Participants of the European LWF Global Training for Young Leaders

A contribution by Daan Leker and Moritz Gräper:

„Seigneur, nous arrivons…“

Today was already departure-day. Nine young adults from all over Europe (Sweden, France, Slovakia, Chech Republic, Finnland, Poland, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Germany) had been together for one week. No one knew what to expect!

During the week we shared thoughts, ideas, passions and problems. We supported each other in developing projects for our local contexts, wich was the goal oft he LWF young Leadership Course. And got to know each others cultures.  One thing is for sure: Time just flew by.

The LWF program was divided into different phases. After we had gotten to know each other better, we started by analyzing our views on our home context, to sharpen our goals and talk about things that need change.

In between working on our projects we also had bible studies wich where presented to us in interactive ways. We discovered about the gender differences between our cultures and learned how to speak as apostles. Which was really interesting. During the week it was really good to see that everyone one was entitled to their own opinions and was able to speak freely! We also had worship every day, which we all prepared. We learned songs in French, German, Swedish, Russian and all the other languages. This was a bit difficult sometimes. And we played games in the morning to wake up, most of which included paper towels.

We were exposed to Russian diakonal work in a soup kitchen to get a feeling of social issues in Moscow. We helped passing out soup, salad and tea to 60 to 80 year olds. These people came tot he soup kitchen almost every other day and from all over Moscow. It was impressive to see and it really made an impact on all of us to see that these people, who al ready have a whole life behind them, didnt have enough money to eat. It was a an impressive day.

The kitchen was run by an Etheopian man who had been in Russia since the eighties. Younger volunteers from Cameroon and also Nigeria helped out. After this deep real-life experience we got into, we started the next day to go into ourselves in order to discover our passion and formulate a vision. It was so precious hearing what’s really going on inside of every one!

The most challenging part was probably to move from the big ideas of our vision to a certain project that would make sense in our own communities, being realistic about sources, budget and people. Many of us experienced quiet a crisis. Goals that where to big, SMART goals that we didn’t fully understand. Preparing the presentations which we had to do on the last day, without computer! An example of some oft he projects we will be working on fort he next ten months are:

-        Setting up classes for young people in wich they’ll learn to discover themselves and try to give them direction in their lives.

-        Setting up an international program in a congregation.

-        Setting up youth services within in a congregation.

-        Setting up youth meetings and give English lessons to young people.

For us it was very helpful to hear one an others opinions. We usually got up between 7:30 and 8 am and went to bed at around 1 or 2 am! There was simply so much interesting things to talk about, lots of work, tommy emmanuel videos on youtube.com, table tennis matches (Joanna beat us all), playing volleyball with some Russians, having coffee, and so on.

Thank you to everyone who participated (Yana, Sanna, Johanna, Daan, Nastia, Katariina, Milan, Martin), thank you Roger, thank you Yana and Dmitry! You all made this trip so precious!

Moritz & Daan

Ecumenical Women (EW) is an international coalition of church denominations and organizations which have status with the Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) at the United Nations. We train and empower faith-based advocates for gender equality at the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held in February-March.

Ecumenical Women at the United Nations is seeking a Blogging Specialist to update and maintain its blog and website, www.ecumenicalwomen.org. Qualified applicants will be familiar with blogging and other social network tools, or demonstrate serious willingness to learn.  Applicants should be committed to women’s rights and gender equality, be comfortable writing about Christianity and other faiths.  Experience with advocacy, ecumenical organizing and the United Nations is preferred but not required.

The EW Blogging Specialist will be responsible for posting 4-6 blog posts per month, which s/he may either write or recruit others to write and edit.  Posts should be within the interests and advocacy goals of EW’s member organizations. The Blogging Specialist must be a clear and creative writer, an independent worker, and capable of working remotely.

Multiple writers will be chosen, depending on applicant pool. Young men and women from the global South and /or underrepresented groups from the north are encouraged to apply in order to deepen our blog’s perspectives.  Individuals from remote locations are strongly encouraged to apply, but Internet access is required. This position will last three months upon hire with opportunity for renewal. A stipend of $400 will be provided.

In your cover letter, tell us why you will be a creative and interesting blogger, and how you can help us improve our website.

To apply, please submit resume, cover letter, and two samples blogs of 200-300 words, including hyperlinks on topics related to faith, women’s rights, advocacy or the United Nations of blog posts by July 30th, 2009 via email (put “Blogging Specialist” in subject line) to:

Malte Lei   malte.lei AT elca.org

Ecumenical Women c/o Lutheran Office for World Community

Rebekka Højmark Jensen writes her last report about the youth summit of Aids 2031 (after the first posts here and here):

“Last day on the AIDS2031 Youth Summit. After some very intense days together with other young leaders this day was spent in company with established leaders i the fields of AIDS work, media and politics. The idea was to create ways to promote youth participation at all levels in decision making in the field of HIV and AIDS. Moreover, the goal was to secure support for youth led organisations. Whilst young people are already running organisations on their own initiative, they often have poor access to funding. The established funds do not have a policy to support youth led organisations seperately. However, this summit has made it perfectly clear that youth led organisations have a very special role to play in the fight against HIV and the stigma connected to it: Young people hold the key to communicate to other young people; Young people have the passion to do great things with few resources. As a result, young people are the ones who can turn over the situation and make way for a world in 2031 with less HIV infections, with less stigma and with less descrimination of positive people.

To change the situation, this AIDS2031 Youth Summit introduced a campaign called ”5% for the Future”. Very simply to call upon foundations to allocate 5% of their budget to youth led organisations!

I am really thankful that I had the opportunity to attend this meeting. Many very skilled and powerful people, both young and less young, reached enormous results during these few days in Norway. I leave a piece of my heart with each and every person who took part in the summit. I know we all share a common hope for the future and I leave from Gardermoen Airport with one big lump of this hope. God bless you all.”

Here is the second contribution (here is the first one) of Rebekka Højmark Jensen who currently attends the meeting of Aids 2031:

“The AIDS2031 Youth Summit is rolling on its second day. I am on the working group discussing how we can create safe spaces for youth HIV positive people. Spaces to talk, grieve, cry, scream, or simply just to be. One of the main solutions, as we see it, is to address schools, government and religious communities to secure that there will be safe spaces in the local environment. I find it devastating how many people have been excluded from there religious community because their status as HIV positives was revealed. Most of all this keeps people, who are actually religious, away from practicing their religion, from celebrating their life as given by God and from listening to the Gospel that tells us that God walks with us on our journey in life. This also creates a great ditch between the churhces and the HIV/AIDS organisations. The dialogue is extreemly challenged because the confidence between people living with HIV and the churches has been broken. I hope that in 2031, the inclusion of people living with whatever type of illness will be normal in religious communities all over the world. The ways to get there are many. First of all, I think we should see the other person as a person before anything else.

This Youth Summit is also a step on the way. It takes many aspects into account and will result in some very concrete plans for how to approach the issues of stigma and discrimination towards young positive people from now on and untill 2031.”

Aids 2031 is a global coalition that wants to make sure that there a real changes in the global fight against the virus. Currently, a small conference of young leaders is taking place in Oslo, Norway.

The website says: “aids2031, in collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador HRH Crown Princess Mette-Marit, will hold a 2nd Young Leaders Summit in Oslo 23-25 June, 2009 to unite young leaders in the ongoing fight against AIDS related stigma and discrimination.”

On behalf of the Lutheran World Federation Rebekka Højmark Jensen, a young Lutheran theologian from Denmark is taking part in the conference. She writes:

“2031 is the year when HIV and AIDS has been with us for 50 years. The AIDS2031 is about what we have to do now to change the face of the pandemic in 2031. I came to the Youth Summit arranged by the consortium behind AIDS2031 with open ears to hear what the challenges are among the young people living with HIV today. The meeting started this morning, and already I am full of impressions. One person at my own age telling about being the only person in her family who is not positive which is why she can travel to Norway for this conference. Another girl, ten years younger than me, who was born with HIV and has had to live with heavy discrimination and stigmatisation since childhood. Others who spent a fortune on AIDS work because funding is not available for youth work.

Tomorrow we will discuss some solutions to carry forward. It will be demanding and productive because everyone is here to gain and give.”

2010 is going to be a busy year for the Lutheran World Federation. The end of July, it will have its 11th General Assembly in Stuttgart, Germany. Close to one thousand people will come together to learn, celebrate and make important decisions. 20% of the delegates will be young people under 30 years.

Already before that around 180 young people will meet for one week in Dresden, another German city to find a unifying vision for young Lutherans globally. In order to do that we need the help of a young person from a member church of the Lutheran World Federation. This intern will be invited to come to Geneva from February to November 2010. The main task will be to learn and build capacitiy to support the church back home. This will happen in the preparations for the both LWF conferences in July 2010.

If you want to learn more about this opportunity, please click here.

Great opportunity for youth groups to apply for grants from UN Habitat.

Opportunities fund for Urban Youth-Led Development

Check out the small grants catagory for $5,000 – Deadline is June 15!

Here is a report on the leadership conference of the LWF member churches in Latin America and the Carrabean that took place at the beginning of May. Hellen Rios Carrillo has written it. She is one of the young delegates to the LWF General Assembly in 2010:

Al llegar e incluso antes de venir al evento de COP/COL me sentía con mucho entusiasmo porque venían mas jóvenes a ser parte del grupo; pero nerviosa porque era mi primera participación en un evento así.

Entusiasmada porque pude vivir de cerca la experiencia del  Entrenamiento Global de jóvenes lideres de la región de la América que tuvo sede en Nicaragua y sentir como la FLM  se esta preocupando por formar e incluir a los/as  jóvenes en las actividades de toma de decisión, y poder compartir las experiencias, de representar a la comunidad joven de nuestras iglesias.

Ahora que me encuentro en el Perú estoy mucho mas entusiasmada porque parte de las delegadas de Latinoamérica  en la COP/COL somos mujeres y JÓVENES que iremos a representar a América Latina en la próxima Asamblea de la FLM. Esto ha sido algo que me ha llenado de alegría y compartida por el resto de chicas, que en una  de las conversaciones bromeábamos con una frase: “Mujeres al poder”, porque en verdad nos encanta  este paso de equilibrar mas la asistencia e incluir mas a los jóvenes y mujeres y valorar así, de forma positiva nuestra participación y aportes. Los/as jóvenes empezamos a sentirnos sujetos dentro de la FLM.

Quizá para algunas de nosotras algunos de los temas y las discusiones tratadas resultaron un poco complejas (porque incluso para algunos adultos lo son) y optamos por escuchar atentamente a aquellos(as) hermanos(as) que tenían mas experiencia, pero creo que eso es parte de nuestro  proceso de aprendizaje, parte de ir reconociendo el trabajo que se hace desde arriba y darnos una idea del gran esfuerzo que se hace en conjunto de compartir y ser parte importante de los desafíos y logros de todas nuestras iglesias hermanas.

El 18 de mayo los jóvenes tendremos una consulta en línea, y el tema principal es la Renovación de la FLM, gracias a que tratamos el tema aquí pude comprender mejor y tener mas herramientas para aportar a la consulta. Tendremos la oportunidad de proponer, como dice la consulta, desde nuestra perspectiva de jóvenes.

Visitamos una comunidad en la región de Lurin y pudimos observar el trabajo que ahí se realiza, esto me acerco mucho a la realidad de las comunidades de mi país, ya que la cotidianidad a veces no nos permite valorar en toda su dimensión el esfuerzo que nuestros pueblos  hacen por subsistir y salir adelante, esta visita me permitió apreciar en la lejanía el trabajo de las comunidades donde mi iglesia tiene incidencia viendo logros similares en otro país. Fue interesante el sentimiento de “visitante” y no parte de la comunidad.

Agradezco esta oportunidad de poder participar y poder aportar desde nuestra percepción de jóvenes nuestras experiencias. Resulta valiosísimo para nosotras ya que nos hacen parte activa en la comunión de Iglesias Luteranas; pero sobre todo porque se nos considera capaces de aportar y de aprender.

“The scale of the HIV epidemic remains daunting and young people remain disproportionately affected, accounting for 45 per cent of new adult infections in 2007.” This one of the highlighted sentences in a report by UNICEF UK that was released last week. The title says already a lot: “Preventing HIV with young people: the key to tackling the epidemic.”

The report itself gives an overview of the challenges in different regions of the world. A striking finding is that in Africa young women and girls are much more likely to become HIV positive. That is not the case in other parts of the world. To cite again the report on page 8: “In Southern Africa, adolescent girls are 2 to 4.5 times more likely to get HIV than males of the same age.”

Many member churches of the LWF have HIV and Aids work and many also prevention campaigns. But obiviously, it is far from enough. Churches have to demand a clearer policy in their countries and young people themselves have to make it topic.  Young people have to raise the issue for their own sake. That is also an act of Christian love. Those who are the most vulnerable to being infected are also those who are hard hit already: For examples those who don’t have parents.  Christian love among people means also: More prevention efforts.

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

It’s on behalf of the youth organizations from the different Church members of the Lutheran Communion in Central and Eastern of Africa gathered through LUCCEA youth project committee meeting held from 19th to 22nd April 2009 at the KELC Youth centre, Nairobi, Kenya that I get this precious opportunity to send to you this friendship message.

In fact, after hearing the political crisis that happened in our beloved Country of Madagascar, we were touched with the situation.

Otherwise, we recognize that we are together through the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We call upon you to stand firm as the peacemakers since we are ambassadors of Christ. Hence, we don’t have to be manipulated for any violent action.

“Be an example for the believers in your speech, your conduct, your love, faith and purity”. (1Timothy 4: 12).

Michel Ngoy Mulunda,
LUCCEA Youth Chairperson & LWF Council member, Ecumenical Affairs Committee
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Congo
150, Av. Kasai, Lubumbashi-DRC
P.O. Box: 23294, Kitwe-Zambia
Tel.: +243 995 367 031
E-mails: michelmulunda@yahoo.fr or
lucceayouth@yahoo.com

rs almost from birth to protect them. Today, these invaders have been replaced by superstition: the local view that any girl reaching puberty without getting married will fall prey to sexual depredations, some from men imbued with the common belief that having sex with a “fresh” girl can cure syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

In India, children are forced everyday into a relationship, of which they have only the faintest knowledge and for which they are not at all prepared. To push two physiologically and emotionally ill-prepared individuals into marriage is a compassionless way of looking at relationships. India’s Parliament adopted the Child Marriage Restraint Act in 1978 (a revision of the British Child Marriage Prevention Act of 1929 and the following amendment of 1949) setting 18 as the minimum age for women to get married and 21 for men. Nevertheless, like in many other Indian social spheres, the law seems inconsequential when it comes to protecting the rights of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.

Women and girls are the main victims of child marriages. Sati is a Hindu practice which consists of the widow’s immolation on her dead husband funeral pyre. Women are seen as property with ownership rights to someone else, her parents, her husband or her in-laws. In some cases, husbands sell their wives, even their unmarried daughters, as sexual partners to other men.

Religion plays a key role in such harmful traditions and practices. The society in turn, instead of playing a watchdog role, is an enthusiastic participant in a deliberate perpetuation of entrenched interests, including property and social considerations, all which make child marriages so common.

Though INDIA has entered into the 21st century and aims to be a developed nation by 2020, some parts of India are still grey and caught up in the old, ill and conservative traditions that have already played enough havoc with the society.

Despite the so-called stringent laws, Indians still come across dreadful and fearful stories of children being forced to tie the nuptial knots even when their body and mind are not ready for marital relations.

Child marriage is still prevalent in India. One such gory incident recently came to the fore in a remote village of Kathua district, in Jammu and Kashmir (J & K), where a 10-year-old girl of class IV was ‘sold’ to a man three times of her age. More shocking was the revelation that the girl, who stayed put at her father’s house soon after the illegal marriage, was even raped by her ‘husband’.

As some of the villagers had objected to the marriage of the girl child at a young age, it was decided that she would stay with her parents till she attains marriageable age.But her husband, Rinku, who reportedly had ‘purchased’ the girl-child, wanted to take her to his house in Bandota village.Miffed at being denied to take the girl-child, Rinku visited her parental house and raped her in a nearby field.

According to “National Plan of Action for Children 2005,” (published by the Department of Women and Child Development of India) a goal has been set to eliminate child marriage completely by 2010. This plan is proving to be successful, though it is still difficult to monitor every child due to the sheer population of India.

According to UNICEF’s “State of the World’s Children-2009” report, 47% of India’s women aged 20-24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% in rural area The report also showed that 40% of the world’s child marriages occur in India.