The Ministries of Alliance Justice and Compassion - Podcast

In an interview with Greg McCombs of First Alliance Church, Calgary, Joanne Beach, Director of Alliance Justice and Compassion discusses the ministry of Alliance Justice and Compassion. (Recorded November, 17, 2018) 

Refugee Families Embraced by Compassionate Communities

Since becoming a National Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) in 2012, as of December 2018, the C&MA in Canada, on behalf of 104 local churches, had submitted applications to resettle 776 individuals. This includes churches in our partner denominations who the C&MA is also serving.* 

Since becoming a local SAH in 2010, First Alliance Church in Calgary have assisted 31 Alberta churches (16 Alliance) with applications to settle 526 individuals. Combined, 1,302 individuals have found refuge in Canada through the ministry of 135 local churches in this eight-year chapter of our story.

We celebrate the fact that some churches have formed groups of churches/agencies to work together, like Cobourg/Port Hope Better Together in order to sponsor multiple families.  

Better Together - Refugee Sponsorship

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*Denominational partners are the Evangelical Missionary Church, Fellowship Baptist, and Associated Gospel Church. 

International Day of the Girl!

October 11 has been designated International Day of the Girl by the United Nations. The day aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls' empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights. This year's theme is: With Her: A Skilled GirlForce. 

Of the 1 billion young people – including 600 million adolescent girls – that will enter the workforce in the next decade, more than 90% of those living in developing countries will work in the informal sector, where low or no pay, abuse and exploitation are common. (Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/girlchild/) 

Niger, West Africa, has a reputation of having one of the highest rates of child brides. The country's legal age limit for marriage is 15. Child marriages have negative impact on a girl's health, education, and future! Our team in Niger is attempting to address this issue through the Niger Vocational Center for girls ages 12 - 19. Father's must sign a contract indicating they will not marry off their daughter until she has completed this three-year program. At the end of the final year, each girl writes a National exam and is coached in starting her own business.

Education is the route to transformation.  An educated girl is more likely to earn greater income, raise a smaller family, have healthier children, participate in political processes, and send her own children to school. 

Investing in girls makes moral and economic sense. Giving them solid skills to earn a living helps them, their families, and their children for the next generation. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. And when you invest in a girl in a wholistic sense, also focusing on health and hygiene, nutrition, sexual health, expressing themselves through their own ideas and thoughts, discussing faith, prayer, and a sense of purpose, you help build a young woman who can stand the storm around her and make smart, educated decisions for her own life. 

This video gives a glimpse into the impact of this ministry...

Partnering to End Hunger in Niger

As a member of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, the Christian and Missionary Alliance supports food assistance programs and agricultural & livelihood programs with matching funds from the Canadian Government's Humanitarian Assistance funds. As Niger is one of the most underdeveloped countries according to the United Nations, we use most of our CFGB funds in programming there through our implementing partner, Samaritan's Purse - Niger.  

DIFFA FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAM 2016

Mahamadou, pictured here shared, "Each month I get a full food ration of maize, beans and oil for my family. In fact, the ration you see here with me can keep me and my family for a month without selling my goats or wood.  It is a great support in my life." 

This food assistance program in the Diffa region of Niger fed 4,801 individuals in 900 households throughout 9 villages.  This program provided unconditional food distribution to the most vulnerable in host communities over 4 food-insecure months prior to their annual harvest. Nutrition and infant feeding instruction, screening children for malnutrition, and mosquito net training were activities done during the food distributions. This program was funded with a 4:1 match from Global Affairs Canada.

Registration  day

Preparing for a distribution

Nutrition and infant feeding instruction

Malnutrition Screening

Mosquito net instruction

Djahara is a widow who has had to provide food for her grandchildren, She shared, " Some call me a beggar.  It was not easy to live in such a situation. We lived in the same situation until the day when Samaritan's Purse came to register us as the poorest of the village and brought us food for free. My suffering has been greatly reduced.  I do not have the words to describe how much this means to me. 

The chief of the village of Mandawa testified,
 “With this intervention in my village, even the health of our children has improved!”

ALFARI* AGRICULTURAL AND LIVELIHOOD PROGRAM

(Assisting Local Farmers to Adopt Resilient Improvements)

As well as 'giving fish' we are also committed to 'teaching people to fish' as the old adage says. We have invested in many programs over the last 10 years that focus on agricultural livelihood training.

The most recent program was a three-year program that ended in the fall of 2016. The ALFARI program worked with 900 farmers (600 women and 300 men).  The program focused on a variety of areas:

• Conservation Agriculture training along with:
• Sustainable agricultural technique training
• Improved seed distribution
• Improved seed production 
• Improved seed boutique creation
• Field school demonstration farms established 
• Farmer exchange sisits
• Tree nurseries

Training in new farming techniques

Digging zai holes to prepare for planting

Improved seed provides a greater harvest

Observing the new crop

Tree nursery planting

• Vegetable gardening training, including:
• Tree planting
• Women's exchange visits
• Cash crop generation

Vegetable gardens provide added nutrition for families
and money for household needs when sold

An exchange visit to another village provides motivation
for these women to start their own gardens.

• Household Nutrition instruction including:
• Soap making
• Mud stove introduction 
• Infant feeding practices

Demonstration of more fuel efficient stoves
that will use less wood and burn more safely. 

Learning to make soap

Mariama testifies to the value of learning to exclusively breast feed her infant. 

I took too much time before getting into the practice of exclusive breastfeeding, as I heard a lot of discouraging things about this practice. But due to the awareness and training sessions conducted by the nutrition supervisor, I finally understood all what I heard was wrong. My daughter you see here is my eighth, and this is the first time I applied exclusive breastfeeding. I have noticed the difference between the behaviors of my daughter with my other children. For instance, my daughter has never gotten sick, while with the others I was frequently in Niamey, which was 25 km from our village. I am very proud with my beautiful and healthy baby. Now I am convinced that breast milk is a blessing. To conclude, the ALFARI project has impacted my life and the life of my family.

• Cash for Work
• Land reclamation initiatives
• Tree planting
• Zai hole and demi-lune contruction
• Gabion box construction to stop soil erosion

Gabion boxes to combat soil erosion

WHAT IS NEXT?  

We will be starting another multi-year 

agriculture and livelihood project in Niger in 2017.  

To donate to this work, click here: FOOD AID

Syrian Refugee Crisis: The C&MA in Canada's Response

As with most past humanitarian crises, it takes an image to invoke a response by the rest of the world! 

In September we were exposed to the shocking photo of lifeless Aylan Shenu wash up on the shores of Turkey; a young Syrian boy whose family fled their home as refugees because of civil war. Since the unrest began in Syria in the Spring of 2011, there have been over 11 million Syrians displaced and over 4 million refugees in the surrounding countries.

Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan

The C&MA in Canada has been working on this crisis for three years by supporting relief efforts in several Middle East countries and by encouraging our churches to engage in refugee sponsorship.  We are encouraged that even before the photo of little Aylan and the massive movement of Syrian refugees to Europe, fifteen of our churches were already in the process of sponsoring refugees. Another 35 of our churches are in dialogue with us about the process; many are at the point of forming teams who will lead a sponsorship resettlement. (Update: As of March 23 the number of churches has increased to 171!)

My church wants to respond.  What can we do?

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

The C&MA's response. What have we been doing?

• We have been a Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) with Citizenship and Immigration Canada since February 2012, encouraging Alliance churches to engage in refugee sponsorship. 
• We have supported Syrian refugee relief in Lebanon, Jordan, and with the Alliance church in Damascus over the last 2 ½ years.  
• Joanne Beach traveled to Lebanon and Jordan in December 2013 to visit refugees both in and outside the camps that local Alliance churches have been ministering to.  Read Blog Post
• As a SAH, we are part of the Canadian SAH Association and have been working through this network to advocate on behalf of refugees. 
•  We partnered with Lorna Dueck’s Context show last fall on the "Terror in Iraq and Syria" episode. The C&MA was the contact organization for viewers to call who were interested in refugee sponsorship. View the episode.
•  Dave Hearn traveled to Iraq in October 2014 and subsequently made a video to encourage churches to respond with radical hospitality to the displaced impacted by the crises in the Middle East.  View the Video.  (His challenge comes at the 2:50 point in the video.)
• In May 2015, Dave Hearn participated with other denominational presidents, who are part of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), in a meeting with Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa to encourage the Government of Canada to accept more Syrian refugees.  They also committed to assist their local churches with sponsorship. 
• As a result of the EFC initiative, we will be serving as the umbrella SAH for three other denominations in order that their local churches can engage in sponsorship immediately while they go through the application process of becoming a SAH.  (Associated Gospel Church of Canada, Evangelical Missionary Church Of Canada, and Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada.)
• We have added the Refugee Sponsorship section on the new C&MA website.  
• We have established a Refugee Fund so people can donate to a sponsorship resettlement.  This fund is a safety reserve for sponsoring groups to apply for unexpected financial emergencies outside of the resettlement budget.
• We have promoted refugee sponsorship through a variety of the Alliance Justice and Compassion social media sites.  
• A video story on Vimeo (A Refuge Story)
• A C&MA Website news story of an Alliance Church receiving a family in June 2015
• Tweets about Refugee Sponsorship
• Facebook posts
• Instagram posts

·      So, as you can see, we have been addressing this issue for some time, but we are grateful that the events of this past September have created a sense of urgency which has inspired many inquiries about refugee sponsorship and how churches can respond.  

  Okay, My Church Wants to Respond.  

What can I do?

1. Pray for the millions of refugees, for relief efforts of churches and aid agencies in the Middle East and Europe, and for churches in Canada assisting refugees in resettlement.
2. Provide funds to the C&MA Syria Emergency Relief Fund Donations to this fund will be used to provide relief for refugees in the Middle East and Europe.
3. Provide funds to the C&MA Refugee Fund. Donations to this fund will be used to assist churches in Canada that are sponsoring refugees.
4. Learn how your church can Participate in refugee sponsorship.
5. Partner with a church in your area that is sponsoring a refugee family.