Webs of Interconnectedness

I was sitting in a room of unfamiliar faces, in an unfamiliar country. It was that first day of a conference - that day I dread when, for the first time, we all look around the room pretending not to judge and stereotype as we measure one another. In these moments of uncertainty people sought out the comfortable and the familiar as small groups formed around the room: Swahili speaking Africans, Indians, Filipinos, Francophone Africans, Indonesians, Sri Lankans, Eastern Europeans, Americans and the Aussie – all coming together in language groups, simultaneously forming bonds of friendship and barriers of protection.

But, as the conference got underway, and the theme began to unravel, the single purpose that brought this disparate group together in the middle of nowhere Kenya, began to break the barriers, expand the bonds and create a new web of interconnectedness that seemed unlikely but quickly became the comfortable and the normal.

As much as I find the first moments of an event like this uncomfortable, eventually I love being in a varied group of people like this, hearing new stories, understanding issues through a different worldview and learning once again that it is through this diversity and difference that I learn to be more. And at the end of the time I have made new friends, new connections and together we have begun to fulfil our expectations.

Vinoth Ramachandra writes; “The theological understanding of human personhood is that we image God in relationality. Just as God's being is dynamic relationality, so we are constituted as persons through webs of interconnectedness. We become the occasion for each other’s self-fulfilment. Those who love us make us what we become; we only learn love by being loved.”

People are designed to be in relationship, to explore and become enveloped by webs of dynamic interconnectedness. It is by being loved that I become more than I am and that I learn to love others. But that is often messy and sometimes painful, it takes effort and time, it takes intention and perseverance and it often leaves you vulnerable and open to criticism. But, after fighting with it for a long time, (and watching it modelled by someone I love), – I am nevertheless convinced that it remains the only way to be real, to be human, to be!

Lukenya IPACS

Flying into Nairobi this afternoon reminded me of flying over North Western or Central Victoria (Australia). The landscape is brown, flat and arid. It's not the red dirt of the Centre, but the browns and blues of the desert. It should be wet, the monsoons should have started, but the wet season has not come yet, which the tourists are loving, but the locals are worried, it means hardship for them.

I'm here attending (and helping to facilitate) a course to be accredited to train the art and science of Integrating Peace-building and Conflict Sensitivity into Programming (IPACS). And here is in the bush at the Lukenya Getaway, off the Mombassa-Nairobi Highway, in the middle of nowhere. The drive in found us slowing down and navigating around herds of Zebra and Impala (Zulu for gazelle). In the evenings, they tell me, we will be visited by giraffe and other animals.

But for now, I sit looking out over the wide empty brown, sparse trees dot the horizon, tall with high branches and flat tops. I sit separated from the 'wild' by a fence of brilliant red bougainvillea, listening to the birds and some annoying loud neighbours. In the other direction a dusty, slow parade of trucks carrying goods along the african arterial from Mombassa to Nairobi and beyond to Uganda and Rwanda is constant and apparently unending. It feels like a long way from anywhere here in Lukenya.

1,100 FACTORY DEATHS ONE YEAR ON: COLES STILL USING BANGLADESH SWEATSHOPS

One year after the Rana Plaza collapse that resulted in 1,100 factory deaths, the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) has notified the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh of suspected human rights abuses by Australian retailer Coles.

In the wake of the tragedy, the Bangladesh Government is urging western firms like Coles to sign a Fire and Safety Accord, setting legally enforceable minimum working standards for garment workers.

Transport Workers’ Union National Secretary Tony Sheldon said other Australian retailers such as Woolworths, K-Mart and Target had signed the Fire and Safety Accord. But Coles refuses to sign.

“At Coles’ AGM last year, they said they had stopped buying clothes from Bangladesh, but as recently as January, Coles was still selling Bangladesh clothing, likely sourced from sweatshops and firetraps like Rana Plaza," Mr Sheldon said

“We’ve made this notification to the Human Rights Commission because basic labour rights are protected in the Bangladesh constitution and it is unconscionable that Coles believes they are above the law – it has to stop.

Today marks the first anniversary of the factory collapse in Rana Plaza, Bangladesh, which killed 1,100 people.

The TWU has organized a candlelight vigil to pay respects to the victims of Rana Plaza and honour their memories by fighting for safe work everywhere.

The Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord is an initiative of the Bangladesh Government and key NGOs, and sets minimum standards for safe work, fair pay and enforcement of workplace rights in Bangladesh.

OP3 CRC - Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure

Children whose human rights have been violated will be able to bring their grievances directly to the United Nations after a historic international treaty entered into force on Monday 14 April.

The treaty, called the Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure – or OP3 CRC for short – sets out an international complaints procedure for child rights violations. It allows children from States that have ratified the protocol to bring complaints directly to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The UN will then investigate the claim and can direct governments to provide remedies.

Despite the near universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it was the only international human rights treaty that had no means for victims to seek justice when they have not found a solution at the national level.

“Every day we witness violations of children’s most basic rights. Children are fighting to survive, let alone thrive. They experience discrimination, violence in their communities, schools and homes, as well as a lack of access to basic services,” says World Vision child rights expert Sara Austin, who will address a special event at the UN in New York to mark the entry into force of the treaty.

“Tragically, the rights of children are often neglected by decision makers and children’s views and opinions ignored. This new treaty gives children the ability to be heard directly by the United Nations and have a say in holding governments accountable.”

So far only 10 countries – the threshold required for the treaty to become international law – have ratified, including Albania, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Gabon, Germany, Monténégro, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Thailand. An additional 45 countries have signed the protocol, indicating their intention to ratify - but Australia is not one of these. (Click here for a list of states who have ratified or signed the treaty.)

“We congratulate the first 10 countries that have ratified the protocol, and we urge all others to follow this positive example. States must demonstrate their commitment to promoting and protecting children’s rights by ratifying this new treaty so more children can access international justice,” says Austin.

Want to know more about OP3 CRC?

• Ratify OP3 CRC 
• For Children
• Downloadable Publication
• UN Convention on the Rights of Children

Failings of History – “Never again”?

20 years ago, on this date, the Rwandan genocide began: the murder of 1,000,000 people in 100 days (400 people per hour). It is called genocide because it was the intentional mass murder of people belonging to one particular group. The murders occurred because of tension between the African ethnic groups, the Tutsis and the Hutus. Most of the people killed were Tutsis and it was a group of rebels (RPF) led by the Tutsis that stopped the killings.

It took 6 weeks and about 500,000 lives before the UN agreed that genocide might be happening in Rwanda. And the international community never responded because the UN and international community (particularly the U.S.) couldn't agree how to pay for an intervention. And it took 16 years after the event before the UN recognised it could have done more to prevent the genocide.

In 2007 and 2008 I had the privilege of working with a community of 70 families to build a new home, a new community. It was a life changing event for me (and my family). Next month, I have the privilege of returning to Kigali (the capital city of Rwanda) to participate in a Peace-building Network Conference and to attend some of the 20 year genocide memorial functions.

I also hope to revisit that community in Gituro; that barren hilltop in the middle of nowhere, to meet some of the people and to see the development that has occurred in the last 6 years. I remember the changes I saw when I revisited a year after my stay with the community, I can only hope and imagine the changes that I will see this time are not limited to infrastructure, but that they extend to lives transformed, society reformed and people continuing to live lives committed to following Jesus, even when that road has taken many of them through the valley of the shadow of death.

Can you imagine how tough these memorials are for this nation and her people? Let’s pray that the never again pronouncement screams so loud in these months of memorial that it bounces around in the thick skulls of our leaders, (political and religious). In the meantime we, the lucky nation, the luck people could learn to be more hospitable and more compassionate of those who are vulnerable, abused and dispossessed.

April 7, 1994	The genocide begins.  Armed forces from Rwanda and a Hutu militia called Interahamwe begin the mass murder of Tutsis, as well as Hutus who sympathize with Tutsis.
April 8, 1994	The Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front tries to end killings.  A group of Tutsi rebels called the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) tries to rescue its troops and end the killings.
April 11, 1994	The Red Cross states that tens of thousands of people have been murdered.  Less than a week after the murders begin, tens of thousands of Rwandans are dead. About 2,000 of them are killed after United Nations soldiers are removed from a school that they are protecting.
April 15, 1994	20,000 people are murdered at the Nyarubuye church.  Approximately 20,000 people seek refuge from the murders at the Nyarubuye Roman Catholic Church. Most are killed by attackers carrying spears, hatchets, knives, and automatic rifles.
April 21, 1994	The United Nations removes most of its troops.  Only 270 United Nations soldiers are left in Rwanda after the UN removes 90 percent of its troops. The UN is afraid that its peacekeepers will be killed.
April 30, 1994	Rwandan refugees flee to nearby areas.  As the mass killings continue, tens of thousands of people from Rwanda try to escape. Most go to nearby Zaire, Burundi, and Tanzania.
May 1994	A half of a million Rwandans are murdered.  With no help from other countries, Tutsis continue to be murdered. By the middle of the month of May, the Red Cross states that nearly a half of a million people have been killed.
May 17, 1994	The UN says that genocide may be happening in Rwanda.  Reluctant before now to say that the killings in Rwanda are genocide, the UN now agrees that the murders could be genocide. It plans to send in 5,500 new troops to help, but the United States and the UN cannot agree on how to pay for it and sending the troops is delayed.
June 22, 1994	Operation Turquoise begins.  The UN sends 2,500 French troops to Rwanda to create a safe zone. The action, called Operation Turquoise, is not successful as Tutsis continue to be killed in the safe zone.
July 18, 1994	The genocide ends.  Pastor Bizimungu is named president and Faustin Twagiramungu is the new prime minister.
April 2000	The UN admits it could have done more to stop the killings.  The United Nations Security Council announces that it did not do enough to prevent the genocide in Rwanda 16 years ago.

The Pied Piper: A Modern Day Fairy Tale

The Pied Piper stole away the children of the town of Hamelin after the town's leaders did not keep their promises to him. 

In this version World Vision relates the infamous tale to the idea that a slew of modern "pied pipers" - major killers like pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea - are stealing away our children because world leaders have not kept their promises. What will it take to make convince our leaders that it matters?

Stopping Cost Blowouts with Sovereign Borders

PM Tony Abbott says his Government is "stopping the border protection costs blowout", and Mr Morrison has cited the closure of a number of mainland detention centres as one of the first cost savings made because the arrival of asylum seeker boats has slowed.

So what are the costs?

Ending Modern Slavery

27 Million people are today enslaved, that's more than double the number of people removed from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade.
This horrific indictment on our society was highlighted again this week with yet another attempt to do something about it. Mining magnate Andrew Forrest launched an organisation (The Global Freedom Network) to end modern slavery. The Network is supported by Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, (the senior Sunni Muslim authority). Leaders of other faiths have been invited to join the network.

Mr Forrest said he was moved to act after meeting a nine-year-old Nepalese orphan who had been a victim of human trafficking. "She looked at me with this look of abject terror - this horror, this disgust, this revulsion - and she screamed," he said.

"Since that time, Nicola, my wife, and I can't actually get that sound out of our heads. We committed ... to do something about it and that's when I came and ordered a full audit of Fortescue's supply chain and discovered slavery there as well."

But initiatives like Forrest's can only be successful if we support it too. So, I would urge you to find 20 minutes and sit down with your computer and take a look at this presentation by Lisa Kristine.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery]

Sri Lanka: Detention of human rights defenders Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan

On 16 March 2014, human rights defenders Mr Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan were arrested and questioned by officers of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in Killnochchi, in northern Sri Lanka. The police confirmed that they will be transferred to Colombo. It is unclear whether charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) have been formalised. Ruki Fernando is an adviser to INFORM, a human rights documentation centre in Colombo and a well known Human Rights defender in Asia, and Rev. Praveen Mahesan of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) is the director of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Jaffna. (Ruki has also been very much involved in Sri Lankan asylum seekers and returnees work.)

The two human rights defenders were arrested at approximately 10:00pm on 16 March while visiting the Tharmapuram area of the Kilinochchi district to investigate the arrest, the previous day of Ms Balendran Jaykumari, a human rights defender campaigning against enforced disappearances, and her 13-year-old daughter. 

The police initially denied detaining Ruki Fernando and Rev. Praveen Mahesan, but later confirmed that they had been arrested by a specially appointed unit of the TID. The office in charge of the Kilinochchi police further stated that they had been arrested as “they behaved in a suspicious manner” as they visited families of disappeared individuals.

It is reported that they were questioned separately at the Killnochchi police station and that they were transferred to Vavuniya at approximately 1.30am on 17 March. In the morning of 17 March, Ruki Fernando’s parents were issued with a Notice of Arrest stating that he was arrested by the TID on alleged acts of terrorism and would be held for further investigation. It is not clear whether the family of Rev. Praveen Mahesan was issued such notice. At 1.30pm, their lawyers received confirmation that the human rights defenders had been brought to the TID Headquarters in Colombo. A police spokesperson announced that they will be charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, however it is unclear whether charges have been formalised. As at the time of writing neither individual has been allowed access to their lawyers.

The arrest of the two human rights defenders occurred while the United Nations Human Rights Council discusses a draft resolution on reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka.

No way. They will not make Australia home

As part of their "No Way" asylum seeker campaign, the Abbott government has published a horrific graphic novel 'targeted' at Afghan asylum seekers. It has no words, "'because Afghans are not as educated as Australians". [Link to: The Guardian - Australian Government Targets Asylum Seekers]

Regardless of one's stance on the actual 'problem' of asylum seekers, surely we can agree that the methods of the Abbott government are becoming more and more extreme as our Prime Minister has unilaterally declared a 'war' at the cost of billions of dollars to the Australian taxpayer, in direct violation of international law, because we're being 'invaded' at the rate of around 3,000 genuine refugees a year, a rate that if continued for THIRTY years would STILL not fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

'And it's working', the PM says, 'no boats have arrived in Australian waters in 55 days'. What they don't tell us is how many boats have left Indonesia or Malaysia! If the aim is to stop the boats arriving in Australia apparently it's working - we turn them around! But if the aim is to stop people dying on boats in an attempt to get here (which is what both governments told us it was) then evidence suggests that it's not.

Why Sri Lankan Children in North Drop Out

Ramadhas, a father of two girls, returned home in mid-2010, but was forced to take his oldest daughter out of school when he was no longer able to provide for his family with the meager money he earned from his small vegetable garden.

“About a year after we returned, we had hardly any money, but there was a good market for scrap metal that could be collected. She skipped classes and came with me to collect metal,” he said. The father and daughter team earned just over $2 for every kilogram of scrap they collected, much of it left over from the war. But since then the scrap metal market has become less lucrative. His daughter, now 14, has started doing odd jobs instead and he doesn’t know whether she will ever return to school to complete her education.

Although he doesn’t want his other daughter to leave school, the prospects don’t look good. “I have given up farming. Now I also work as a labourer, and the family income depends on what she makes,” he said.

$ 1.25 a Day

Sri Lankan authorities have expressed concern over an increasing number of reports that children are dropping out of school in the conflict-affected north, where economic pressure and poor prospects are creating conditions that could have negative consequences for the future development of the region.

Most of the dropouts are from poor families who find it difficult to make ends meet as humanitarian assistance dries up almost five years after decades of civil war ended. This situation is being aggravated by an acute lack of job opportunities and a rising cost of living.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Sivalingam Sathyaseelan, Secretary to the provincial Ministry of Education. “The main reason is the lack of jobs. There is no money in these families, and they need everybody that can work, to work,” Sathyaseelan told IRIN. “They are able-bodied and can find odd jobs or agricultural work more easily,” so there is growing pressure on children in their early teens, mostly at secondary school level, to leave the classroom.

The top public official in Kilinochchi District, Rupavathi Keetheswaran, the government agent, agreed. She described the situation for the estimated 40,000 households in the north that are headed by women, or those families with disabled members, as particularly dire, saying, “Sometimes the children don’t have any option but to work. There is no one else to make money for the family.”

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), these children generally find work doing temporary or manual jobs such as unskilled labourers in construction projects or on farms. “Sometimes the kids would just wander [around] ‘til they find odd jobs,” said Ramalingam Sivaparasgam, the ILO national project coordinator, who noted that some children work for as little as USD 1.25 per day.

Skewed Assertions & Lack of Data

A study released in January by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), analyzing out-of-school children in four countries - Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - says the island nation has close to universal participation in primary and lower secondary schooling, with just 0.07 percent of all primary and lower-secondary school-aged children not in school.

However, the data did not cover the districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, which comprise the Northern Province, where the final days of conflict were fought out. “It is important to remember that the Sri Lankan data excludes five districts in the North where conflict took place, and rates of school exclusion are known to be higher than average,” the report points out.

Children living in the conflict-affected northern and eastern areas of the country have lower school participation than the national average, particularly in lower-secondary education, the report conceded, with child labour cited one reason for dropouts.

Older children and young adults were motivated to drop out because jobs commensurate with high school or university graduation levels were very hard to find. “They have to settle for manual labour jobs if they remain in the region, so why not take them [out of school] now?” said Sathyaseelan, the top provincial education official.

This is particularly true in the more remote, interior areas of the region, where facilities and job opportunities are often non-existent, and little investment is taking place. “There are no private enterprises, [and] very few government offices in the villages. The only thing that is there, is construction of houses or farm work,” government agent Keetheswaran confirmed.

According to ILO, the longer a child stays away from the classroom, the harder it is for them to catch up. “There are no night classes or extra classes for such dropouts right now. Without such assistance they find it extremely difficult to re-join their studies,” Sivaparasgam said.

But without targeted programmes to identify drop-outs and help them, there is also no effective way of persuading them to return to school. “More so when money is very hard to come by for families,” he said.

[Sourced & edited from: http://www.irinnews.org/report/99606/why-sri-lankan-children-in-north-drop-out]

We Seek to Understand the Situation of the Poor and Work Alongside them Towards Fullness of Life

I grew up surrounded by extreme poverty and unfairness with parents that have given their lives to doing all they can “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and meet human needs in his name without discrimination” (from The Salvation Army’s Mission Statement).

I remember Mum spending hours at a Singer treadle sewing machine making clothes for children in homes and orphanages in Sri Lanka. I remember watching the kids walking proudly in alligator file to church in their brand new matching outfits and huge ‘look at me’ smiles.

I remember Dad spending days organising feeding programs and medical distributions for the homeless and the poor. I remember spending hours in an old VW van packed to bursting with bags of rice and corrugated iron as we tried desperately to access a cyclone devastated the community.

I remember going to a very exclusive school and learning to live with the tension between the people I lived among, who had little or nothing, and the kids I went to school with who wanted for nothing. (20 years later I watched as my daughter learnt the same skill.)

Today I remind myself that I signed up with The Salvos and with World Vision because I believe that “from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”, (Luke 12:48). My privilege and opportunity - pure accidents of my birth - require that I make those that have little or nothing the priority of my life and passion.

I love the World Vision value statements. I have no problem aligning my life and work to these. The fact that they align well with my spiritual DNA and life script is a ‘happy coincidence’. I willingly sign up to be biased for the poor, I willingly commit to working to understand and work alongside the poor to transform lives and communities with the goal of achieving ‘life in all its fullness’ - for everyone. I will willingly engage with the affluent supporter for the sake of the marginalised and vulnerable—but it must always be for that purpose!

In the priority to align with a supporter centric model I find that I need to remind myself that I exist to “serve the neediest people of the earth; to relieve their suffering and to promote the transformation of their condition of life” (from World Vision Values Statement). I understand and am committed to the fact that to serve the neediest we need to engage with supporters and we need to appreciate the supporter’s perspective. But to offer that meaningful experience where the supporter feels connected and where there is potential to transform their life I have to start not with where they are at or with what they want, but from the perspective of suffering and need and with an understanding of the “neediest people of the earth”.

May we often be accused of having a bias for the poorest and neediest!