Environment protection: All about Love and Justice

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(Photo taken in Kurigram District of northern Bangladesh)

Written by Tony Chan (Senior Partnership Development Officer)

 

Friends asked me, “Your organisation (CEDAR Fund) is for poverty alleviation. Why does it actively promote environment protection?”

 

This is closely related to CEDAR’s understanding of poverty. We believe that poverty is resulted from an impaired relationship. In the beginning of creation, relationships between man and God, man and man, and man and nature were good. However, man sinned and disobeyed God, and even exploited others and the nature for their own benefits. Those who were exploited became the poor.

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When Poverty Becomes a Sin

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The author (far right) and other trippers visited ethnic minorities in northern Thailand

 

[“SHARE” JUL – SEP 2019 ] TAKING ACTION

Written by: Janice Cheng (participant of CEDAR’s exposure trip in 2018; church pastor)

 

In December last year, I went to the Thai-Myanmar border with CEDAR to learn about their poverty alleviation projects in the area. The 8-day trip enabled me to understand more about the region. We visited some villages with CEDAR’s local partners and spoke to various individuals during our time there.

 

The residents are mostly ethnic minority groups from the mountainous areas, and they all have their own predicaments to overcome. There are abandoned single mothers and minority groups who have been relocated to the border area in northern Thailand due to warfare and other problems. Since they have not been granted Thai citizenship, they do not enjoy any social welfare, employment or education benefits or support.

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We are awake: STOP Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

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[“SHARE” APR – JUN 2019 ] JOIN HANDS JOIN HEARTS

 

We put on armors to fight to eliminate harmful traditional practices
Subvert the harmful influences and effects
We are united and determined to take actions
Because we are now well awaken to the scourge.

 

Ignorant people in the past
Have been badly harmed by them
Because they did not know any better.
Ignorant people in the past believed
Harmful traditional practices were good for them
When indeed their lives were at stake.

 

Female Genital Mutilation is a major harmful practice.
Sugar-coated as prestigious and noble,
FGM suffocated our mothers
We regret and repent for the harm incurred.
FGM steals away sexual pleasures, corrupts marriages
And adds complications to child birth.

 

(Lyrics edited by CEDAR Fund, originally written by a member
from the ant-FGM group in Ethiopia.)

 

Under the warmth of the bright and serene sun, a group of Ethiopian village and school girls stood before a hundred villagers, and sang the above song with shiny smiles and beaming faces. Some of them had a uniformed yellow T-shirt on, where the slogan “STOP Female Genital Mutilation” was displayed clearly in the local language. This day was the special day of village education day, and also the performance day of the advocacy club.

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“Hill tribes’ Blood is in My Veins.” – An Advocate Walking Alongside Marginalised Hill Tribes

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[“SHARE” APR – JUN 2019 ] FOCUS ~ Community Development & Advocacy

Written by: Lai Ka Chun

 

In mid-2018, a junior football team and their assistant coach were rescued after 18 days in Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. Their 25-year-old coach’s care in the cave was indispensable. This incident made the coach a hero in Thais’ hearts. However, this coach was originally stateless, as well as the other 3 boys, who had no Thai citizenships.

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Climate Injustice: A Christian Perspective

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Written by: Edward Lai Ka-chun (Senior Communications Officer)

 

On 15 March, thousands of students from New Zealand, Australia, India, Thailand, and Hong Kong skipped school and took to the streets to protest against the collective inaction of governments and other world leaders on alleviating global warming. The wave of ongoing protests against climate change has spread across the globe since last Autumn. In an interview with foreign media in February, a French student who boycotted school said, “Why study for a future, which may not be there?”

 

This is somewhat true. In recent years, the United Nations has issued multiple warnings on the imminent threat of climate change: If the countries do not collaborate and adopt comprehensive policies to stop temperature rises, based on the current volume of greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures will increase by 1.5°C by 2030. Once we reach the tipping point of a 2°C rise, the world will be plunged into an eco-catastrophe and our offspring will bear the consequences of their ancestors’ poor behaviours.

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Ethiopian Child Sponsorship Programme – Graduates Passing on the Love

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Every year in Ethiopia, there are a few beneficiaries “graduating” from the Child Sponsorship Programme* supported by CEDAR. Generally, beneficiaries are no longer supported by the programme once they reached 18 years old, however, we believe that the criterion to “graduate” from the programme shall not be limited to their age. We, instead, take the holistic development of the beneficiaries into account. For this reason, even as they turn 18 years old, we continue to subsidise them in occupational training for 1 to 3 years in hope of a higher chance for them to be employed with a certain qualification. For those that were admitted to university, our subsidy will apply until the completion of their degrees. From 2018, the programme has subisdised 145 children and adolescents and helped 204 parents or guardians form self help groups to fight against long term poverty.

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