ACT member Amity Foundation, like many ACT members, collaborates with a dense network of volunteers all over China in responding to major natural disasters. For example, the staff of the Tongxinyuan Social Service Center in Hebi City joined Amity’s relief response to the Henan flooding in July and August 2021. What does its founder say about the collaboration?

At the end of July 2021, heavy rain caused serious floods across China’s Henan Province, a landlocked area in the central part of the country, around 800 km south of Beijing. The floods affected over 13 million people in 150 counties. 302 people died in the floods and 50 were declared missing. In addition to human casualties, million hectares of crops and infrastructure were destroyed, leaving millions of people in need for life-saving emergency supplies.

For this response, Amity worked closely with local communities and organisations, relying on numerous volunteers supporting transportation and distribution of the emergency supplies. Alone in the two transit depots in Xinxiang and Hebi, through which Amity was channeling relief supplies to the affected regions, more than 300 volunteers contributed their time and energy to support the logistics and help the people in need. Amity together with the volunteers provided support to over 50,000 families living in eight cities, 106 towns and 284 villages in the province.

Liu Hongpeng, the founder of Tongxinyuan social service center located in Hebi City, and his colleagues joined the Amity Foundation’s flood relief response to the Henan flooding from 23rd July until August 3. Liu reflects on the collaboration among local organizations, their volunteers, and Amity.

Liu Hongpeng (second from left) brought a number of generators, emergency lighting equipment, instant noodles and other supplies to Huangzhuang Village in Xun County.

Liu Hongpeng worked closely with Amity staff at the supply transit depot once it started to operate. Through the transfer station, the Amity Foundation cooperated with local social organisations, organising disaster relief logistics quickly and efficiently. Liu believed that this model of cooperation was sustainable and effective. “We are familiar with the local circumstances, and we can take the responsibility for assessing the needs and keeping close contact to all the stakeholders, while Amity is responsible for fundraising and procurement of supplies”, he says. “Then we work together during the distribution and transportation process. Together we work perfectly in this way!“

Boy volunteer carries water bottles from a truck

Inspiring collaboration

Liu appreciated the spirit of Amity staff and volunteers at the transit depots. “They are particularly hard-working, and not delicate at all! The weather was extremely hot these days. Regardless, the Amity rescue team still participated in the loading of supplies, as well as the procurement of supplies, registration, transport, etc. They always worked so diligently, during the hot weather and covered with sweat like raindrops.” According to Liu Hongpeng, the Amity staff were not afraid of hardship and fatigue, inspiring the volunteers from other organizations. “Volunteers did not know each other, but in the transit depots, we all worked together just like strings twisted into a strong rope.”

Volunteers team up to manage the relief at the Amity transit deports

Praising the fast distribution

‘Pragmatism’ is another word that Liu Hongpeng uses in describing Amity. “I’ve come across many public welfare organisations, but it’s rare to find one as effective and pragmatic as Amity! Sometimes Amity set up distribution points at a village or resettlement site, or the rescue team distributed the supplies directly. In this way, villagers could receive the supplies as soon as possible. I think this way is quite good because the disaster struck suddenly, and we were not prepared beforehand. With complex traffic conditions, we had to deliver large amounts of supplies within the limited distribution time.”

Liu Hongpeng believes that the adjustment of working approaches not only ensured the efficiency of the distribution of supplies, but also enhanced the collective decision-making and self-management capabilities of villages and communities. “These methods actually reveal that Amity members indeed care about the feelings of the people in need.“

Liu’s experiences

Liu Hongpeng has been committed to public welfare for more than 10 years. He has won awards and honors due to his commitment to public welfare. However, dealing with the sudden flood at the doorstep, Liu still found himself a little unprepared. “Fortunately, we could cooperate with the Amity Foundation, which has inspired us in terms of our own working philosophy, methods and details. Thank you, Amity! Later, I also checked the website of Amity Foundation, learning that Amity has been working in many fields of public welfare for years. I hope there will be more opportunities in the future to work together with Amity”, said Liu Hongpeng with great expectation.

7th Annual Symposium
on the Role of Religion and Faith-based Organizations in International Affairs

January 26 2021, 8:00 am – 12:30 pm EST

Symposium to examine role of religion and the UN in working for gender equality in 2021

January 19, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA ADVISORY

TEXT: Senior UN staff, representatives from faith groups and members of civil society will be presenting at the 7^th Annual Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-based Organizations in International Affairs on January 26, 2021. This year’s event will focus on “2021: A defining year for accelerating gender equality, equity and justice,” with a series of presentations and discussions on issues including multi-stakeholder collaboration to accelerate gender equality, equity and justice, the urgency for achieving it, women advancing peace and security, and multilateralism and the intersection of religion and human rights.

The Symposium will examine these issues in light of the major issue facing the world today, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the broader gender justice landscape including the Commission on the Status of Women, Generation Equality Forum, and others. “Pre-existing social inequalities including gender inequalities have been highlighted and new ones created, which will continue to exacerbate these crises unless resolved,” the organizers state in the event concept note.  “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused untold suffering and economic hardship, all the more so as it connected to the raging crises of gender inequality, racism, structural economic injustices and climate change.”

Who:  Speakers include:

Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women
Mr. Ib Petersen, Deputy Executive Director, Management, UN Population Fund
Ms. Alice Nderitu, UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide

Dr. Ibrahim Salama, Chief, Human Rights Treaties Branch, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Mr. Anwar Khan, President, Islamic Relief USA
            Rabbi Laura Janner-Klaus, former inaugural Senior Rabbi to the Movement for
            Reform Judaism
            Mr. Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, General Secretary, ACT Alliance

Where: Streaming on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hZzHAsZRQfw

When: Tuesday, January 26, 2021 8:00am-12:30pm (EST).

Media package: https://actalliance.org/documents/symposium-2021-media-package/

Sponsors: ACT Alliance, General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church, Islamic Relief, Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Soka Gakkai International, United Religions Initiative, World Council of Churches and UN Women and UNFPA, for the UN Inter-agency Task Force on Religion and Development

#####

MEDIA CONTACTS
ACT Alliance: Simon Chambers simon.chambers@actalliance.org 

World Council of Churches: Marcelo Schneider msc@wcc-coe.org 

Islamic Relief: David Hawa dhawa@irusa.org 

General Board of Church and Society – The United Methodist Church: Kurt Adams kadams@umcjustice.org

URI: Isabelle Ortega-Lockwood, iortega@uri.org isabelle@uri.org , Gaea Denker gdenker@uri.org 

UN Women: Ines Esteban Gonzalez ines.esteban.gonzalez@unwomen.org

Five years ago countries around the world agreed on a plan to tackle the climate crisis. As a result, the Paris Agreement was born, and an era of international cooperation to deliver climate action began. 

The Paris Agreement has already delivered concrete results, and various national, regional and international decisions and initiatives since then have made direct reference to the climate accord. 

It is important to note that the Paris Agreement itself will not deliver the results that are urgently needed to stop the climate crisis. There is no top-down mechanism that requires countries to take the necessary action, nor is there a compliance system to ensure that the broad and ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement are met. 

Despite this, the Paris Agreement’s, Ambition Mechanism, has the potential to facilitate scaled-up climate action over time. Through this mechanism, parties are expected to revise their national climate plans every five years, after which, a stocktake of the updated pledges and commitments will signal the level of climate action that must still be taken. The first round of updated plans are to be submitted by 2020.

We are now reaching the end of the year, and despite promises from parties to update their climate plans, only twenty countries have done so. While there is still time before the end of the year, some countries have announced that they will only submit their updated climate plan in 2021.  

On the one hand, the urgency that was addressed in Paris five years ago has become even more significant, as people and communities, particularly in poor and vulnerable countries, continue to suffer from more frequent and intense cyclones, heatwaves, droughts and floods. It has become clear that the temperature target of 1.5°C is in fact, a matter of survival for many people.

On the other hand, there have also been some positive developments as we continue to witness enhanced innovation, mobilisation and action in response to the climate emergency. For example, investors are increasingly divesting from fossil fuels; countries are adopting new laws to promote a green transition, and more and more people are starting to shift their purchasing patterns, behaviours and ways of life towards more climate-friendly habits. 

Today, we celebrate the existence of a global climate change agreement that promotes climate action around the world, and tomorrow, we get back to work to scale up climate action to levels that will allow us to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

Written by Mattias Söderberg, on behalf of the ACT Alliance Climate Justice Reference Group. 

Civil society organisations in the Philippines are suspicious of the intent of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 that the Philippine congress passed this year. President Duterte’s administration has insidiously made it difficult for civil society organisations to engage and influence the country’s development. Only a few months after this law passed, ACT Alliance member National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) has reported increased harassment incidences from the military in the conduct of their work with the communities since they have been red-tagged or identified as a communist organization in a presentation made by the Department of National Defense to the Philippine congress last year. 

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) was established in 1963 and is the largest group of mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic churches in the Philippines. Aside from ACT Alliance, NCCP is also a member the World Council of Churches and the Christian Conference of Asia, and represents close to twelve million protestant adherents. NCCP members serve the communities by providing emergency assistance to disaster-stricken families and communities, assistance to small community-based projects, solidarity support (financial, material, technical assistance) to workers on strike, displaced urban and rural poor, and families of victims of human rights violations. NCCP is a strong advocate for human rights and environmental protection as part of their core mission. In 2017, the Philippine Faith-Based Organisations Forum (FBO PH) was formed by NCCP together with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-NASSA/Caritas Philippines and the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches-Philippine Relief and Development Services, Inc. FBO PH forms the largest network of Christian churches and institutions in the Philippines. 

Delays in humanitarian aid

Since the Anti-terrorism Act was passed, NCCP and their members have been subjected to malicious propaganda and different forms of harassment by the government. NCCP has long been working with the communities in the Philippines through their member churches that are rooted in these communities. Last year, NCCP was one among a number of humanitarian and service-oriented organizations in the list of “front organizations of local communist terrorist groups” presented by the Philippine Department of National Defense in a congressional hearing.

NCCP decried the baseless and unfounded inclusion of its name. “Such red-tagging by the state may delay, impede, or even prevent the delivery of much-needed services to marginalized communities especially in the midst of disasters. Organizations like the NCCP should all the more be encouraged and supported especially in a context where human rights are attacked, and fear and insecurity constantly loom”, NCCP wrote in a resolution. Further, the General Convention of the NCCP approved to seek a dialogue with the Department of National Defense and/or other appropriate government bodies to resolve this matter. The ACT-member responded to the threat immediately. The campaign to stop the attacks on human rights defenders, including the church institutions and its people, gathered huge local and international support.

Impact on COVID-19 Responses

In March 2020, the Philippines implemented a strict lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. Until now there are different forms of curfews and quarantine measures in place in the country, varying by region and set by the Local Governmental Units. Intercity and inter-province travel is restricted, and domestic air travel remains limited.

Check points have been setup in several places where Filipinos require to have a pre-approved pass to be able to travel from one point to another. These checkpoints and passes have slowed down NCCP’s COVID-19 response. Despite that, they reached more than 3,167 families providing them food and cash assistance – particularly people who had the difficulty to travel even to the markets, with the restrictions in place. Yet in these check points, NCCP and their church members’ staff and volunteers were questioned and harassed, often their intention to visit and support vulnerable groups become a point of suspicion. 

While lockdowns are in effect, the Philippine government passed the Anti-Terrorism Act that would further restrict access to humanitarian assistance and movement of aid workers. This further compromised the civil society action, particularly those implementing humanitarian response: churches, service-oriented groups, and humanitarian organizations impartially helping those who are most vulnerable and marginalized even more.

“Chilling effect” on humanitarian work instead of support

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the end of June 2020 formally presented her office’s report on the situation in the Philippines to the UN Human Rights Council during its 44th session, stating that “The law could have a further chilling effect on human rights and humanitarian work, hindering support to vulnerable and marginalized communities”.

Solidarity among faith-based organisations

NCCP issued a statement on Saturday, 3^rd July 2020. ”It is a travesty against God’s will as the Anti-Terrorism Act gives the government, or even just a few persons in the Anti-terrorism Council, the absolute power that determines what course people’s lives will take by putting forward a very vague definition of terrorism”, it declared, and continued that the measure will “insidiously” strip away respect for human rights and was likely to be “misused and abused” by those who wish to “lord it over” the people, obliterate opposition, and quell even the most legitimate dissent. “This bill will cause a further shrinking of democratic space and weakening of public discourse that will be detrimental to our nation”, the statement says. The Philippine FBO Forum bringing together constituencies from the Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches showed solidarity though issuing statement of support to NCCP and released opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 as it poses threat to the civil and political rights, including the right to freedom of religion and to exercise ministry in furtherance of religious beliefs.

ACT Alliance’s support

In September 2020, amid continued violence in the Philippines, international church groups and human rights organisations demanded for an independent, impartial investigation into atrocities that characterize President Duterte’s administration. An “International Ecumenical Convocation on the Defense of Human Rights in the Philippines” was carried out on 17th September 2020, with ACT Alliance as one of the sponsors. In a “Unity Statement for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in the Philippines”, the church leaders affirmed support for Filipinos who are enduring a “deteriorating situation of civil liberties and human rights”. It is signed by ACT Alliance as well as many of its member organisations and international ecumenical partners.

Photo Paul Jeffrey