Reps Circular

Dear ALMA Reps and Friends,

 A small present from a friend has accompanied me through the Christmas period: made in a traidcraft workshop in India, it is an exquisitely detailed, paper, planet earth with Angola, London and Mozambique clearly visible. Seeing this small globe hanging on my Christmas tree or held in the palm of a hand as I took the decorations down reminded me that this is the precious, fragile world that God so loved that he gave us his only son. May we in the ALMA partnership, live and share the joy of this love throughout 2012.

1. 2011 Round Up

Looking back over ALMA life in 2011 we have so much to be thankful for:

• ALMA visits in all directions!
  • Three visitors to Angola: Bishop Dinis Sengulane, Revd Richard Fermer and John Tasker
  • Nine visitors to London from Mozambique: Revd Revd Domingos Tole Chipuazo, Mrs Anna Baptista, Bishop Dinis Sengulane, Bishop Mark Van Koevering, Revd Helen Van Koevering (x2), Fr Germano Mandjate, Rebecca Vander Meulen, Dr Peg Cumberland and Mr Francisco Bila (Headteacher at Maciene School)
  • Four visitors from London to Niassa: Olyve Johnson, Clarie Pinney, Revd Jenny Welsh from St Pancras and Sarah Leedham from A Rocha.
  • Sixteen visitors from London to Lebombo! Revd Stephen Coles, Christine Cox, Sandra Hall and Wesley Da Costa Arruda from St Thomas Finsbury Park and Revd John Seymour, two teaching colleagues and nine students from Twyford C of E High School who visited their link schools in Maciene
  • One visitor from America via Mozambique – ALMA Friend Roger LeCompte
• Celebrations
  • 
    Bishop Donald Arden and Mrs Arden at St Paul's Cathedral
    ALMA Sunday - we celebrated ALMA reaching her teenage years in St Paul’s Cathedral on 10th July with Bishop Dinis who, with Bishop Richard, presented the first Twinning Covenants to the new link parishes and schools. The River of Prayer in action and the diocesan choir with many ALMA singers made it very special.
  • In November we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Bishop Donald Arden’s consecration in Malawi and acknowledged his role as a founding father of ALMA
  • Two ALMA Friends received their much deserved MBEs at Buckingham Palace: Dr Peg Cumberland in Niassa and Revd Philippa Boardman at St Paul’s Old Ford.
  • One ALMA Friend received a St Mellitus Medal for her outstanding work with the Equipa da Vida in Niassa -  Rebecca Vander Meulen
• Growth
  • There are now links with 40 parishes and seven schools in Angola and Mozambique involving over 55 London parishes and schools.
  • There are also 25 parishes / schools looking to twin!
  • It has been a joy to see some of the new twinning relationships develop and receive their twinning covenants, and to see shared celebrations between well-established twinned parishes such as Fr Germano from Beira sharing St John’s Friern Barnet’s centenary.
  • Many link parishes have been involved in helping their partners’ church building projects – there have been concerts, lunches, cake raffles, and quiz nights to buy cement, roofing sheets and window frames. It is encouraging to see such tangible expression of ‘being church together’.
• Lent Appeal 2011
  • 2011 Lent Appeal ‘Training God’s People’ was launched, appropriately, at a diocesan study day on Thomas Traherne at St Albans Teddington.
  • Funds have been raised in many ways, from the personal to major initiatives like Holy Trinity Northwood’s Biblethon when the whole Bible was read aloud over an entire, long weekend
  • 180 Africa Bible Commentaries in Portuguese (60 for each partner diocese) is one fruit of the appeal, and also about £44,000 for training (almost £15,000 per partner diocese)
• Meetings
  • The ALMA community met up several times in 2012: at meetings in February with Revd Helen Van Koevering and the two visitors from Chimoio; in May to hear about the ‘Rooted in Jesus’ training Programme; in July for ALMA Sunday and twice in October first with Fr Germao and then with Rebecca Vander Meulen, Dr Peg Cumberland and Mr Franciso Bila.

So much of this ALMA Life is possible because of the dedication of our totally volunteer ALMA Officers and Strategy Group and the support we receive from staff members at Diocesan House. Thank you to each of you for all you do – seen and unseen. I would particularly like to acknowledge our debt to Peter Southwood who is standing down as Angola Projects Officer, having previously been ALMA Link Officer for several years. He will be greatly missed!

So we go full steam into 2012!

2. Diary Dates

26 January ALMA Reps & Friends Meeting 6-8pm Main Hall London Diocesan House.

All ALMA Reps and Friends welcome. We begin with light refreshments from 5.40pm. Please RSVP to assist with catering. The agenda includes illustrated reports from three of the 2011 visits – one to Lebombo, one to Niassa and one to a twin school. There will also be an introduction to the 2012 Lent Appeal and an opportunity to pick up Lent Appeal resources for your parish.

It would really help if you can send your orders for Lent Materials in advance of the meeting as then we can have bags already packed for you to take home. (The mail shot with a sample of Lent Appeal Materials went out this week to all parish priests so do talk to your Vicar about this).

Are there a couple of you willing to tidy up after the refreshments? It would be really helpful?

22 February Ash Wednesday, launch 2012 Lent Appeal ‘Giving Ministry Wheels’

11 March 6pm St Paul’s Cathedral: Celebration Service to mark London becoming a Fairtrade Diocese. This is something we in ALMA rejoice in too – fairtrade nut production in the Nampula region of Niassa is offering hope and livelihoods to nut farmers. Here in London how good is it to live our link in the supermarket by buying Liberation and Harry’s Nuts from Mozambique?

8 July ALMA Sunday

Mid-End July – hopefully a welcome afternoon tea for Angolan and Mozambican Olympic teams

September MANNA AGM with Bishop Mark Van Koevering

3. Lent Appeal 2012 ‘Giving Ministry Wheels’

All ALMA Partners are thrilled at the focus of the 2012 Lent Appeal which aims to provide funds for the purchase of a decent second hand 4x4 vehicle for each of our partner Dioceses. Lack of transport is their major impediment to ministry – from Bishop‘s visits and confirmations to training and community development work. Each partner diocese only has two or three vehicles which are ageing rapidly with the poor condition of the roads, especially in the rainy season, accentuating wear and tear. We have Bishop Mark and Helen’s programme for the first quarter of 2012 here – to get to Pemba from Lichinga is a major journey – taking about 15 -17 hours on dirt roads.

As part of the Additional Materials for the Lent Appeal available online we will have photo sets showing some of the journeys made to distant churches and the challenge of the roads.

4. Wider Issues

a) Angola

• ‘Education in Angola: Partnership Opportunities for the UK’ is a research paper produced by the international affairs think-tank Chatham House. The majority of Angola government spending on education is for primary education. Secondary and tertiary education exists but is mainly private, which restricts access to those who can afford it. Private universities have emerged, there are 16 in Luanda operating legally. English has become the first foreign language that students learn in school. It is the official language of international oil companies, aviation and of businesses across Southern Africa. The paper describes opportunities in Angola for UK providers of education.
• Luanda Government sets priority for de-mining process in 2012

  Source: Government of Angola

  Luanda - The Angolan Government has set as priorities for the demining process, in the year 2012, the verification and clearance of secondary and tertiary roads, meant to improve the free flow of people and goods in the country, ANGOP has learnt. This was said by the general manager of the National Demining Institute (INAD), Leonardo Severino Sapalo, who added that among the tasks are works related to the areas of farming, state land reserves and the areas to build social and economic infrastructures of impact, under the national reconstruction and development process.

• Floods leave Angolan returnees stranded

  Source: Integrated Regional Information Networks

  JOHANNESBURG, 6 January 2012 (IRIN) - Several thousand Angolan returnees from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded by floods in northeastern Angola. They are among the first casualties of what promises to be a very wet rainy season in parts of southern Africa.

b) Mozambique

• 
  A new initiative has started this year which ALMA Friends may want to be part of: Global Year of United Prayer for Mozambique, ‘GYUPM, 2012 is a leap year with 366 days of humbling ourselves, in repentance with fasting and prayer to God to heal and bless Mozambique. Based on 2 Chronicles 7:14

  We are asking that the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the land. We trusting the Lord for the fulfilment of Psalm 110:1 in the nation. It is a time to intercede for God to forgive our sins and heal our land-Mozambique! We believe this will birth great discipleship movement and revival in Mozambique’.

  “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.”
  A. T Pierson.

• Mozambique falls in HDI

  Mozambique ranks 184 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index of the UNDP Human Development Report, published 2 November. It has fallen one place, and is now fourth from bottom. In both 2010 and 2011 Burundi, Niger, and DRC were lower. But Mozambique has fallen one place because Zimbabwe, which had been below Mozambique in 2010, has risen to 173. Tanzania is 152, Zambia is 164, and Malawi is 171.

  The president of the Statistics Institute (INE), João Loureiro, objected, saying that data used was not up to date, and Mozambique should really be 181. (Noticias 9 Nov 2011) There is also a commentary published (in Portuguese) by Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco, head of the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE).

• Agriculture - Key points from Census:
  • There are 3.8 million farms in the country, with 5.6 mn hectares of annual crops, meaning the average farm is only 1.5 ha. There are more farms and they are slightly larger than at the time of the last census, 1999-2000, when there were 3.1 mn farms on 3.9 mn ha (average 1.3 ha). (Mozambique has 80 mn ha, of which 36 mn is arable - so there is potential for a substantial expansion of farming.)
  • Only 144,000 farms use fertiliser (4% of all farms), and 90,000 of those are in Tete, which means they are probably tobacco farmers. Only 96,000 (3%) use pesticides. Only 201,000 (5%) use irrigation. Only 88,000 (2%) were able to obtain credit, and more than one-third of those were Tete tobacco farmers receiving inputs on credit.
  • Cattle population has jumped from 722,000 to 1.3 mn; chickens have remained constant at 24 mn, compared to 1999-2000. But goats have dropped from 5 mn to 4 mn and ducks from 4 mn to 2 mn.
  • There are 40 mn fruit trees (of which 14 mn are mango trees), 24 mn coconut trees, and 38 mn cashew trees.
  • Most land is used for food. In terms of commercial crops, the main ones for small holders are sesame (93,000 ha), tobacco (70,000 ha), and cotton (59,000 ha). In the past decade there has been a big increase in tobacco and a big fall in cotton. The main plantation crops are sugar (38,000 ha) and sisal (19,000 ha). Soya and sunflower are the other important commercial crops for both small holders and plantations.
  • The main food crops are maize (1.4 mn ha), cassava (1 mn ha), beans (800,000 ha) vegetables (386,000 ha), groundnuts (366,000 ha), millet and sorghum (365,000), rice (282,000 ha), and sweet potato (122,000 ha). Nearly all farmers do intercropping, so these are not areas exclusive to these corps.
  • 453,000 farms employ full time workers, and nearly all farms use part time workers, notably for land preparation and weeding.
  • 1.6 mn farms (42% of all farms) did not produce enough food to feed the family, which was forced to consume less than the normal amount of food at some point during the year of the survey.