Green Anglicans Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Environmental Network World Council of Churches holds its first Eco-School. World Council of Churches holds its first Eco-School. The first ever Eco- School was held by the World Coun- cil of Churches, in Blantyre Malawi. Representatives from eleven African countries; Malawi, South Africa, Mada- gascar, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Swaziland and Nigeria attended and Green An- glicans was represented by Ncumisa Magadla. Food security was a prior- ity topic during the Eco-School. Bible studies, presentations and resources were given connecting these major environmental issues with our faith, especially in Africa. In relation to food, the highlight was about a world where close to 800 mil- lion people go to bed hungry with more than half of this population be- ing women. The eco-school program exposed some of the causes and im- plications of food security in society, from health to poverty especially in developing countries and the pan- elists showed how Africa is in a State of Emergency with regards to food. It is important that people become aware of their constitutional right to food security and that communities are as- sisted to claim their entitlements. We noted that close to 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced for human consump- tion is wasted in developing countries, this waste mostly takes place during production. It is our role to educate people on the ten commandments of food as we learnt during the eco- school. When we asked ourselves about how the church community deals with is- sues of feed, it came to light that it is the church’s responsibility to cater for its people, therefore we should not just focus on the spiritual aspects of the people but reach out in a more ho- listic way – body, mind and soul – thus equipping them to deal with issues of food. The church should serve as a lobbyist and advocate for policies on rights to food and food security. The church can also integrate in its theol- ogy aspects of food justice in their ser- mons to get their Christians thinking and acting holistically. We were then challenged to discuss ways we can revive the urgency of poverty in our place of worship. Food security and poverty are inter-related and are often tackled together (Sus- tainable development Goals 1 and 2). We can intervene at our churches and national level by encouraging health eating habits and promoting home gardens among members of the church as we are already doing in most regions through different or- ganisations. Eco-friendly techniques could also be taught to the church as a means to conserve and preserve the environment for which they grow food. In the spirit of breaking free from pov- erty, it seemed that all participants took the information and applied it to their contexts immediately, plans of actions have been put in place by re- gions, and we look forward to seeing the environmental ministry grow. The WCC Ten Commandments for Food Security are: 1.Give thanks for the food you eat 2.Eat food grown as close as possible to where you live. 3.Strive for all people to have knowl- edge about and access to affordable, nutritious food. 4.Eat mindfully and in moderation. 5.Do not waste food. 6.Be grateful to those who grow and prepare food for your table. 7.Support fair wages for farmworkers, farmers and food workers. 8.Reduce the environmental damage of land, water and air from food pro- duction and the food system. 9.Protect the biodiversity of seeds, soils, ecosystems and the cultures of food producers. 10.Rejoice and share the sacred gift of food with all. -Ncumisa Magadla WCC Eco School participants and facilitattors 2017 Bishop Temple of the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone and Ncumisa Magadla
Transcript
Green AnglicansAnglican Church of
Southern Africa’s Environmental Network
World Council of Churches holds its first Eco-School.
World Council of Churches holds its first Eco-School. The first ever Eco-School was held by the World Coun-cil of Churches, in Blantyre Malawi. Representatives from eleven African countries; Malawi, South Africa, Mada-gascar, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Swaziland and Nigeria attended and Green An-glicans was represented by Ncumisa Magadla. Food security was a prior-ity topic during the Eco-School. Bible studies, presentations and resources were given connecting these major environmental issues with our faith, especially in Africa. In relation to food, the highlight was about a world where close to 800 mil-lion people go to bed hungry with more than half of this population be-ing women. The eco-school program exposed some of the causes and im-plications of food security in society, from health to poverty especially in developing countries and the pan-elists showed how Africa is in a State of Emergency with regards to food. It is important that people become aware of their constitutional right to food security and that communities are as-sisted to claim their entitlements. We noted that close to 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced for human consump-tion is wasted in developing countries,
this waste mostly takes place during production. It is our role to educate people on the ten commandments of food as we learnt during the eco-school.When we asked ourselves about how the church community deals with is-sues of feed, it came to light that it is the church’s responsibility to cater for its people, therefore we should not just focus on the spiritual aspects of the people but reach out in a more ho-listic way – body, mind and soul – thus equipping them to deal with issues of food. The church should serve as a lobbyist and advocate for policies on rights to food and food security. The church can also integrate in its theol-ogy aspects of food justice in their ser-mons to get their Christians thinking and acting holistically. We were then challenged to discuss ways we can revive the urgency of poverty in our place of worship. Food security and poverty are inter-related and are often tackled together (Sus-tainable development Goals 1 and 2). We can intervene at our churches and national level by encouraging health eating habits and promoting home gardens among members of the church as we are already doing in most regions through different or-ganisations. Eco-friendly techniques
could also be taught to the church as a means to conserve and preserve the environment for which they grow food. In the spirit of breaking free from pov-erty, it seemed that all participants took the information and applied it to their contexts immediately, plans of actions have been put in place by re-gions, and we look forward to seeing the environmental ministry grow.The WCC Ten Commandments for Food Security are:1.Give thanks for the food you eat2.Eat food grown as close as possible to where you live.3.Strive for all people to have knowl-edge about and access to affordable, nutritious food.4.Eat mindfully and in moderation.5.Do not waste food.6.Be grateful to those who grow and prepare food for your table.7.Support fair wages for farmworkers, farmers and food workers.8.Reduce the environmental damage of land, water and air from food pro-duction and the food system.9.Protect the biodiversity of seeds, soils, ecosystems and the cultures of food producers.10.Rejoice and share the sacred gift of food with all. -Ncumisa Magadla
WCC Eco School participants and facilitattors 2017
SPRING NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2017
Bishop Temple of the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone and Ncumisa Magadla
Green Anglicans Page 2
Young People’s Division (YDP) held its an-nual conference in Manzini (Labotsibeni AME church) on the 16 of August 2017. The YDP has the environment as one of the priorities on their constitution and annual plan of action. The leadership noticed that over the years environmental issues were addressed without or less meaning for most of its members. Noting the vibrancy of the Green Anglicans in Swaziland; Mnce-disi Masuku was invited to do a presenta-tion on the importance of being stewards of creation as a church before the youth go for a clean-up campaign.
Mncedisi in the company of Ndumiso Malindzisa emphasised the first call for humans by God to care for creation (Gen 2.15) and how human activities have af-fected the globe of life. He encouraged young people to live green at home, school, and work and in their daily lives. He encouraged them to participate in Sea-son of Creation and other environmental important days. The YPD has been invited to join the Green LUSHE (ANGLICAN and Lutheran Church) movement. LUSHE is a combination of Luthela and Esheshi which are Swazi names for the Anglican and Lu-theran churches. The AME church is known as KUSH in Swaziland. Sihle Motsa the YDP president jokingly said we shall now be KU-LUSHE Green Movement and she promised to mobilise her church youth to participate in the Season of Creation service organised by LUSHE. - Mncedisi Masuku
Gauteng Cluster Workshop
The Green Anglicans hosted a cluster meeting/workshop for movers and shakers in the re-gion of Gauteng. Beginning Fri-day the 30th of June to the 1st of July, all the leaders gathered to discuss national key environ-mental issues which are affect-ing all dioceses in the region. The team leaders were joined by Dr Roselyn Kareithi, who came to help us review our working mechanism as Green Anglicans and its effectiveness. In some of the activities she made us dis-cuss different ways of approach, especially to people who al-ready have spiritual beliefs. We
later proceeded into the pro-gram for the following day.Saturday the 1st we moved to the Cathedral of St Mary in Jo-hannesburg , where everyone was invited. Dioceses that were present included Johannesburg, Christ the King, Highveld and Pretoria. Predominately young people and a handful of clergy, the conference kick-started on a good note with a morning prayer from one of the very ac-tive clergy in the environmen-tal ministry Rev Mpho Mohale, after that we had each diocese share what they have done so far and what they would like
to achieve. We had four ma-jor themes for the day (Water, Waste Coal and Food) Lydia Mogano from Southern African Faith Communities’ presented on food, Okuhle Waste Compa-ny came on behalf of Pickitup to talk about waste. A video about coal use and its health impacts called “Bliss of Ignorance” which highlighted in bold how use of coal is affecting the lives of many in South Africa as well the environment at large. The hall was then split into diocese to plan their actions for the next 24months.
Sunday Schools celebrate World Environment DayWED was the buzz word among the Sunday School teachers of the Bellville and Maitland Archdeaconries as they went about planning and preparing for this joint event. WED? Wednes-day? Wedding? No! It was the acronym used for our World Environment Day exhibition, based on the Sunday School Syllabus, Ryan the Rhino. Af-ter months of communication, meetings, What-sApp group messages and newly formed friend-ships later, it all came together on 3 June 2017 at 10:00 in the hall of the Good Shephard Anglican Church, Kensington.
After a banner procession by children of all the participating Sunday Schools, Rev Mash started the day’s proceedings, officially opening the exhibition, with a prayer. All the little children wearing animal costumes were invited to stay on the stage with her while she shared a story about the animals in God’s Kingdom. I am sure they felt very special to be part of Rev Mash’s story.
We were given a brief overview by Ncumisa
Magadla, of Green Anglicans, who explained the reason for celebrating World Environment Day, making us aware of our environment and how to care for it. She also told us a bit about the Green Anglicans organization. For more information, log into their Facebook page https://www.face-book.com/GreenAnglicans/ and or their Website www.greenanglicans.org. -Rev Rachel Mash
Diocese of Swaziland and African Methodist Episco-pal (AME) Church going
Mthatha Diocesan Servers (ASIA) held their 12th annual con-ference at St Matthews Parish, KwaLindile from the 27th -29th of April 2017. It was in this conference where Mr Bonginkoi White addressed servers about the importance of tree plant-ing. In his address he urged servers to ensure that trees are planted in the parishes, homes and schools. On the same day four trees were planted at the hosting parish. Trees planted were blessed by clergy led by the Diocesan Servers Chaplain, Revd Canon Puza. - Bonginkosi White
RYAN THE RHINO TRAINING- DIOCESE OF PRETORIA!
The Diocese of Pretoria hosted a Sunday School Train-ing on the 13 of May 2017 at Holy Trinity, Rustenburg. Blessed with showers, the day began with a morning service led by the diocesan environmental chaplain, who highlighted the purpose of teaching the importance of educating children from a very tender age about care for creation. With that in mind the training began with an overview presentation of our current environmental issues and some of the things our churches could do to reduce carbon foot print.
Split amoung the diocesan coordinators, the activities were quite easy to present, as some of them were ex-plained in their local language. Boipelo Tau, Katlego Motswagae and Itumeleng Segkothe, who are some of the most active youth members in the environmental ministry, in the diocese, vowed to train other Sunday school teachers who could not make it for this training.
After presenting all the sessions, the Sunday school teachers were grouped to each prepare a session which includes a lesson, a game and a song. Lit-tle did we know that they would go as far as cre-ating drama, it was a very colourful presenta-tion with different languages, games and songs.
GREEN ANGLICAN MORNING PRAYER WALK -Matlosane Youth and Dio Botswana Firstly, we would like to give thanks to Ncumisa Magadla who came all the way to join us for this particular event. Starting at 06:30 in the morning, we opened with Psalms 8 and Ncumisa did the opening prayer before we walked up the hill where we joined to-gether in a circle.She then gave us a brief description of what it truly means to be a Green Anglican especially considering the fact that we still use Styrofoam for our events which is not a green Anglican practice. We then had a contact session where she asked us various questions about our living situations and if we relate to them, we should move in closer to the circle. This exercise was to show the youth how the environment affects our mode of transport and the way we live. Lastly, Chimwemwe Owambo conducted the “My June 16 in 2017” and you pass a ball of yarn to the next person across you, rather than next to you. This exercise was for Youth to express what affects them most in the country and the with that string of yarn, we are all connected but we need to lift each other up, because it one lets go of their end of yarn, it will collapse.organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values. -Chimwemwe Makhotso Owambo
Diocese of Mpumalanga Youth Conference
The Diocese of Mpumalanga held is annual youth confer-ence from the 6th -9th of July 2017 in Schoemansdal Mpuma-langa. Made up of three arch-deaconaries the diocesan youth has quite a diverse youth, from different languages, cultures to style of worship spread across the province. Green Anglicans was part of the conference to add another wing of diversity in their spiritual development. To our surprise the majority of the conference was under the age of 20, which immediately indicated find-ing fun and active ways to teach.
The Green Anglicans team was made of representatives from the diocese of Johannesburg, Pretoria and the Provincial office. Talking to about 150 eager young faces, it was easy to share information especially when they are based at a location with more than 6 coal power stations, the prime contributor to climate change in South Africa. It hit home when we told them about all the health and environmental effects of coal, more over, how they get the least service, while they are hosting the largest energy coal power plants. We were fortunate to have the Bishop Kgomosotho of Mpumalanga to be part of the session and experience first hand the frustrations which are straining lives of many in his diocese. - Ncumisa Magadla
Rev Joseph Hanghome (Namibia) Rev Sigudla (Swaziland) Paolo Manuel (Angola) attended the Environmental Advocacy
training, held on the 25-27 July 2017 in Johannesburg. Rev Joseph reflets on his expereine during the conferene “I have experienced that Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) is the strong
body that is able to build capacity between the faith Leaders from different cor-ners of all continent and Religions.
It’s also in the same man-ner that I came to un-derstand what SAFCEI is, because I was not aware about it and its mission. I have learned that SAFCEI is a multi-faith organisa-tion committed to increas ,understanding and action-taking on eco-jus-tice, sustainable living, cli-mate change by faith lead-ers and their communities in Southern Africa.
Anglicans from Angola, Namibia and Swazi-land attend Environmental Advocacy
Diocese of Christ the King – Renewing the Integrity of Creation
The clergy of the Diocese of Christ the King – in Johan-nesburg South Africa gathered for an Environmental Workshop.
Rev Dr Rachel Mash , Environmental Coordinator ad-dressed them on the challenge of Environmental Deg-radation and Climate Change. Of particular concern is air and water pollution caused by the many coal burning stations in the region. Waste was also identi-fied as a massive issue.
The archdeaconries then gathered to look at how they would put into practice the call of the fifth mark of Mission – to safeguard and renew the integrity of creation. - Rev Mpho Mohale
YOUTH CALLS FOR PAPERLESS SYNOD
The Diocese of Cape Town has just concluded their Diocesan Synod. During the process they used enough paper to cut down three and a half trees. Ga-briella Jacobs put forward a motion that the Synod should move to being primarily paperless by 2020 and totally paperless by 2023.
Although she recognized that this might be hard for the older generation , the youth are used to electron-ic devices and can help with the process as many people in the room could be seen to be using smart phones, tablets or laptops. Music can be displayed on the screen and paper where it has to be used can be double sided and save as much as possible.
A motion on Water justice was also passed by Rev Shaun Cozett and Rev Rachel Mash which called on the Church to study water in scrip-ture during Lent 2018, celebrate World Wa-ter Day close to March 22nd and to hold a Di-ocesan Conference on water during 2018.
67 Minutes for MandelaThe 18th of July is Nelson Mandela’s Birthday and it has become a day when we take 67 minutes to do something for others.
This year the young people of Holy Spirit Hei-develd did something to help to heal the world. They spent their morning creating a beautiful vegetable and indigenous garden at their church. They also cleaned up rubbish from around the church
Each organisastion – Sunday School, servers, youth etc will be looking after a part of the garden.
Seasons of Creation 5 is out, contact the officeto get a copy for R30www.greenangli-cans.org
AWF Diocese of Khahlamba lights up Green The Anglican Woman’s Fellow-ship of the Diocese of Khahlamba held its 4th annual conference at Palloti Farm in Queenstown from the 19th -20th August 2017. Ms Thulethu Ngudle and Mr Bonginkosi White from the Diocese of Mthatha, attended the event representing Green Anglicans Provincial office. In their speech they explained the relevancy and importance of the environment in our church.
They urged every member of the AWF to become a green Anglican. They can become Green Anglicans by taking care of the environment e.g. saving water, recycling, avoiding any form of pollution, tree planting, do away with take away containers, gardening etc. They urged AWF members to start up projects that will encourage people to take care of the environment. AWF members were so happy to hear about the Green Anglicans and promised to start caring for the environment. -Thulethu Ngudle
