The following statement was issued by the ACT Ethiopia Forum about the situation in the Tigray region.  ACT has also issued two alerts (one for Ethiopia, and one for Sudan) regarding humanitarian response in the region.

The ACT Alliance Ethiopia Forum lifts up in prayer the people affected by the crisis that erupted on the evening of 3 November 2020 in the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia.

According to unconfirmed reports from UNOCHA the conflict has already resulted in massive internal displacements among residents, and refugees living in Western and Northern Tigray. According to UNHCR, more than 25.000 refugees from Tigray have already crossed the border to Sudan and their numbers are continuously increasing.

We stand in solidarity with all affected, mourn the death, condole those who lost loved ones, and join all those who call for a peaceful resolution, and the immediate stop of the fighting.

The ACT Alliance Ethiopia Forum calls for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor to allow relief operations and the protection of all civilians and humanitarian aid workers.

It further calls on its members and partners to mobilize resources – programmatic, financial, in-kind, and spiritual – to provide an appropriate humanitarian response as soon as secure access can be guaranteed.

Last week, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) was being reviewed for the first time at regional level by governments, UN agencies, and other stakeholders, to assess progress made in its implementation since it was adopted by the UN GA in December 2018. The first region to conduct such a review was the UNECE region, encompassing Europe, including Southeastern And Eastern Europe, Central Asia, as well as North America.

ACT Alliance has submitted a contribution to the United Nations Network on Migration (UNNM), which helped facilitate the consultations, together with the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), who have invited written submissions for the review process. ACT’s submission examines the four main thematic areas of the regional review process, which are based on objectives of the GCM:

(1) Social inclusion and integration of migrants;
(2) Human rights protection, pathways and decent work;
(3) Human rights protection and border management; and
(4) Countering discrimination through promoting a facts-based migration discourse.

The submission portrayed the ACT Alliance position on these topics, assessed the progress we have seen in these areas so far in the UNECE region, gave examples of how ACT members have been involved, and included a call to action for important next steps on the way to the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022.

While acknowledging important progress in some countries- for example with regard to improving migrants’ access to health and other services, and promoting alternatives to detention in the context of COVID-19- ACT’s submission also highlighted major areas of concern, including pushbacks against migrants seeking protection, continued institutional discrimination, especially against undocumented migrants, states’ unwillingness to meaningfully address the impacts of climate change on human mobility, and the need for more participatory and inclusive dialogues to address xenophobia and discrimination.

The ACT submission, as well as all others, from states and non-state actors alike, is available on the UNNM website for the review.

The review meeting itself proceeded in two stages – kicking off with an informal multi-stakeholder consultation on November 9. 2020, which was attended by over 100 organisations, and during which ACT Alliance was moderating one of the roundtables – and continuing with the formal review on November 12-13. As documented in the excellent report by the civil society rapporteur, the multi-stakeholder consultation covered a wide range of topics, highlighting the diversity of countries and contexts, as well as the similarity of rights issues prevalent throughout most of them.

Major civil society concerns included: The persistence and increase in violence against migrants at borders; a continued disregard for the best interest of children in migration proceedings, including in situations of detention and returns; large labour rights deficits for migrant workers, putting them at risk of exploitation; the importance of providing migrants access to services, regardless of status, highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic; and the necessity to provide broader access to regular migration pathways for labour migration, family reunification, and through regularisation of status.

The formal review on November 12-13 included thematic panel discussions with the active participation of governments (including Turkey, Germany, Canada, Portugal, Kazakhstan, the UK, and Albania) and other stakeholders, reflecting on progress made in GCM implementation. For the most part, these discussions were quite honest and constructive, acknowledging the need to increase efforts not only in multilateral cooperation, but also domestically, and underlining the value of a whole-of-society approach.

In his closing remarks, the civil society speaker, Stephane Jacquemet from the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), echoed many of our collective concerns when he focused on (1) the priority of providing access to services for all migrants, regardless of status; (2) the need to create and expand regular migration pathways; and (3) the pressing need to promote alternatives to detention, and in particular, to prohibit child detention.

The regional reviews of the GCM will continue early next year, since all other regions have now opted to postpone their review processes due to the impacts of COVID-19. ACT Alliance will continue to work with our members through our advisory structures to gather inputs and represent the voices of migrants in these regions.

Christian Wolff is ACT Alliance’s Migration and Displacement Program Manager.

This article was originally posted on the Finn Church Aid website

FCA will be supporting 4,000 crisis-affected children and youth in Hama area in Syria with access to quality education in a safe and protected environment.

Finn Church Aid (FCA) has been granted over 680,000 USD from the Syria Humanitarian Fund to support 4,000 children and youth to access quality education in Hama area, Syria. 

 After ten years since the war broke out, the Syrian refugee crisis remains the largest displacement crisis of our time. About 6.2 million people are displaced within Syria, and nearly 12 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance. At least half of the affected people are children. 

The war has also left the education system in ruins. More than one in three schools are damaged or destroyed, and many are used for other purposes than education. Some schools operate in double or triple shifts to accommodate the massive influx of displaced children.  

Meeting the needs requires collective efforts from national, regional and international educational actors, says Karam Sharouf, FCA’s Education Programme Manager in Syria.

“Education is the key to comprehensive human, economic and socially sustainable development. Therefore, continuous support should be provided to the education sector in Syria, and educational capabilities that could contribute to rebuilding Syria should be developed“, Sharouf says. 

Quality education through rehabilitating schools and training teachers 

In the communities that FCA will support in rural Hama, approximately one thousand children are out of school, setting the enrolment rate at 77 per cent. Poverty and a lack of safety and security remain critical barriers to accessing education. Protracted displacement and limited economic opportunities have forced people in Syria to adopt negative coping strategies, including child marriage and child labour. This is usually more common in villages without schools, says Sharouf. 

“There are many cases of early marriage, and many families rely on their children working due to the absence of the father, who might have died or travelled away“, Sharouf says. 

Schools constitute a protected environment for children and enhance their well-being, but currently, schools are overcrowded. They also lack doors, windows, heating systems and learning materials. Sanitation facilities are largely unusable. FCA will rehabilitate school buildings to make them safe and accessible and construct inclusive and gender-sensitive sanitation facilities.  

The need for teacher training is enormous as the number of teachers in Syria’s formal education system has declined by more than half in the past five years. The remaining teachers have not received systematic in-service training during the war, and newly recruited teachers often lack the required qualifications. FCA arranges teacher training that includes child safeguarding and psychosocial support, and equips schools with teaching materials and recreational kits, for example, craft materials and sports equipment. 

The programme will also focus on ensuring access to quality education for children and youth through non-formal education, such as remedial classes and accelerated learning that helps learners to catch up with their age-grade after years out of school.  

“These groups will be able to continue education and keep up with the academic achievement of their peers, thus reducing their chances of dropping out of school to a minimum“, Sharouf says. 

FCA has substantial experience in providing quality education services, especially in emergencies, and is a solid partner of local actors already implementing education activities in Syria. 

The landscape of Beirut and the lives of hundreds of thousands of its residents, changed in an instant on the afternoon of August 4, 2020. At 18:00 local time, over 2700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in a warehouse in the port of Beirut, killing hundreds, injuring thousands, and displacing over 300,000 people.  “Hundreds of thousands became homeless in seconds,” said Sylvia Haddad of ACT member Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR)’s Joint Christian Committee for Social Service in Lebanon (DSPR-JCC).

ACT members, including DSPR and the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), began to respond through the local churches and their programmes. “Every helping hand was needed,” Haddad said. “A JCC youth group in Dbayeh camp insisted on going to Beirut to help.”

The youth, along with everyone else who could- including people living with disabilities- pitched in to clean up. The blast levelled buildings, shattered glass, and destroyed homes and livelihoods in a wide radius of Beirut.

Beyond assisting with the cleanup, DSPR-JCC began to support affected vulnerable people in four camps around Beirut, providing food vouchers, food, hygiene supplies, and helping to meet household needs.  “ACT Alliance gave us our first support from their emergency funds [Rapid Response Fund] while we approached other donors for help,” Haddad said.

MECC took an active role in coordinating the various churches in Beirut in helping them to respond effectively and cohesively, avoiding duplication and sharing resources as best they could. MECC churches provided food, hygiene supplies, COVID kits, health care, life-saving items, and livelihood support.

In addition, MECC prioritized giving unconditional cash or vouchers to affected families. “Unconditional cash lets people buy what they need, and respects their privacy,” said Samer Laham of MECC. “We also gave unrestricted cash so people could buy what they need from the local market.” This cash allows the local economy to pick up, and for local farmers and merchants to be supported.

Haddad also sees the value in providing cash to affected families. “Cash is the best in this context- people do not always prefer lentils and rice,” she said, noting that cash allows them to buy the food that is best for their family needs.

Laham noted a continued need and role for churches in the response to the blast. “People need moral and spiritual support to absorb the trauma,” he said. “They will also need help to cope with the approaching winter, and with their children’s education needs.”

MECC and DSPR, along with Christian Aid, Diakonia Sweden, and Norwegian Church Aid, have joined in launching a $3.2 million appeal for ACT’s humanitarian work in responding to the Beirut blast.  The appeal will target 40,480 people living in the affected area who lost family members or property to the explosions. Particular focus will be placed on supporting children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities, and vulnerable families who do not have the financial capacity to cope.

The full appeal can be read here, and those wishing to pledge to the appeal are asked to email George Majaj, Humanitarian Programme Advisor for MENA.

This is an excerpt of the World YWCA / YMCA Week of Prayer booklet. To download the

full booklet click here

Breathing together in solidarity

By: Elaine Neuenfeldt, Act Alliance Gender Programme Manager

At times of catastrophes and calamities it is difficult to breathe.

Catastrophes are not affecting everyone equally – they tend to intensify inequalities and exacerbate injustices.

The current pandemic is taking away of breathing capacity, as well as our analytical capacity to understand and explain the changes the world is going through. Our words and concepts are not broad enough, are not fitting in this new reality, the “new normal” we are facing. We need to find how to breathe and how to live in this new reality where social distance, loneliness and fear seems to rule relations. We need to find ways to flourish relationships that are framed in solidarity and love, in the midst of this unjust world, and to transform this world for the better. To find words that help us to breathe through this pandemic – as the Latin term suggests – cons-pirar (conspirāre) – to breathe with, to breathe together. To breathe in communities that are rays of hope, helping each other to shine, in resilience and in resistance.

Biblical inspiration

In the Old Testament story, there is this story of the widows of the famine, the widow of drought, in the book of Kings Chapter 17. The story is telling us that there was no rain in the land; In times of calamities, like draught, it is so common that women, especially widows and children are the most affected. The widow of this biblical story has only one son and to increase the drama, he dies. She cries out questioning the prophet. In her understanding, the death of her son is because of her sin. She feels guilty – which is a very common feeling for women, especially mothers, and even more, after the death of a child: what have I done wrong? I should have done this better…. I could…now is too late…

The prophet, going against the purity law that prohibits touching corpses, with the risk of becoming impure, took the death body in his arms, and laid it down; then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord. The Lord listened to the voice of the prophet and the life of the child came into him again, and he revived!

Bringing this son back to life is crucial that this family group will be restored in their social context. For a widow, to be alone, would be a path to more suffering and loneliness, hungry and increased poverty.

Prophetic task here is to restore life and restore family relations, by bringing back a son for a widow. This is a religious experience that enters into houses, deals with concrete issues of daily life: drought, empty pots of food, ill bodies.  It is a religious practice that goes beyond the temple, the sanctuary and its traditional rituals and ceremonies formatted in the officially instituted spaces. The prophet also seems desperate: he demands God: Have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?

Death and suffering question our faith. Who has not gone through moments of doubt, disbelieve, skepticism especially, when facing difficulties, like death and loss? Who has not felt like in the limit of faith and hope in experiences of suffering? It is like this. The woman cried and wept; the prophet, alone with the death child, in desperation cried to help.

It is in touching death, in the encounter with the suffering where life is restored. The prophecy here happens in embracing, in touching body with body, in a kind of ritual that warms up life, warms up hope and reconnects relationships. The text is saying that the breath came back to him, he started breathing again and his life was restored.

Faith is not a mere abstract reflection about God. A faith experience is interwoven with daily life – and life is not always easy is not predictable or simple.

Prophecy is the courage to act restoring life to a death body. Is the brave gesture of touching death to reestablish relations – because life comes first… Faith experiences in the margin of life, when life is at the limit, can restore breathing. And then life is coming back because relationships are restored.

Because sometimes we are losing our breathing… sometimes we are losing our faith… sometimes we are losing our relations… with God, with others, with ourselves. Sometimes there are moments that impede us to breath. And it feels like life is going away… 

But there is the prophetical announcement that God is not restricted to geographic limitations, ethnic borders, or limited officially constituted spaces and rooms. This prophetical announcement is crying out that the love and compassion of God will enter in our homes, our pots, our tables and beds… and will touch us, will touch the body, breaking down any notion of impurity, untouchability – and life will be restored, breath will come back, bodies are going to feel the warm breath of life again. This is a spiritual practice that shines like rays of hope, creating resilient communities.

It is so interesting that touching and carrying the suffering in the arms is recognized as a prophetic gesture from these biblical texts. In times when is so difficult look in the eyes, and seeing the suffering, it is much needed to stay in solidarity, take diaconal responsibility with whom is next, the stranger, the one who is alone, who is in trouble.

Faith moves us to experience life coming back, being restored… to touch and to be touched by the Spirit of love, compassion and solidarity – being in the arms of God, embraced by the love of God, life is inspiring life, is dwelling life in the midst of our lives.

Questions for reflection

• What is this that makes us feel the warm and tender touch of life back to our body?
• Where the compassionate touch of love that nurtures our faith and hope can be experienced in today’s world, where individualism, loneliness, and indifference for human suffering are daily reality. How can we, as individuals and as community/congregation of faith work as a space where the touches of compassion, that bring back life can be felt?
• How can we do all this “touching” when physical distance is required as part of sanitary measures in times pandemic?

Blessing

Breathe in this blessing; consider how you might influence ONE life. 

As you breathe out, speak a blessing on those around you.

God bless our world, our habitat.

Enable us to respect and treat our earth with the dignity it deserves.  

Empower us to preserve its resources to provide for all people.

Enable us to protect our people, especially the vulnerable: women and children.

Enable us to do what is good, resist evil and to protect each other from evil.

Enable our men to transform themselves from beneficiaries of patriarchy to contributors of human dignity. 

Inspire our leaders to be transformed for the good of all people.

Enable us to be transformed into Servant Leaders.

Enable us to be open to restore your image in us.

Inspire us to have healing relationships.

Enable us to live with dignity.

Empower us to heal our communities and give us your peace.

Amen.