Reps Circular

Dear ALMA Reps and ALMA Friends,

As 2007 gets into its stride there is a real sense of action on the ALMA front: visits are being planned; meetings arranged; projects funded; profiles of parish links being written for the website and, I’m pleased to report, pounds are still being lost on the first ever sponsored diet for ALMA. However, there has also been sobering news on floods that affected both Angola and Mozambique at the end of January and are continuing to do so, and more news of shanty town clearances in Angola alongside an Amnesty International report on these.

This mailing contains:

1. Diary Dates and Proposed Visits for 2007 - 2008
2. ALMA News
3. News of Floods
4. News of Shanty Town Clearances and Amnesty Report

(1) Diary Dates for 2007

15th March ALMA REPS Meeting 6-8pm at London Diocesan House,
36 Causton St, London SW1P 4AU (nearest tube Pimlico)
Margaret Davies and Nicky Thomson will report on their visits to Mozambique and Angola. Richard Bartlett, our twinning officer, will be looking at ways to sustain links and help each other do so

15th July ALMA Sunday

September ALMA REPS and FRIENDS meeting with BISHOP DINIS

Proposed Visits 2007 - 2008

• St Mary’s Hampton to Mandimba in Niassa for the inauguration of the Mandimba Church
• St Pancras to St Mark’s Cuamba in Niassa in June
• All Saints Fulham to St Augustine’s, Viana, near Luanda in September
• St Stephen’s Golfe, Angola to St Stephen’s Canonbury and in 2008
• St John’s Pinner to St Barnabas, Benguela, Angola early 2008

(2) ALMA News

• Jonathan Palmer has now lost over 2 stone on his sponsored diet for St John the Baptist, Isleworth’s new twin parish in Niassa:
• Special projects in Lebombo being funded at the moment include  supporting schools in Macienne, roofing the Church of St Mary at Marramine, building a small house for pregnant women in Zove as they await the onset of labour, and building a clergy house in Zimpeto.
• This week Nacala school in Niassa was officially opened by Bishop Mark. More on this from Margaret Davies at the Reps meeting.

(3) Floods in Angola and Mozambique

Flooding has killed at least 44 people and forced thousands of others in Angola and Mozambique to flee their homes, officials in the Southern African nations said on Tuesday.

Most of the deaths occurred in and around Angola's capital, Luanda, which was pelted by torrential rains last week. Twenty people died and 20 others were missing after a flood in Cacuaco, 10km north of Luanda, the state-run Angop news agency said.

(4) Shanty Town Clearances in Angola

Angola's government has been criticised for forcibly evicting thousands of people from their homes to free land for new housing projects in Luanda.

Last month the aid agency Christian Aid reported that over the last two years the Angolan government and private security companies had been using extreme violence against squatters during slum clearance operations in Luanda.

According to Amnesty International, homes have been demolished repeatedly in one district since September 2004 to make room for new public and private housing.

Read more:
Full BBC report

Please keep these situations in your prayers. Remember too that this year many of the Development Agencies are focusing on Climate Change and the necessity for us to cut the carbon and shrink the footprint. Christian Aid comments: ‘Climate change is not just an environmental and economic crisis in the making - it is a global injustice on a scandalous scale. It is the world’s poorest communities who are most vulnerable to climatic extremes, who are already suffering and who are likely to suffer the most in future, even though they contribute so little to the carbon emissions which are precipitating the crisis.’

In the next email circular as we enter Lent and focus on London’s Lent appeal ‘ Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance’ it would be good to remember too the legacy of slavery on Angola and Mozambique. If you can help on this please do get in touch.