Giving opportunities
There are a number of not for profit enterprises which have evolved in response to Covid 19 which One Boat Chaplaincy has been supporting – particularly households seeking to access food, fresh water, essentials in technology to assist in on line education support during these extraordinary times. As the lock down hopefully moves on across the globe, and the menace of the pandemic withdraws in the face of increasing availability of vaccines – we are supporting those who are driving through the delivery of vaccinations to hard to reach areas, as well as supporting some re-start activities as Covid restrictions lift, and small organisations recharge their ongoing work of intervening for justice and the relief of poverty.
On our You tube pages are interviews and reflections from some of those working in these tough environments, where the news media moves on, but the ongoing work of bringing relief and transformation continues.
Those working in homeless shelters in Canada – Sally Richmond heading up the work of LOGIFEM and developing longer term responses to VAW especially in the domestic environment.
The Destiny Foundation – working in the red-light districts in India with women who found themselves in lock down without any form of social protection – a catch up broadcast soon to be aired. From Nepal and Myanmar there have been a variety of voices brought forward from countries which have been experiencing particularly challenging times for their populations during this time of pandemic.
A number of new enterprises in the Philippines generated as a response to the rapid collapse of economic opportunities for households where migrant labour working in the Middle East, Hong Kong and neighbouring countries was rapidly expatriated were tracked and we shall be catching up in November 2022 with what happens next for communities hit hard during the pandemic.
In DR Congo there has been ongoing violence in the North East of the country since the seismic violence of the Rwandan genocide (with an estimated 1 million deaths within the span of 100 days). We have been following reports of village burnings, looting, and kidnap in the troubled region of Ituri, where in the depths of its equatorial forests some of the last populations of the hunter-gatherers of the Congo basin the Bambenga, the Bambuti and the Batwa peoples otherwise referred to as the African Pygmies (adult male stature is on average less than 150 cms tall). We have been supporting some advocacy work on their behalf, and will again be reporting on their situation in November 2022.
In South America there have been a number of initiatives reported on in our first phase of OneBoatChaplaincy broadcasts, with contributions from Bishop Magda Guedes the elected Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Parana in Brazil, and those working with a concerted campaign against the various forms of violence against women in the work of the church committed to lifting the voices of women of colour, and from Mexico the Revd Sylvia Vasquez, shedding a contemporary light on our Lady of Guadalupe.
Contributions over the last eighteen months have also been received from Haiti and the Virgin Islands from the West Indies – with the contribution from Haiti and the Dominican Republic particularly prescient at this time and we are currently looking for some organisations to be supporting there.
In the mighty continent of Africa, we have had wonderful insights shared by the recently appointed Bishop of Lesotho Canon Vincentia Kgabe the third woman diocesan, and sixth female Bishop in Africa. During the onset of the pandemic the ongoing insurgency of Islamist militants in the North East of Mozambique, which had begun in 2017, increased in its ferocity – with consequent expulsions of the population seeking safety from the Cabo Delgado region rich in natural gas and oil reserves, reaching international press attention for a number of weeks in the early spring of 2021. A long term member of the One Boat team, South African theologian and LGBTQ rights protector, Revd Dr Canon Mpho Tutu Van Furth, has brought a steady contribution of insights from the peace making and reconciliation work of the Tutu foundation, and her own work supporting female education and climate protection on the continent.
More information on opportunities to connect with some of these enterprises, and social improvement programmes will be coming soon – in response to requests from those of you who have been following the boat’s progress over the last eighteen months, and the contributions brought by those who have jumped on board to tell us more about their quests, challenges and insights accrued during these extraordinary pandemic times.