a doctor. With health care providers on site, delivery of newborns at night became a reality and the decent residential housing buoyed the working morale of health professionals.

Between 2012 and 2016, the clinic added a delivery room and maternity ward to provide a comfortable space for women to deliver their babies and recover afterwards. Other rooms were arranged to give immunizations and carry out antenatal and postnatal check-ups.

In 2016, the partners connected the buildings with concrete walkways then covered the walkways

with roofing to protect people from sun and rain as they moved from one building to the next. The leaky roof on the reproductive and child health care building was repaired and new lighting systems were added to both using solar roof panels.

In less than 10 years, the clinic grew from one centre to a collection of efficient, clean and connected buildings. The Ministry of Health was so impressed that in September 2016, it upgraded the clinic to a hospital. “It is quite an achievement when MOH seeks to expand and upgrade on the efforts of the Diocese of Masasi, PWRDF, Global Affairs Canada and local authorities to transform the Mtandi Health Centre from voluntary counselling and testing to a MNCH clinic and then to a hospital,” says Zaida Bastos, Director of Development Partnership Program for PWRDF. “This is a case where access to a greater variety, quantity and quality of health services on an increasingly more systemic level achieved the gold standard in impact and sustainability.”

35

TANZANIA

The Three Cantors – Bill Cliff, Peter Wall and David Pickett – have raised $1.5 million for PWRDF through performances and CD sales.

It started as a one-off concert.

CANADA

B

ill Cliff, Peter Wall and David Pickett, three singing Anglican priests, were asked by by Peter Townshend, then archdeacon of Waterloo and rector of the Church of the Holy Saviour, to perform a concert. Townshend had heard the trio sing at a Diocese of Huron clergy retreat and thought a concert benefitting the Huron Hunger Fund (the diocese’s PWRDF group) would make for an entertaining evening.

Photo: J.A. Tony Hadley

Twenty-one years and 240 concerts later The Three Cantors, with their accompanist Angus Sinclair, have performed across Canada and beyond, sold thousands of CDs, been featured on radio and appeared as guest artists. All of the proceeds supported a wide variety of causes, specifically PWRDF, to the tune of $1.5 million!

“PWRDF is one of the most important ways that Anglicans in Canada can bear witness to God’s compassion for the world,” says Pickett. The rest of the proceeds go to local and international causes, including student scholarships, refugee sponsorship, AIDS relief and local food banks.

Many of the sponsors choose to donate all the proceeds to PWRDF.

In 2016, The Three Cantors performed their last concert, mostly due to geography. Bill Cliff

is now the Bishop of Brandon, Peter Wall is the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of Niagara and David Pickett is an Archdeacon in the Diocese Calgary. Meeting Sinclair in London, their original home turf, presents its challenges.

But never say never! The performers reunited in 2018 when they performed in Churchhill, Man. They had been scheduled to perform there in 2017 in honour of the town’s 125th anniversary, but major flooding shut off the railway.

Undeterred, the Churchillians regrouped and gathered funds for a 2018 performance. What began as an idea to revitalize outreach around the world continues to inspire and uplift people everywhere.

37

A woman sorts through different seed varieties in Bangladesh where PWRDF partner UBINIG has helped women take on more control in seed diversification and agriculture.

‘Sisters, keep the seeds in your hands!’

T

his is the rallying cry of a Bangladeshi farmer at a rally for Nayakrishi Andalon, the New Agricultural Movement led by communities practising biodiversity-based ecological agriculture.

At one point Bangladesh boasted more than 15,000 varieties of rice. Yet thousands of those varieties were lost when a limited number of ‘higher yielding varieties’ were offered to Bangladeshi farmers. It was this so-called Green Revolution, coupled with the devastating floods of 1987 and 1988, that brought farmers in the Tangail region of Bangladesh to PWRDF partner UBINIG to ask for help.

Farida Akhter, founder and director of UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative), says it became clear that the effects of the floods were more devastating because of the farmers’ dependence on a reduced diversity of rice seeds. “They could not afford to bear the additional costs of fertilizers and pesticides,” she says.

Another casualty of the Green Revolution was the role of women as seed bearers. Central to the

movement is the Nayakrishi Seed Network (NSN) – a web of household, community and regional seed huts and ‘wealth centres’. Their goal is to keep seeds in farmers’ hands because “control over seed is the lifeline of the farming community and ensures the command of the farmers over the agrarian production cycle,” says Akhter. “Strengthening farmers’ seed system is essential for innovation and knowledge generation.”

Nayakrishi Andolon is enabling women to reclaim the role of seed bearer, and thus, return to them a certain measure of social and economic power. According to Akhter there are now 300,000 farming households in Bangladesh practising Nayakrishi. More than 3,000 varieties of rice seeds are now collected and catalogued by the NSN, along with a host of fruit, vegetable, cereal, pulse and plant varieties.

39

BANGLADESH

A Cuban farmer displays a cucumber he was able to grow in his home garden after support from PWRDF and the Cuban Council of Churches.

Success doesn’t always come easily.

CUBA

W

ith the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, and the ongoing American embargo of Cuba that began in the 1960s, Cuba suffered an economic crisis, which put food security at risk for the most vulnerable populations. That’s when the Cuban government encouraged the churches to get involved.

The Cuban Council of Churches (CCC) launched the Sustainable Development Program and PWRDF got involved, providing support for the SDP’s many initiatives. Among those initiatives was training church and community volunteers in food production and preservation (aka canning).

Volunteers trained by the SDP then returned to their individual communities to pass on this new knowledge of food production and conservation.

One farmer, Roberto Chavez, received agricultural training that enabled him to establish a farm on the roof of his family home – a highly functional “green roof ” that not only supports a fruit and vegetable garden, but also raises animals, an important protein source for his family. The project has been so successful that the Chavez

family harvest surpasses the family’s needs and they are able to sell surplus to other households.

The SDP initiative was a perfect opportunity for Cuban churches to get involved in communities at a very practical level, showing people how to better use their land, and providing resources to grow and provide food to their communities. As CCC president, the Rev. Joel Ortega said, “Worship time encompasses all of life, not just church on Sundays.”

As part of PWRDF’s food security campaign, in March 2015, a PWRDF delegation to Cuba encountered people of faith engaged in and passionate about “the care of creation and community” through their rural and urban food growing initiatives.

41

Rations provided by a PWRDF food distribution program are collected by residents in South Sudan.

‘The happiest day of my life has finally come.’

L

otum Longolio rejoiced as she gathered up her rations of sorghum (a grain used to make porridge), beans, cooking oil and salt at the food distribution centre. Lotum, 25, lives with her husband and three children. She is a jovial young woman despite being deaf and mute. process. Lotum and her family were among the 1,799 households (8,960 individuals) in seven districts of Kapoeta North County benefitting from the project.

“Today, I am overwhelmed with joy at the distribution site because it is the first time my household has received food assistance since I got married,” she said. “My household will at least have an increased meal portion today and we shall eat twice a day, compared to the past where my household barely survived on very little millet, which we ate once a day.”

Lotum is thankful that ADRA South Sudan organized a house-to-house registration that makes sure people with disabilities are reached and included.

Photo: J Matthew Sawatzky

As winter began to settle across Canada in December 2017, hunger persisted in South Sudan.

PWRDF led a food distribution project that fed thousands in a rural county in Eastern Equatoria State, through our equity in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and a 4:1 match from Global Affairs Canada. The United Church of Canada also contributed $100,000 and Adventist Development and Relief Agency South Sudan was our partner on the ground distributing the food.

“We are now responsible for making sure everything goes as planned, dealing with the suppliers, monitoring and evaluating,” said Naba Gurung, PWRDF’s Humanitarian Response Coordinator, who was in touch with ADRA South Sudan on a daily basis during the distribution

43

SOUTH SUDAN

Members of a First Nation community gather at a workshop organized by PWRDF partner FNAHEC in order to preserve first nation culture and language.

A Blackfoot reawakening is afoot.

ALBERTA

S

ome people are joining cultural and ceremonial groups and ensuring the revival of these ancestral traditions for, by and with their First Nations communities.

The rediscovery is largely attributable to the work of the First Nation Adult & Higher Education Consortium (FNAHEC), a PWRDF partner since 2000. FNAHEC brings together 11 Indigenous colleges in Alberta to provide post-secondary education to youth based on their cultural values and visions ensuring the preservation of Indigenous language and culture and the protection of traditional knowledge for the benefit of Indigenous community members.

In 2009 FNAHEC piloted an online First Nations study course which includes Cosmology, Blackfoot Epistemology and other Blackfoot Knowledge. These courses contribute to understanding among the Blackfoot people of their origins, culture, and language and developing positive self-concepts. Blackfoot knowledge is not readily available except through local oral histories facilitated by instructors who are called Knowledge

Keepers and ceremonial bundle holders. An additional six courses were piloted in the 2016-2017 school year. FNAHEC has organized agreements to transfer the credits earned through these courses to mainstream institutions such as Athabasca University and the University of Calgary.

FNAHEC offered workshops to 1,100 people, who shared their knowledge and information with more than 2,200 indirect beneficiaries. A cumulative 7,800 people have been exposed to the teachings of FNAHEC. The students who took the courses, or are currently enrolled in onsite courses, expressed their gratitude for learning about their history and regaining some of the traditional Indigenous knowledge. The local community and regional government educational authorities have recognized FNAHEC as a point of reference in terms of Indigenous language, curriculum development and traditional knowledge.

45

Pumla Princess accompanies a patient at Temba House, a community development centre for people living with HIV and AIDS supported by PWRDF.

In Mthantha, hope is pronounced ‘Temba’.

I

n 1999, Lulu Boxoza founded Temba Community Development Services, also known as Temba House, to care for those in the last stages of HIV-related illness. At first the intent was to help people die with dignity, but to everyone’s joy and amazement, that didn’t happen. The Temba community discovered that when people received proper care and nutrition, they began to recover and could resume living with the support of family and friends. It soon become known as the Place to Live.

In step with their clients’ progress, the capacity of Temba House grew and thrived. What began as a small three-bedroom house expanded to a bigger building with 30 beds, a well-equipped homebased care program, an active program roster of educational events, bereavement counselling and rights advocacy work and community placement for orphans. There is also a hospice, education programs on gender and HIV and AIDS, training for HIV prevention and access to food including a nutrition program.

Volunteers are the backbone of the Temba House program. Each week they travel door-todoor visiting an average of 15 homes. Volunteers,

mostly women, assess the situation and identify the resident’s needs for health care, food, documentation, education and counselling. Some relief is provided on the spot as the situation requires. Other patients with more acute needs are referred to Temba House or to local social services.

Volunteers take food to the households they know are in need. As well, volunteers are teaching the community how to grow their own vegetables.

Temba House is highly regarded by the local community and authorities as a good quality service provider that has “Ubuntu” meaning the spirit of caring, humanity and community.

47

SOUTH AFRICA

A family in Bolivia can breath a sigh of relief now that their home was treated for a dangerous type of bug called a vinchuca.

Termites have nothing on vinchucas.

T

ermites can destroy your home, but if a vinchuca bug burrows into cracks in your walls, it could kill you.

That’s because if a vinchuca bites you, you have a good chance of getting Chagas disease, a life-threatening illness affecting between six and seven million people in Mexico, Central and South America.

Untreated, Chagas disease can fatally damage the heart, nervous and digestive systems. The most effective way to control the spread of disease is to stop the vinchuca bug.

Vinchucas live in the cracks of poorly constructed homes in rural or suburban areas.

Plaster-sealed walls in a home with a metal or shingle roof are far less likely to be infested by the vinchucas than a mud-walled structure with a thatch roof.

In 2014, PWRDF partnered with Canadian Baptist Ministries, Presbyterian World Service and

BOLIVIA

Development, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency to make an impact among Quechuan farmers in rural Bolivia. Working with OBADES, a Baptist social development agency in Bolivia, the project reduced or eliminateed the chances of getting bitten by vinchucas by repairing 318 homes in rural communities, and by educating inhabitants to identify the bug. The program also treated 70 people with the disease and delivered outreach education sessions on Chagas prevention to 589 people.

49

Valerie Maier (left) and Betty Davidson (right) collect recyclables in Dawson City, Yukon, that will be returned for cash and donated to PWRDF.

PWRDF prospects are good in the Yukon.

THE YUKON

O

n any given day in the riverside town of Dawson City, Yukon, parishioners from St. Paul’s Church can be found collecting recyclables from local businesses. The group is led

by Betty Davidson, the PWRDF representative for the Diocese of Yukon who has been in working with PWRDF since 2011.

For the last eight years Davidson and dedicated members of the parish have been gathering, sorting and counting recyclables and returning them to their local recycle centre for cash, which is in turn donated to PWRDF. All of the proceeds from the project go to PWRDF’s project in the remote First Nations community of Pikangikum.

Davidson has been an active member of the community for a number of years. She serves on the Diocese of Yukon Executive Community and has been a director of restorative justice in Dawson City.

She has found that businesses in Dawson City are more than happy to hand over recyclable drink bottles, plastics and metal cans for a good cause.

Sourdough Joe’s, a local restaurant, provides an average of 14 dozen empties to the cause twice a week, while a local campground delivers their recyclables directly to Betty’s home.

The recyclable mining group was able to get a helping hand from Bishop Larry Robertson and PWRDF Board member, Valerie Maier, who were in Dawson City in 2016 for a Vacation Bible School.

Valerie and Bishop Robertson were touched by the group’s desire to make our world a more just, healthy and peaceful place for all.

51

Maria Moreira received a loan from PWRDF partner CCM Pemba to improve her restaurant.

Everyone deserves an opportunity to succeed.

I

n the town of Pemba in the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, Maria JĂşlio Moreira operates a small restaurant out of her home, providing delicious food to her community.

Moreira was looking to diversify her business by offering new food items and increasing the volume and profit of her business, but getting a loan was no easy task. Mozambique banks charge interest rates in the range of about 36%, making it nearly impossible for her to secure a loan and expand her business.

Moreira heard about CCM Pemba, a credit cooperative for women in Mozambique that provides them with low interest loans in order to grow small businesses. The cooperative helps to empower women within the community to participate more fully and develop literacy and financial skills.

Like many other women who are part of the cooperative, Moreira was able to grow her business with the loan from CCM. With the increased profits she was able to hire two female employees, increase the business volume and pay for her children to attend college.

PWRDF is proud to support women through CCM as they reach their full potential and become participating members of their community. The cooperative has a membership of 600 women who are running small businesses like food stands, hair salons and tailor shops.

In 2017, CCM Pemba was the beneficiary of the annual Ride for Refuge. Participants raised $30,000 which was matched 1:1 by an anonymous donor.

53

MOZAMBIQUE

Allie Colp, then a Youth Council member, refills her bottle with the clean water in Pikangikum’s new high school in 2016.

I grew up with PWRDF.

By Allie Colp, former member of PWRDF Youth Council

NOVA SCOTIA

N

ova Scotians love just about everything that has a connection to our province and it is well known that one of our communities was helped massively by the very beginnings of PWRDF. So it doesn’t feel like there was ever a time that I didn’t know about PWRDF. Commitment to PWRDF runs deep in many communities and we know that we can help PWRDF support other communities too.

So – part of why I do what I do (and did what I did) for PWRDF stems from that. Serving as part of PWRDF’s Youth Council was without a doubt one of the most valuable volunteer experiences I have had. I learned so much about the work of PWRDF, developed the skills of being on a committee, and deepened in my faith and commitment to social justice.

Throughout most of my time on Youth Council, our focus was on the National Youth Project: Right to Water, whose goals were to encourage youth to deepen their understanding of issues relating to water, build relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in their own communities, and to help retrofit homes in Pikangikum with water and wastewater services.

Having this tangible focus clarified the importance of the work that we were doing. It was even clearer when I had the opportunity to travel to Pikangikum. It was wonderful to see some of the homes that had already been retrofitted with water and wastewater, to see ones that were on the list waiting, to see the brand new school that had been such a long-time coming, to see the commitment of the Band Council to improving life in their communities, and even to experience just how remote the community is when we were snowed in for an extra day.

Seeing the difference that PWRDF and their partners are really making in people’s lives first hand confirmed for me the importance of this work, and deepened my commitment to PWRDF.

55

Farmers in Sri Lanka receive training on bee keeping from PWRDF partner MONLAR.

They say variety is the spice of life.

F

or Subhramanyam and his wife Marudai, adding variety to their 500-square-metre garden in Maeskiliya, Sri Lanka was the key to its success. They used to grow vegetables and fruits in the garden using chemical fertilizer and pesticides and weren’t concerned about maintaining variety in their crop selection. They didn’t think about the nutritional needs of the family because their crops were grown to earn income, not to feed their family. Growing crops this way cost them 3,000-3,500 Rupees each four-month growing season, with crop sales totalling only 5,000-5,500 Rupees.

In 2008, Subhramanyam and Marudai received training from MONLAR, the Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform that coordinates a network of farmer organizations focused on developing an alternative sustainable agrarian development approach. They now plant 10 to 12 different varieties of vegetables each season and grow a variety of fruits including guava, papaya, banana and jack fruit. They learned to use compost instead of chemical fertilizer.

MONLAR taught them to prepare fermented juice from fallen leaves and cow dung and use the concoction as a natural pesticide. They now favour native crops that grow well, conserve biodiversity and need less support. Each season, they preserve some of their own seeds from the varieties they plant. This means they don’t have to depend on costly commercial seeds and has helped them reduce their costs to between 500 to 1,000 rupees.

Subhramanyam and Marudai’s family is healthier since they began eating the organic produce of their home garden. Each day the family eats at least four different vegetables. Since they stopped using chemical fertilizer, they have also been able to gather more types of leafy vegetables that are growing naturally in their garden and are very nutritious.

MONLAR’s Peasant Information Centre (PIC) program works with farming communities to implement eco-friendly small holder farming methods of food production as well as providing training for skills and business development.

Farmers were trained in bee keeping and women farmers were trained in food processing such as mango jam and pickles, using energy efficient stoves that help them in preserving the surplus for their own consumption as well as to sell in the local market for additional income.

57

SRI LANKA

The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Economic Development Corporation supports microfinance and language recovery initiatives with leadership from Caledonia Glendale and Al Little.

Irene Robinson could see it clearly.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

A

mong the 14 tribes of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth indigenous peoples in British Columbia only about 200 fluent speakers of the language are left, many over 65 years old. The language is slowly dying.

So in 2012, the local author wrote a children’s book about the ceremonies celebrated within the NuuChah-Nulth. The book features an “easy speak” way of writing, where the names of the ceremonies are written in both the Nuu-Chah-Nulth alphabet as well as in the Roman alphabet to help readers learn the language.

“I like the easy speak,” said Jackie Wells, the Family and Health Services Team Leader at the Port Alberni Friendship Centre. “It lets me learn along with my child.”

The residential schools’ policy of prohibiting Indigenous language has made it difficult for many languages to survive. One elder rarely speaks the language even today. “Every time he speaks [Nuuchah-nulth], his stomach clenches because of the memories of the beatings he received at residential school for speaking his language,” said Robinson.

The Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation (NEDC) works to preserve and revitalize the language and culture. Without the technology or financial resources to develop teaching tools to promote and teach the language, it is challenging. PWRDF has partnered with NEDC to address some of those funding gaps, such as the cost of distributing Robinson’s book among the community.

The book has been shared with local parents, as well as the local schools and libraries. It has created an opportunity for elders to pass on their knowledge of language and culture to a younger generation.

“I see kids who go to school on the reserve to learn their culture, singing, and dancing. They feel good about themselves,” said Robinson. “It makes me proud.”

59

Josephine Kabanga’s garden is bountiful after she implemented agriculture skills learned through a food security program offered

by PWRDF partner the Anglican Diocese of Bujumbura.

‘My life has changed.’

F

or Josephine Kabanga, one-time refugee, a widow, and the mother of six children, it started from the ground up. After returning home from a refugee camp in Tanzania, Josephine participated in a food security program offered by PWRDF partner the Anglican Diocese of Bujumbura.

“When I came back from the refugee camp in Tanzania, I did not have anything. My husband’s family had taken back our land. I had to start from scratch. I was living in my mother’s house that had a small plot of land, but we did not use it for agriculture. In the refugee camp we didn’t have much to do. I didn’t even know how to work the land and grow vegetables and fruits.

“Through the program I learned so much. I have planted lenga-lenga [amaranth], onions and eggplant. I have also planted bananas, papayas and an avocado tree. I have a goat and my children can have milk from it every day. We don’t go hungry anymore. I sell lenga-lenga in the market and bring home 6,000 Burundian francs a day. Some days even more. Before, I could not even make 1,000 Burundian francs a week. We had our first papayas from our trees and next year I will have my first

bunch of bananas. My life has changed. And I am sure it will continue to change even more.”

While Josephine took part in this PWRDF program between August 2008 and December 2011, others just like her in Bangladesh, Mozambique and Tanzania were learning how to feed their families. Funded in conjunction with the Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada) and working with local partner organizations in each country, the $4,956,000 food security program reached more than 557,000 people.

Programs focused on health care, environmental sustainability, and promoting good governance, including the construction of health clinics, working with farmers to promote chemicalfree farming techniques, and a focus on enhancing the role of women in local communities.

61

BURUNDI

A woman in the Philippines shows the grains of rice she received from PWRDF partner FARDEC after typhoon Haiyan caused devastation in the nation.

Rice is nice.

L

ilia Baoc will never forget November 8, 2013. It was the day typhoon Haiyan washed ashore in the Philippines, destroying Lilia’s home and hundreds of others. When the typhoon struck the Visayas region, PWRDF partner FARDEC (Farmers Development Center) jumped into action.

Initial observation showed that 90% of residents in the six municipalities they visited were affected by the hurricane. FARDEC identified almost 9,500 families who had received no support from the government and were in desperate need.

When Lilia returned home a full day later, after the waters had receded, she discovered her village of Kampingganon had been totally destroyed.

Many families chose not to go to evacuation centres so they could protect their properties or the little belongings that remained. Many stayed with neighbours or camped near their destroyed homes.

Despite the devastation, the families got to work rebuilding each others’ homes with support from FARDEC, which provided them with a cash for work program.

FARDEC also worked to enhance food security for farmers in the region by providing a total of

8750 kg of rice, as well as fish, cooking oil and water purification tablets. FARDEC also operates a rice mill where local farmers can sell their rice for more than the typical price and also pay less to mill it.

Six months after the typhoon, livelihoods started to return to those affected by the disaster.

The first rice harvest took place allowing communities to begin to provide for themselves again. Lilia and her neighbours used the earnings from the cash for work program to build a micro credit fund which allowed them to expand their farms, buy livestock and start small businesses like tailor shops.

The support from FARDEC also allowed Lilia’s village to teach leadership skills and create a disaster plan working together to build a better future for the community.

63

THE PHILIPPINES

Women show off the peanut butter they made as part of an income generation project at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.

Peanuts are a source of protein, and of pride.

W

hen Ana Daborah first arrived at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya in 1992 the population was about 40,000 people. She was fleeing conflict in her home country in Uganda, and like many other residents of the camp, arrived with very little but the clothes on her back.

Today Kakuma accommodates more than 180,000 people. It is a melting pot of refugees from countries including Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, South Sudan, Uganda and other African nations.

PWRDF has been providing funding to the camp since the beginning and for a number of years was the only agency offering financial support.

Today, PWRDF supports programs through the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK).

The NCCK implements programs that allow refugees like Ana to support themselves while living in Kakuma, and one of these programs is the production and sale of peanut butter.

Ana and 16 other women have found that producing and selling the peanut butter has given them funds to purchase proteins for their family’s

diet, which are often scarce. Some women have also used their profits to purchase mandatory school uniforms for their children.

The women buy peanuts at the market, roast, de-shell and grind them. They then package and sell the finished product for $2.50 CDN per jar.

The business has grown and has even received an order for 14,500 jars every month, leading to a sustainable income for Ana and her colleagues at Kakuma.

Although life in a refugee camp is a struggle, income generation programs supported by the NCCK and PWRDF are helping to improve the lives of those waiting for the opportunity to return to a home they have not seen in years.

65

KENYA

A cow donated through PWRDF’s World of Gifts (formerly Gifts for Mission) puts a smile on this Tanzanian woman’s face.

These parishes are bullish on fundraising.

NIAGARA

S

itting outside his Stevensville, Ont., home one night reading the Niagara Anglican and Anglican Journal, Elbert Doornekamp was drawn to the cows pictured on Gifts for Mission’s four-page spread.

It showed how easily anyone can support people around the world – and Doornekamp seized on the idea that this would be great for his church to get involved in. So the next Sunday at church – St. John’s Ridgemount – he announced his dream.

“I think we should adopt a cow to help people in a third world country.” When he described what he had read in Gifts for Mission, a program run

by PWRDF and other ministries of the Anglican Church of Canada, some people thought he was “crazy.”

But the image of that cow, and all the people it could help would not leave him – he lived through the Second World War and the scarcity of supplies, so he knew what tough times were like. He made another pitch, this time to his home church St. John’s and St. Paul’s Fort Erie during a joint worship service.

“Here in Canada,” he challenged worshippers, “we have a good life; let’s try for one, maybe two cows; let’s not be greedy.” The challenge was accepted. As the cut-off date – the first Sunday in November – approached, Elbert waited with anticipation. When he learned that 22 people had contributed $720, which was enough for four cows, he said he felt “great about it, best thing I have done.”

PWRDF salutes Doornekamp’s passion for action – and his persistence!

67

The women of Ixmucane teach community development and promote gender equality in Guatemala.

Ixmucane is the goddess of maize.

GUATEMALA

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nown as the first woman, Ixmucane ground all the different types of corn together – black, white, red and yellow. As corn is central to Guatemalan culture, it’s a perfect name for this grass roots movement of women who have learned to work together.

Since 1993 Ixmucane has focussed on community development, promotion of gender equality, language and addressing issues of trauma caused by conflict and displacement. Women who fled the 1980s civil war in Guatemala ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring Mexico. They’d lost everything – their families, their ancestral property and their valuable connections to community.

While in exile, the women took it upon themselves to address the food crisis and malnutrition experienced by elders and children.

They became proficient in agriculture production and community organizing.

Returning home to Guatemala 10 years later, these women soon realized that owning land was essential for establishing communities. But with Guatemalan law giving property rights solely to men, they knew they would have to fight for co-ownership. Thanks to the training they had received in the camps, and the resulting confidence, they took up the legal battle. Today, women co-own

land and continue to play key leadership roles in six communities across Peten in northern Guatemala.

Ixmucane, set up by the refugee women returning home to Guatemala, is responsible for many of these programs that focus on skills development, networking, advocacy, leadership and income generation. The 528 members each pay annual dues of $2, but also serve community hours, elect a board and hire staff to run the organization.

The programs teach literacy, self-sufficiency through farming – permaculture, planting fruit and raising animals – and educate about sexual and reproductive health resulting in a decline of early age pregnancies. They teach about the laws regarding violence and discrimination, resulting in decreased violence against women.

Almost 20 years after the return to Peten, women and families continue to survive and defend the land that provides for them. They are, after all, people of the corn.

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Farmers in Mozambique show off their crops after receiving agricultural training from PWRDF partner EHALE.

This is a story about relationships.

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ssane Mussa and Alima Alvide are farmers who live in the province of Nampula, Mozambique. Throughout much of their married lives, their health has been fragile and has affected their ability to provide for themselves. The only medical attention they received for recurring diahrrea and malaria, persistent coughs and a host of opportunistic diseases was from the local, traditional doctor.

But their relationship endures. A community health worker from PWRDF partner EHALE got to know them and through that relationship they were convinced to seek treatment at the local hospital and accompanied them to all their appointments.

When their HIV tests came back positive, they were put on an anti-retroviral regime to boost their white blood cell counts to fight the infection and build up their strength.

The treatment can be very debilitating without proper nutrition. But Assane and Alima had limited resources to invest in their diet after years of illness. They depended on their relationships with neighbours to provide one meal a day. EHALE continued to accompany them and provided

the couple with home care and food parcels – powdered milk, fortified flour for porridge, vegetable oil, rice, beans, dried peanuts and other food items to improve their diet.

Little by little they regained their strength and their health. Once they were fully recovered, EHALE enrolled the couple in a farmer’s training course and provided them with farming tools and seeds to grow maize, peanuts, beans, pumpkins and sesame seeds. They have resumed farming full time and now have a relationship with the land.

They and are very grateful to EHALE for all of the support and accompaniment. They believe that the food parcels and EHALE saved their lives.

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MOZAMBIQUE

Ada Turtle says her family’s life has been improved since her home was retrofitted with running water in the Pikangikum First Nations community.

‘It’s so much easier now.’

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PIKANGIKUM, ONTARIO

alk about an understatement. Ada Turtle, a resident of Pikangikum First Nation, a remote Northern Ontario community, used to have to carry buckets of water from the water tank metres away into her home. The mother of four is also on dialysis, so it’s easy to imagine the challenge of this household chore. “Now you turn on the tap and the water is there.”

Steve Krahn photo

Ada’s children are all active in sports, especially hockey, broom ball and baseball. “The kids can use the bath or shower after each game,” she says. “I really appreciate the installation.”

The work at Ada’s house is the culmination of five years working with the Pikangikum Band Council. In 2011, a wave of youth suicides in the community prompted a group of Toronto-based professionals to work with the Pikangikum elders and school system. Among the priorities identified by this Pikangikum Working Group was the lack of safe, clean water.

Bishop Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop of Canada, had also gathered representatives from churches and

community groups concerned about the lack of clean water in Indigenous communities in Canada.

In 2013, this Pimatisiwin Nipi or “Living Water” group, an outreach group of Trinity Aurora Church north of Toronto, joined forces with PWG. PWRDF donors and volunteers gravitated toward this cause and have raised more than $600,000 towards clean water in Pikangikum.

To date, 20 homes have been retrofitted with the support of Frontier Canada and Habitat for Humanity Manitoba. Now, the band council is receiving funding from the federal and provincial governments and they have the training in place to implement the project themselves.

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Water and other relief materials are distributed in the Morang district of Nepal following flooding in 2017.

It seemed like the rain would never end.

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n August of 2017, a torrential rainfall hammered the Morang district of Nepal causing a small river in the Bhaluwa area to breach the banks and flood communities.

Nineteen people died and 3,100 were displaced.

LWF photo

PWRDF quickly allocated $25,000 to partner Lutheran World Federation (LWF) to conduct a rapid needs assessment. This assessment found the most immediate needs to be shelter, sanitation and clean water and the restoration of livelihoods.

The partners operating on the ground got to work building safe shelters. Grants for building materials were given to 95 families in the most affected areas, as well as access to workers who assisted the community with rebuilding their homes.

Restoring access to clean water and sanitation was also a top priority to assure the continued health of the community. New toilets and washing stations were installed in 113 homes and four schools. PWRDF partners also assisted the community with building 53 raised hand water

pumps to ensure the Morang district had access to clean, safe water.

Many residents in the area lost their livelihoods when the flooding destroyed crops, infrastructure and just about everything else in its path. PWRDF partners wanted to make sure the community could sustain itself. A cash for work program was created to build a dam on the banks of the Bhaluwa river, to prevent a similar disaster from occurring again.

This gave the community an opportunity to earn an income as well as be a part of the solution.

“Repairing the check dam at the bank of Bhaluwa not only helps the check dam repairmen, but also became a good opportunity of employment,” said Gulabi Karmakar, an area resident. “Now, we are safer than before with this check dam.”

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NEPAL

A refugee woman and her son visit the health clinic at Refuge Egypt, a ministry PWRDF supports through the Episcopal Diocese of Egypt.

‘I cannot get help at any other place.’

EGYPT

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bout 3.5 million refugees and asylum seekers have come to Egypt from the wartorn and drought-plagued places that have dominated our headlines for the past two years. Some will attempt the treacherous route to Europe, while others try their best to assimilate and make a new home. For many, that new home begins at Refuge Egypt, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Egypt based in All Saints’ Cathedral in Cairo.

PWRDF has supported Refuge Egypt for more than 20 years as it administers health care, emergency food relief and other social supports.

When a family brings their child to the Well Baby and Well Child clinics at Refuge Egypt, they receive a food basket with milk, rice, cooking oil, biscuits, cheese and peanut butter. These food packages draw parents to bring in their children, as well as provide an opportunity for staff to talk about proper nutrition to ensure their child’s growth is not stunted. Good health is key to helping a family resettle or prepare for their next move.

“There is not a place like the place here,” says Rasha, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who has been living in Cairo for a year. She is pregnant and suffering from anemia. She came to Egypt with her husband but unfortunately, he abandoned her and now she will be a single mother. Her aunt told her to visit the health clinic at Refuge Egypt, where she

received excellent care. “I can come at any time during work hours and I’m sure I will find help. I cannot get help at any other place.”

Staff at the clinics focus on monitoring the growth of the children, as well as ensuring their vaccinations are up to date, and checking them for malnutrition and disease.

One newborn baby came to the Well Baby Clinic when he was 29 days old. After weighing and measuring him, the staff determined he was underweight (under the third percentile), and then referred him to the malnutrition clinic. At the clinic, his mother learned about the importance of breast feeding and of her own diet while she is lactating.

One month later, his weight had improved, and his mother was happy to see her baby growing and being more active.

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The Reverend David Burrows (third from right) and other Newfoundland riders finish the Ride for Refuge in 2017.

Cycling isn’t the most popular activity in Newfoundland.

CANADA

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lame it on the the hilly terrain and the poor weather. Nevertheless, the Reverend David Burrows, aka The Racing Reverend, saddles up every fall in the Ride for Refuge to benefit PWRDF. Just weeks before his first Ride in 2014, Burrows, Rector of The Parish of the Ascension in Mount Pearl, Nfld., was racing his rally car to raise funds for autism. Burrows traded four wheels for two but kept his moniker and got on his trusty 20-year-old Raleigh. He was the sole rider in Newfoundland and Labrador, but he and 40 others on 10 teams across Canada raised $17,000 for refugees fleeing violence in South Sudan.

Every year since, Burrows has ridden the 18 km from Cape Spear to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s for RFR. “It may not sound like a long distance,” says the 45-year-old Burrows, “but anyone who’s been in Newfoundland knows those are killer hills and that the weather is often inclement.”

Since that first year, Burrows has been joined by two or three riders, plus a few walkers, together raising anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 – almost one sixth of the total raised each year. In 2015,

$30,000 was raised to support PWRDF partner Refuge Egypt; in 2016, riders raised $24,000 to provide community health workers in Mozambique with bicycles (which was matched by Global Affairs Canada). In 2017, riders and walkers raised $30,000 for CCM Pemba, a microfinance NGO in Mozambique that lends money for women entrepreneurs. This target was met thanks to a lastminute push from Burrows.

Funds raised from the 2018 ride will be divided between PWRDF’s equity in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and a microfinance program with our partners in Guatemala, Madre Tierra and Ixmucane.

Why does Burrows do it? “It’s all about supporting vulnerable people and living out the baptismal commitment and covenant,” he says.

“It’s also a great way to raise awareness in our local area of the issues facing migrants and marginalized people.”

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Brothers Gary and Ron Weir donate the proceeds from a portion of their acreage to PWRDF’s equity in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

A circle of giving grows the gift.

ONTARIO

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n the village of Fitzroy Harbour, near Ottawa, Gary Weir and his wife Pat work 200 acres of land to grow corn, soybeans and hay. In 2009, Weir and his brother, Ron, decided to plant soybeans as a cash crop, and sent in a donation from their earnings to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Three years later, the Weirs’ own congregation at St. George’s in West Carleton got involved. The year after it became a parish outreach project when St. Thomas’, Woodlawn began participating as well. Since then the parish has helped with field cultivation, promotion and advocating for the Foodgrains Bank, fundraising and monetary donations.

By 2014, Christ Church Bells Corners, a busy church in the Ottawa suburbs, began allocating $2,000 to the Weirs for fertilizer and other input costs.

That year the project became the West Carleton Foodgrains Bank Growing Project. “This project is very empowering for the parish,” says the Reverend Kathryn Otley, CCBC’s incumbent. “It gives a way to get involved in addition to just giving money, as important as that is. CCBC’s parishioners built

a sign for the growing project and the project creates opportunities for the parish and also the Diocese of Ottawa’s PWRDF committee to increase relationships and understanding between city and rural parishes.”

“We’re very pleased with the amount that CCBC gives us,” says Weir. “The project wouldn’t be possible without it.” Weir notes costs are further contained through the donation of seeds from BitA-Luk Farms and weed control by SynAgri.

By late fall the crops are ready for harvest, corn is often sold for ethanol and soybeans for industrial use. That $2,000 investment from CCBC, plus donations of about $1,000 from St. George’s and St. Thomas’, will turn into a $9,000 donation to PWRDF’s Foodgrains Bank account. And that money in turn allows PWRDF to help end hunger in other parts of the world.

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Representatives of the Anglican Alliance including Co-executive Director, the Rev. Rachel Carnegie (fourth from the left), PWRDF’s representative on the Board of Directors the Rev. Gillian Hoyer, (back row, second from right).

Anglicans around the world unite!

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he Anglican Alliance could very well have been emulating that African proverb when it was formed in 2010. PWRDF is proud to be a founding member of this agency that was born from the 2008 Lambeth Conference’s recommendation that Anglicans work together globally for development, relief, and advocacy.

The Anglican Alliance came out of the need to provide an adequate and appropriate mechanism for members of the Anglican Communion to work together on development, relief and advocacy.

“PWRDF has been at the heart of the Anglican Alliance – both its design and governance – since its incpetion. PWRDF’s team has helped inspire and shape so much of the Alliance’s identity and focus – in promoting quality standards for development, in building collaboration for the Communion relief and disaster resilience work and in lifting up issues of vulnerability and justice,” writes the Rev’d Rachel Carnegie, Co-executive director.

Other members include: • Anglican Board of Mission and Anglican Overseas Aid, both relief and development agencies of the Anglican Church of Australia.

• Episcopal Relief & Development, an international relief and development agency on behalf of The Episcopal Church of the United States.

• Mothers’ Union, an organization of more than four million members working within 83

INTERNATIONAL

countries to promote stable marriages, family life and the protection of children.

• USPG, a London-based charity that for more than 300 years has been sharing God’s love through action, and seeing lives transformed.

“Being a part of the Anglican Alliance allows PWRDF to connect even more deeply with Anglicans around the world both through partnership with other Anglican relief and development agencies and through connecting with Anglicans in local churches in other provinces around the world,” writes the Rev’d Gillian Hoyer, PWRDF’s representative on the Anglican Alliance Board of Directors.

“Imagine the force for good if all of the Anglicans in the Anglican Communion were united on common issues of relief, development, and advocacy? That is the strength and the goal of the Anglican Alliance: to bring together the Anglican family of churches and agencies to speak, pray, and act on shared issues.”

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Many of the children at the John Wesley Community Centre in South Africa have been orphaned by AIDS. PWRDF supported the centre for more than a decade.

The John Wesley Community Centre was ‘my home.’

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n many households in the Johannesburg suburb of Etwatwa, where HIV/AIDS has been epidemic, the head of the household is under 18. Most of those children face malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, negligence and abuse. It is these children that the John Wesley Community Centre, a PWRDF partner, supported every day for more than 10 years.

JWCC works with the community to support at-risk children in their Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Program. The program focuses on community education and nutrition, but also on fun.

The centre springs to life around 3 p.m. when staff put up the table to serve lunch to about 120 kids after school. Food is an important program for these children who have lost their parents due to AIDS and are under the care of relatives. After the meal, the children go to an after school activity.

Their choices include gymnastics, computers, reading in the library, or Marimba class. Marimba is the most popular choice for the older children, and on Fridays all of them participate.

The high success of the JWCC afterschool program earned the organization the Centre of Excellence title from the local municipality. The

gymnastics team recently won 52 medals over five competitions; 10 children and a teacher were selected to represent Education Africa and South Africa in Marimbas in London in 2015.

John Tshabalala attended programs at the JWCC from 2007 until 2013, when he finished school. “I called it my home. After I finished school they took me as an OVC caregiver, so I’ve worked here very hard, telling myself that this is my home, no matter what.” Tshabalala credits the centre for teaching him “right things” and thanks PWRDF for donations. “Your funds are very much working here.”

Children are the direct beneficiaries, but the benefit is also felt by parents as they can work while children are being looked after and families are being impacted positively by development of children’s values, self worth and potential.

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SOUTH AFRICA

Many refugees of the Sri Lankan civil war – living in camps in India – do not have the paperwork to return home. OfERR is helping them negotiate the process.

From great adversity comes great strength.

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n 1983, civil war broke out in Sri Lanka. Tamil refugees fled the country in the tens of thousands and set up camps in Tamil Nadu, India. They soon formed the Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR) and were instrumental in creating projects to improve conditions in health, education, human rights, advocacy and skills training in the camps.

In 1984, PWRDF partnered with OfERR. And although the civil war ended in May 2009, and many refugees have returned to Sri Lanka, there are still more than 70,000 Sri Lankans living in southern India, spread over 113 camps. There is much work to do – just trying to obtain birth certificates for the 20,000 or more children born in the camps is a daunting task. But finding birth and marriage certificates for the parents who fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs adds to the complexity of the situation.

PWRDF supports OfERR’s development, relief and rehabilitation projects in India, but also its programs in Sri Lanka assisting displaced people.

Working out of offices in Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka, OfERR provides education for all children, helping to facilitate college and university education, health, nutrition, vocational training, self-help groups, mental healthcare, counselling, income generation and medical services.

OfERR also helps navigate the complex return process for refugees. They have worked continuously on returning refugees to Sri Lanka, coordinating the complex process through negotiating with both Indian and Sri Lankan governments, acquiring identity documents and preparing for the actual trip home.

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INDIA

Health care practitioners proudly display a solar suitcase installed by PWRDF partner EHALE to provide electricity and light for night time births in Mozambique.

Nurse Latia has strong teeth.

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elivering an average of 198 babies a month at a birthing clinic in rural Mozambique, she often held her cell phone between her teeth so it would cast a light on her patient.

Babies are more often born at night and her clinic – like many – was not equipped with electricity for proper lighting.

As part of the All Mothers and Children Count project, PWRDF and its Mozambican partner EHALE installed 30 solar suitcases at governmentrun health facilities in 2017. A solar suitcase is a bright yellow, hard plastic, water-proof suitcase that is mounted on the wall of a clinic and wired to a solar panel on the roof. The suitcase is equipped with four lamps, one head lamp, a Doppler, and a lithium battery that lasts five years. The suitcase can also charge cell-phones and other electronic devices such as laptop computers.

We Care Solar provided the solar suitcases and trained four EHALE staff and eight staff from the Ministry of Health electronic maintenance department in Nampula province. The training included classroom instruction and theory as well as applied learning -- trainees actually installed solar suitcases at six health facilities under We Care Solar supervision.

The training has paid off. One year after installation, all 30 solar suitcase are still welcoming babies into the world at night.

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MOZAMBIQUE

The Saleam family was sponsored by the Diocese of Niagara to come to Canada as part of PWRDF’s 50 refugees for our 50th annivesary 10 years ago.

There’s no place like home.

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ONTARIO

he Saleam family is all smiles during a visit from representatives of St. James Dundas and Christ Church Flamborough near Hamilton, Ont. The two churches sponsored the family to come to Canada 10 years ago as part of PWRDF’s 50th anniversary campaign to support 50 sponsorships.

Muhand and Asma are originally from Palestine but moved to Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein. After their home was destroyed in the war they were forced to move into a crowded refugee camp.

Muhand and his immediate family were sponsored by the two parishes in the Diocese of Niagara; his parents and two sisters were sponsored by a Mennonite Church in Kitchener. After arriving in Canada, they all took up residence and started a new life in Hamilton.

Parishes and church groups from coast to coast took up the opportunity – and challenge – to welcome refugees and help them begin new lives in Canada.

During the program, Primate Fred Hiltz said that the sponsoring of 50 refugees was “one of the exciting aspects of the 50th anniversary, and it’s so much in keeping with what has been a priority with PWRDF. I think it’s going to be one of the lasting legacies of the 50th.”

Since arriving in Canada the Saleam family has been adjusting well. The extended family that has also come to Canada has made the transition easier, and they are working to get more of Asma’s family into Canada.

Muhand has been working with Uber, delivering food. The family feels very at home in their new life in Canada and is grateful for the opportunity they were given.

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Natalia Vasquez, a member of Madre Tierra, speaks to other women members of the women’s group.

Madre Tierra restores land and futures.

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he story of Madre Tierra begins long ago with the arrival of Spanish explorers to Central America who persecuted the Mayan people of Guatemala. The downward spiral continued when multinational corporations planted mono crops, and it worsened when the Guatemalan government made it legal to expropriate Mayan lands.

In 1982, a coup d’état installed a military dictatorship that openly attacked Mayan communities. When they fled into Mexico, the Guatemalan military pursued.

An official refugee area in Chiapas, Mexico provided safety but the refugees experienced food and medical shortages. Organizing themselves, they began advocating for their needs and from 19861991, managed to get better access to food and medicine. After the end of the civil war, refugees worked with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to secure a safe return to Guatemala.

Although Madre Tierra was loosely organized in 1986 by refugee women, it wasn’t until 1993 that it became an official organization. In addition to agricultural training for its members, Madre Tierra participated in negotiations with the government for their return and re-integration.

The partnership with PWRDF began in 1997, with the goals of enhancing non-violent social participation, and promoting women’s health, economic productivity and sustainability, and education. Today Madre Tierra has 790 members engaged in the work with 14 Mayan and Mestizo communities.

With huge agribusiness moving into Guatemala, taking not only land but also water to produce food, the small farmers found it hard to grow enough food to feed and support their families. Wells ran dry and crops did not perform.

PWRDF supported an initiative to install water tanks and hoses for families which allow them to gather and store water, and to run drip irrigation through their fields as well as for use at home.

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Volunteer Virginie Nizigama is hard at work at the Village Health Works Clinic in Burundi, a PWRDF partner.

‘I want to give back.’

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o says Virginie Nizigama, a community volunteer at the Village Health Works clinic in Burundi.

Virginie’s second child was nursed back to health here in 2005, and her third was delivered under a tree at the clinic with the help of VHW staff.

Today she is one of the many women volunteers who devotes her time and energy to the VHW Clinic. She helps to grow crops and tend to the livestock at the clinic. She also teaches people how to diversify their diets and grow the best vegetables to stay healthy. Community volunteers like Virginie organize celebratory Health Days where the medical staff meet with parents and children to provide vaccinations, teach about malnutrition and other illnesses, all to the backdrop of traditional Burundian music and dance.

Village Health Works is one of four PWRDF partners working on the All Mothers and Children Count program, which has been made possible thanks to the support of Global Affairs Canada and donors from across Canada.

VHW provides lifesaving medical care to mothers and children across 18 communities, as well as nutrition, food security and educational programs. It fosters an environment of empowerment among the women in the community. Women meet together to talk about the design of expectant mothers homes, as well as to support each other throughout childbirth.

“It’s my passion, my hope for all of us to be healthy and educated and to help others,” says Virginie. “I love being able to share whatever I know.”

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BURUNDI

Members of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver raised funds to buy insecticide-treated mosquito nets to prevent the spread of malaria in Mozambique.

This is a different kind of safety net.

VANCOUVER

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omething was abuzz at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. In 2013, the congregation raised more than $13,000 to provide 1,300 mosquito nets for families in Mozambique. It was part of an integrated health care program funded with a 3:1 match from Global Affairs Canada.

Mosquito nets prevent the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. Part of the project was educating families about how to use the nets.

But the fundraiser was also an education tool for Christ Church children, who learned about malaria, mosquito nets and Africa. They were quick to promote the program in the parish. During the inaugural Sunday service, children were dressed up as mosquitos and attacking the Dean, the Very Reverend Peter Elliott, who was safely under a net, said Dr. Jack Forbes, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UBC and parishioner at Christ Church.

To further educate the congregation, Forbes, who has himself worked in pediatric HIV and AIDS in Africa, gave a homily with the cathedral’s vicar, the Venerable Dr. Ellen Clark-King. They looked at both the medical and practical sides

of anti-malarial nets “set within a theological reflection on our Christian call to serve God’s people – that is all people – far as well as near.”

Between September and March, the cathedral had raised enough money for 700 nets, but decided to do another push to raise funds to supply 500 more nets over the 50 days of Easter. They surpassed that goal, raising enough money to purchase over 600 more nets.

The fundraiser was very effective with both children and adults, says Forbes. “They could see there was a direct consequence to the money they raised or donated and felt that the effort would be effective and would make a difference. I also think it made a difference to people that PWRDF and [Global Affairs Canada]was involved.”

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Elide Barthole tends to her garden on the balcony of her home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She grows enough to support her family and neighbours thanks to seeds received from PWRDF partner CEDDIEC.

A small program can have a big impact.

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ver half the homes in Elide Barthole’s community of Carrefour, Haiti were destroyed in the 2010 earthquake but hers still stands, unique among others in the area. It has no open land around it but her balcony is surrounded by greenery. Elide, a single mother of five, has found a way to use her good fortune to benefit her community.

She now grows a variety of food on her balcony and spends about an hour a day tending the plants.

In the 3 metre by 6 metre area, she is growing tomatoes, eggplant, basil, capsicum peppers, chili peppers, congo beans, parsley, lemon grass and lettuce. Elide makes her own fertilizer by mixing sand and charcoal and gathered the various containers she uses to grow her vegetables from Port-au-Prince. Not only does her household benefit from her production, she harvests enough produce to share with her neighbours. She has started to harvest basil from the garden, which they use to make tea.

Elide’s house is one of 80 households in

Carrefour that was part of an urban agriculture project PWRDF supported through CEDDIEC, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti’s development organization. In this program, 300 households around the Port-au-Prince area received seeds, compost, agriculture training and insecticides.

As part of its support to Haiti following the earthquake, the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti implemented an urban agriculture project to support households like Elide’s, which are run by single women. The project also focuses on households that have at least one child suffering from malnutrition. With assistance, a small agricultural project can make a big difference.

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Indigenous women in Mexico attend training for health practitioners provided by PWRDF partner Kinal.

Midwives have much to offer.

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n 2011, the maternal mortality rate in Mexico was 67 per 100,000, compared to 8 per 100,000 in Canada. PWRDF partner Kinal Antzetik is a non-profit health organization working with Indigenous people in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas states. Kinal developed a training program for community health practitioners and traditional midwives known as parteras. The goal was to contribute to a reduction in the country’s overall maternal mortality rate by reducing the maternal mortality rate in these marginalized communities.

Through this initiative midwives and others learn both the traditional and technical aspects of women’s health and safety. Many midwives in Mexico, including Adelaida Leonides, are illiterate.

To accommodate this, Kinal uses illustrations and symbols in its teaching materials rather than written texts. By 2015, the maternal death rate had dropped to 38 per 100,000.

With support from PWRDF and the National Commission for Development of Indigenous Communities in Mexico, Kinal’s program also teaches about gender issues and the importance of working with local health authorities.

Leonides’ daughter accompanied her to the training to help her with reading and writing.

She puts her training to work at the Indigenous

Women’s House (CAMI) in San Luis Acatlan, Guerrero State. CAMI serves as a delivery centre, teaching site, health clinic and social hub for Indigenous women in the region. It offers advice and checkups throughout pregnancy, and if the delivery is high risk, Leonides encourages the mother to visit the local hospital, and volunteers to accompany her on the journey.

Leonides learned to be a midwife from her mother, but has had that traditional knowledge enhanced by the training provided by Kinal.

“Now I’m very careful to wear gloves during delivery,” she said. “The training has also helped me in teaching the community how to avoid maternal mortality.”

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Rebecca Deng (left), a Winnipeg resident and former South Sudan lost girl, founded the Winnipeg Women’s Resource Centre in Bor in 2016 to help women in her home country heal after the civil war.

Blessed are the peace makers.

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tudies show that peace deals have a 35% higher chance of success when women are involved. To that end, PWRDF is supporting the work of a KAIROS (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative) program to facilitate Healing and Rebuilding our Community workshops within the National Women’s Program in South Sudan.

PWRDF has invested $20,000 in the program because it conducts training very efficiently at the community level.

“We are adding value to the project already being supported by KAIROS without creating another layer of partner management for the National Women’s Program,” says Naba Gurung, PWRDF’s Humanitarian Response Coordinator. PWRDF is a member of KAIROS, whose connections to local organizations makes it an excellent partner in programming and advocacy.

The acute nature of the South Sudan conflict necessitated quick action: training community activists who already knew the people and were able to work within community systems. These activists are affiliated with the Justice, Peace and Reconciliation Commission (JPRC) of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan.

In 2016, PWRDF partnered with the South Sudanese diaspora in Canada to support two

women activists to receive training of trainers on Healing and Rebuilding our Community in Rwanda. In 2017, PWRDF helped organize two community-based HROC workshops in Bor with the Winnipeg Women’s Resource Centre (WWRCB). About 50 women from Wau in the troubled Bahr-el-Ghazal region of western South Sudan are currently being trained to engage in peacemaking activities. And most recently, PWRDF supported six South Sudanese social activists to travel to Rwanda for the HROC training of trainers.

“We’ve seen from other countries that training and re-energizing the local peace builders is effective,” Gurung adds. “Particularly effective is intense training of trainers, a method developed by the Quakers who tested and used it in Rwanda and Burundi with great success.”

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The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbihop Fred Hiltz, holds a pledge card for PWRDF’s “Fred Says” food security campaign.

It all starts with food.

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hose five words sum up the main message of PWRDF’s three-year food security campaign called Fred Says, named for then President of the Board, Archbishop of Canada, Primate Fred Hiltz. Without food, people don’t have good health, can’t learn in school or work effectively.

Passionate about the work of PWRDF, Hiltz calls it “one of the best good news stories of the Anglican Church of Canada.” So when asked to be the face of the campaign, he didn’t hesitate to say yes. The goal was to move people to understand food security as being the availability of food and one’s access to it, and the mission of PWRDF in ensuring that people and communities have enough good, healthy food to eat.

Through a series of ads called “Fredisms,” promotional and educational resources, videos highlighting partner stories and volunteer engagement, Hiltz’s message resounded with the constituency and beyond. New Fredisms were promoted every two months and linked to a PWRDF project. People were invited to learn more online and in the Church about the issue of food security and the work of PWRDF and its partners. People donated and hosted events to raise awareness of the importance of food in the lives of

every person around the world. For those wanting to “dig deeper” into food security issues, PWRDF developed the Sharing Bread Learning Exchange, three courses and learning resources, along with “Hunger is Not a Game,” an educaiton resource for young people.

From the first Fredism “Have you Eaten Today?” to the 5As of Food Security, Fred encouraged all of us to learn more about those whose lives were affected by a lack of good food.

Sifa Naru, a widow in Mozambique, stopped taking the anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to control her AIDS because she didn’t have food to take them with which is very hard on the system. Her story inspired PWRDF to step in and provide food packets to Sifa and hundreds of other patients to help them get back on their feet after being diagnosed with HIV.

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A boat ambulance crosses a river in Bangladesh to get a pregnant woman and her midwife to a health clinic.

Shahana had to act fast.

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er first son had died at six months and Shahana was having convulsions that could lead to eclampsia. The Dais (traditional birth attendants) knew she needed to go to a hospital immediately. But Bantiar is a remote Bangladeshi village on the bank of the river Pechakola, and Shahana and her husband Jahangir are poor farmers.

The Dais took Shahana by bicycle ambulance to the riverbank and placed her in the covered boat ambulance to a Daighor, a health centre that had been built nearby with funding from PWRDF and Global Affairs Canada. Luckily, the Dais were prepared with their kit bags. Shahana delivered a beautiful baby girl on the river. She named her Nodi, meaning ‘River’.

Midwives play an important role in Bangladesh’s health sector. They protect and enhance the health of women who recently gave birth or were pregnant. PWRDF provides support and training, helping them to improve their skills and capabilities, benefiting the lives of all of the women and children with whom they work.

In 2008, PWRDF and its partners implemented a maternal health program in the country. Cofunded by Global Affairs Canada, this program helped 259 midwives increase their skills in assisting women and newborns.

In addition to helping to increase the immunization rate of pregnant women and children to 100% in the project area, the program has ensured that women visit health clinics at least twice during their pregnancies and within 48 hours of giving birth. The training increased traditional birth attendants’ awareness of the problems faced by pregnant women such as problematic pregnancies, maternal and child health care, and nutrition. A referral system was developed and increased rural women’s access to health care at clinics and hospitals.

The use of tricycle van ambulances and boat ambulances enhanced this system in project areas.

By the end of the project in July 2013, 63,000 mothers and 94,500 children under the age of five had regular, on-site access to basic pre- and postnatal care as well as basic health care.

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BANGLADESH

Ten-year-old Chloe Bowers speaks to the congregation about the struggles of Syrian people and asks attendees to purchase bracelets to raise funds for people sponsoring refugees.

Super kids make SuperFriends!

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or the past seven years our SuperFriends! comic book style resource has been sharing the stories and lessons of PWRDF with our Sunday Schools and highlighting some pretty standout kids.

Theo McLeod lives in St. Catharines, Ont., with his parents. Theo had heard about the Pikangikum Water Project and the situation of the people living there from his parents and in church, so when he turned five, instead of birthday gifts, he asked friends and family to help him support the water project by making a donation. Not only did Theo raise money, he spread the word about Pikangikum to other children and adults.

In 2008, Liam Olsen, 8, announced to the congregation at St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Steveston, B.C. that he would run five kilometers and raise funds in support of the relief effort in China and Myanmar (Burma). He promised to donate all of the money to PWRDF. Liam even sponsored himself, contributing $10 from his piggy bank to the total contribution of $1,700.

But that was only the start. In 2009 he ran for the Grandmothers Campaign at the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and in 2010 he ran for the David Suzuki Foundation. In 2011 he ran 8 km and raised funds for PWRDF work in the Horn of Africa. He added half of his bank account – $250 – for a grand total of $4,050. “We just don’t realize how fortunate

we are to have so much when people just as good as us have nothing,” said Liam. “And if you have the ability to act, why not?”

Chloe Bowers, a 10-year old in Kanata, Ont., is a member of St. Paul’s Anglican Church Youth Group. When she learned via PWRDF about the Syrian refugees, she decided to make and sell bracelets to raise funds and awareness.

“The first Sunday we made around $260 for the fund, and I was amazed at what I could do in one day. The next Sunday I wanted to make sure everyone in our church knew we were selling bracelets to support the Syrian refugees as they were struggling to find food, water, shelter and care. I made an announcement at all three of our services telling of the struggle of the Syrian people, especially the children. We raised even more money. I was proud to be helping PWRDF with this magnificent fund for the Syrian refugees. As it says in the gospel according to Matthew, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.’ I hope you know that you are peacemakers and you have helped me become one.”

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Joyce Mtauka received agricultural support from PWRDF partner the Diocese of Masasi and now runs a large commercial farming operation and employs 10 people.

Sometimes big does mean better.

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oyce Mtauka, a farmer in the Lindi Region of southern Tanzania, has gone from growing food to feed her family (subsistence farming), to running a commercial operation that employs 10 people. She is an example of how education, resources and training for one person benefits more than just that one person.

Mtauka’s journey began in 2012 when PWRDF’s local partner, the Diocese of Masasi, embarked on a five-year nutrition and food security program.

“[Hunger] was a major problem before the program, because food insecurity was common in most of the households,” Mtauka recalls, speaking through an interpreter. Many families only had enough food for one meal a day, but she notes, “nowadays, at least it is between two to three meals a day.”

Mtauka received better seeds to improve her operation, but the more significant component for her was education about better farming practices.

She learned how to used those improved seeds more effectively, and also the importance of crop rotation and diversification.

In year three of the program, Mtauka travelled to Canada with the Rev. Geoffrey

Monjesa, development officer for the Diocese of Masasi, to participate in PWRDF’s Sharing Bread Learning Exchange, a week-long course developed in collaboration with the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia. There she shared with PWRDF volunteeers and interested Anglicans her knowledge of farming in southern Tanzania, and learned from Canadian farmers and food producers about their own agricultural practices.

The training helped her start growing maize and cassava commercially. She reinvested her profits into the farm, purchased more land, and now employs many of her male relatives to work the fields alongside her. She has also taken an active role in caring for the women and children in her extended family. In 2017, Mtauka welcomed a PWRDF delegation to her farm.

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Tarcila Rivera Zea, an Indigenous midwife from PWRDF partner CHIRAPAQ in Peru, participates in a United Nations forum for Indigenous People.

Midwives preserve the right to a cultural birth.

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ithin Indigenous communities the rate of maternal and newborn deaths is significantly higher than the general population. The United Nations Fund for Population Activities has released a report that access to midwives could prevent almost two thirds of these deaths, however Indigenous midwifery is rarely recognized.

At the 17th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) Cheryllee Bourgeois, a Métis midwife, pleaded with member nations to tackle the oppression facing Indigenous midwives around the world.

PWRDF has partnered with Ryerson University’s Aboriginal Initiatives in Toronto, Kinal Antzetik in Mexico and CHIRAPAQ in Peru and has pledged more than $100,000 to expand and share the knowledge of Indigenous midwives.

Bourgeois, who has collaborated on the project, explained the need for Indigenous midwifery to the member nations at the UNPFII and claimed that the oppression of Indigenous midwives is in violation of articles 24 and 25 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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PWRDF and the three partners have been thrilled with the success that the presentation at the United Nations has contributed to the project.

The recommendations that were offered in the UN were included in the final report of the 17th Session of the UNPFII. “This is an excellent outcome,” said José Zarate, the Indigenous Communities and Latin American-Caribbean Development Program Coordinator for PWRDF. He noted that each partner was able to share this successful result through their own media channels, “This is crucial for building profile and sharing with allies and their own communities.”

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Bishop Griselda Delgado speaks with parishioners at St. Peters, Erindale in Mississauga, Ont. The Bishop has been instrumental in strengthening the partnership between PWRDF and the Cuban Council of Churches.

Bishop Griselda leads by example.

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“People in Cuba used to look for help from outside,” says Bishop Griselda Delgado. “Now, they have learned what they can do with their own two hands.” She says Cubans who benefited from PWRDFfunded programs have transformed the lives of their friends and neighbours throughout the towns where they live. “It is not about receiving, but about sharing.”

When Bishop Griselda was consecrated a bishop in 2010, she started to explore a closer partnership between ECC and PWRDF. She was aware of the partnership between PWRDF and the Cuban Council of Churches in training church leaders in Cuba, but she was keen on developing projects in partnership.

Community vegetable gardens have increased knowledge, skills and capacity in food production.

Community members have also learned how to raise small animals organically and ecologically.

This has led to greater self-sufficiency in the bishop’s constituency, mainly in poor rural communities. It’s also provided work, income and improved nutrition levels for mothers and children.

PWRDF is now working with the ECC to train leaders in community development, including gender issues, farming techniques and nutrition.

These leaders will in turn train 2,000 people in their communities, leading to better access to healthy food, increased income through the sale

of surplus food and a decrease in gender-based violence through improved understanding and communication between men and women.

As part of Fred Says, PWRDF’s food security campaign, a delegation visited Cuba in 2015.

“Our surroundings tell the story of unused land being transformed into raised vegetable beds, flowers, fruit trees, seed generation, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, beehives,” delegates wrote.

“Adjoining land, now owned by the church is a productive, chemical-free farm. We harvested guavas – a wheelbarrow full. … The water filtration system provides potable water. A tiled area just inside the property provides a public access tap for the community. This church has intentionally reached out beyond its walls. This approach has been taken up by individuals and parishes.

Networks and possibilities abound.”

Learning to do for themselves, rather than to wait for someone to do for them, has led people to be more confident, creative and hopeful.

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Ruth works in her garden after receiving training in sustainable organic agriculture from PWRDF partner Send a Cow Uganda.

Ruth felt like she was in prison.

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he and her husband Vincent live in Mitwizi village in Uganda. They are members of the Tukwatirewamu Orphan’s group, whose 30 members are all caregivers of orphans. They have six children ranging from seven to 17, and care for them as if they were their own.

Ruth used to do all the chores without the support of her husband. She had no friends because Vincent would not allow her to attend any community gathering or training. “He used to tell me that a woman who gets friends around the village gets bad manners and will get other men. So he kept me in the home without allowing me to go out of our home. In fact, I was a prisoner.”

In 2017 PWRDF partnered with Send a Cow Uganda with a grant of $21,000 to support an ongoing gender empowerment and livelihood development program in the central district of Rakai. The area has the highest proportion of children under 18 who have been double orphaned (both parents are dead), mostly from HIV and AIDS-related causes; 92% of households consider themselves moderately or severely food insecure according to an August 2016 SACU survey.

Ruth was selected as one of the group’s Community Resource Persons (CRPs) and it has transformed her life. She received training in social development, sustainable organic agriculture and animal management and Ruth’s family never misses a training.

SACU staff got husbands from neighbouring communities who had allowed their wives to join the group to persuade Vincent to relent. “That is why I love Send a Cow -- it got me out of this prison.

“My relationship with my husband and children is very good,” says Ruth. “My husband reminds me when the group meeting is or even takes me to the meeting venue. I can go for the meeting and he remains at home caring for the children including cooking for them.”

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PWRDF Youth Council members (left to right) Charlotte Lilley, Alex Hendderson and James Mesich model the winning T-shirt design from Natalia Beattie.

Just what does a truly, healthy, and peaceful world look like?

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o find out, PWRDF’s Youth Council asked youth across Canada to put it on a T-shirt. The winning design came from Natalia Beattie of Edmonton. “My design shows two individuals hugging to forgive each other for the mistakes we’ve made. The shaking hands show the agreements being made to keep peace in the future.”

The whole design is about forgiveness and trusting that we will figure out future hurdles together with the view of the collective and less of the individual. Beattie was thrilled to win. “I got really excited when I saw the reveal on Instagram and I immediately called my friends and family. I am so thankful for being chosen.”

Beattie was introduced to this contest from one of her best friends, Leah Marshall, a Youth Council member. “Leah knows I love a challenge. When I saw that the topic of the contest was based on what I believe a truly just, healthy, and peaceful world means to me, my first thought was ‘there’s no such thing as world peace.’ ”

“A peaceful world cannot be sustainable in the present state of how we exist. Currently when we make mistakes, we fight each other, get angry, struggle to forgive, and so on,” Beattie writes.

“Everyone should be allowed to believe what they want to believe, but no one should push beliefs on

others. When everyone respects and is respected, we will have a step in the right direction towards world peace.”

Choosing a winner was difficult, said Youth Council’s Promotion Lead, James Mesich. “There were several entries that all could easily have made fantastic T-shirts. My hope for the competition was to get youth from across the country involved and informed about PWRDF and our message. I was very excited to see that we got entries from across Canada and I hope that many more people were introduced to PWRDF through the competition.”

The winning design was revealed at the Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth (CLAY) Gathering in Thunder Bay in August 2018. “Finally, getting to see the finished T-shirt was a great feeling,” said Mesich. “I was so happy to see the hard work of so many people resulting in a fantastic design that was being shared with youth from across the country at CLAY.”

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Leah Marshall (left) a Youth Council member, and Candace Aitkens shared their stories of farming and food producing in Canada at the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia.

When we share bread, we share so much more.

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he word ‘accompaniment,’ like the word ‘companion,’ comes from the Latin words cum pane, which mean ‘with bread.’ “It implies sharing together, eating together, nourishing each other, walking together,” said Jean Vanier in his Becoming Human Massey Lectures in 1998. “We human beings need to walk together, encouraging each other to continue the journey of growth and the struggle for liberation…”

PWRDF drew inspiration from these words in developing the Sharing Bread Learning Exchange, a series of three week-long courses in collaboration with the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia, and two delegations to partners in Cuba and Tanzania.

Sharing Bread was a key part of the Fred Says Food Security campaign.

Each of the courses engaged PWRDF volunteers and Anglicans interested with PWRDF partners from Cuba, Tanzania and Bangladesh and provided opportunities to explore food security issues at the personal, community, Canadian and international levels. The return visits to Cuba in 2016 and Tanzania in 2017 by PWRDF volunteers further deepened both the learning and relationship building.

With the Sorrento Centre’s organic farm as a resource, participants explored themes such as

faith and farming, and community-based food production. Other themes included food security issues in Indigenous communities, food security and health care for mothers and babies, the complexities of food aid, food security and food sovereignty, and a range of other issues.

A highlight of each week at Sorrento was the presentation by partners, but it was in 2015, the second year of Sharing Bread, that participants were gifted with the stories of two Canadian women, Leah Marshall, a young organic farmer from Rosalind, Alberta, and Candace Aitkens, a food producer and community leader from Quebec’s Magdalen Islands. Those present were moved and inspired by their perseverance, their lives and their work, and by the hopes and dreams they held for their families and communities.

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Canadians love to give, especially goats!

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hen it comes to giving gifts, PWRDF donors are extremely generous! Gifts from our annual gift guide, a collection of items supporting various PWRDF programs, have increased steadily over the past several years.

The 2017 version, The World of Gifts, was the biggest success to date. Goats were the number one gift item, with 2,640 billies and nannies being purchased – an increase of 287% over the the year before!

But goats bought and dollars raised weren’t the only things to increase. The number of churches who rallied to the cause also grew.

Parishioners at St. Michael’s in Canmore, Alta., set a goal to raise $1,000 for chicks in Tanzania.

Organizers posted ‘The Chicks are Coming…Be Prepared’ signs around the church and church hall.

Then four weeks before Easter Day they began selling little life-like chicks for $10 each to honour the memory of a loved one.

A thermometer-like chart was posted so everyone could watch the progress of the Chick Sales. The final tally far exceeded expectations -

INTERNATIONAL

$2,563.75 – and parishioners from the little brown church were thrilled.

On the other side of the country, parishioners at St. Alban’s Anglican Church in Grand Bank, Nfld., donated their coins to the Sunday school children each week asking them to pick a charity for their gift. The children picked World of Gifts and raised $1,055 for chicks, goats, ducks, and a host of other items.

“This is a ‘hands-on’ gift approach to development through PWRDF,” said the Rev. Bob Peddle. “The children choose their own gifts to offer. This is what makes it so special,” he said.

Sunday school superintendent Wanda Power thanked the congregation “for your little bit of change every week”.

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PWRDF staff all contributed to this project, but we would especially like to thank Zaida Bastos, Janice Biehn, Christine Hills, Su McLeod, Alex Newman, Suzanne Rumsey, Carolyn Vanderlip and Mike Ziemerink for their writing and editing efforts.

We would also like to thank Maureen Lawrence, Peter Goodwin, Mike MacKenzie, Allie Colp and the Primate, Fred Hiltz, for contributing their reflections.

60 Stories for 60 Years was designed by Patrick McCormick – patrick@coppernoise.com