Everyone’s online

Last week we launched Jubilee Centre’s new website – www.jubileecentre.org – which I have been working on over the past year. We’ve developed the new site so that it easily provides the latest news and Monday Issue from JC – you can subscribe to receive both of these by email, just click here.

During last week I also trained all the staff at JC on how to maintain the site – yet again it uses WordPress – which was interesting during the week when we had the worst internet connection ever! We got there in the end though – and are now even changing internet provider as well.

As a result there are personal blog sites springing up from JC staff and associates… so far we have the following:

Bread of Life Church Mapalo – this is the new website from the church we have worked with the most in Mapalo, including home of the HBC women’s group Polly has worked with.

Dan Daka’s blog – Dan is a volunteer at JC

Pukuta Mwanza’s blog – Pukuta, a good friend of ours from before we came to Zambia, just last week joined the JC staff to spearhead the Church Mobilisation Programme.

Micah Challenge Zambia – this is the home of Micah Challenge in Zambia, which is housed at JC.

* Update *  The past year has seen JC have major internet connection problems – despite much complaining and telephone calls we’ve never had the problems resolved. Last week’s problems forced JC to look into getting a new provider… and by Monday night this week the new provider had connected us up and all the problems of old are now left to yesterday… what can I say… a week before we leave Zambia JC not only gets a reliable fast internet connection but also a wireless connection!

MCZ Copperbelt launch

Micah Challenge Zambia is now embarking on a series of provincial launches across the country, and this week saw the Copperbelt provincial launch take place in Kitwe. We were joined by Joel Edwards of the EA UK and Andy Clasper of Micah Challenge UK, as well as the District Commissioner for Kitwe representing the Minister for the Copperbelt. The national media covered the story, but dwelt more on what the Minister ’said’ even though he wasn’t even there in person… but any coverage is better than none!

We’ve uploaded a few photo’s that you can see on our flickr pages.

MCZ launch

Just over a week ago we were in Lusaka organising the national launch of Micah Challenge Zambia. It was a lot of hard work over a month or so, with us up and down to Lusaka and running round delivering invites and press releases. There was a conference for church leaders and then a launch event the following day. Unfortunately neither events were very well attended – Lusaka people are difficult to mobilise! - which left us all feeling disappointed after so much hard work. But hey that is the way it goes sometimes – despite the disappointments it was covered on the main national TV news and radio stations, and it officially launched the campaign, whilst also seeing a new Steering Committee elected, which in the longer term could prove to be more important than people on the day!

Lawrence Temfwe, National Facilitator of MCZ, being interviewed by the media

Newly elected Steering Committee of MCZ

Audiomission podcast

This month we have made it onto the CMS Audiomission podcast.

Issue 16 – April 2007 is called ‘Dare to be salt and light’ and is based on an interview we did at CMS whilst in the UK in January. Despite many of the programme details we talk about having changed – and the fact that we were exhausted when we did the interview and didn’t think they’d be able to use it at all – they have mixed it well and, though we sound tired, the end result seems alright!

If you have good connection you can listen to it using the player below – just click on the play button below – or you can download the MP3 file here.

Photos: Mufumbwe trip

We’ve been quiet for a while – things have been busy. Last week I visited the Northwestern province of Zambia (8 hours drive from Ndola) for a HIV/AIDS leadership building workshop being run by Jubilee Centre. I was helping film the workshop which brought together the local councillors and other political leaders, as well as church and NGO leaders to draw up an action plan for helping fight stigma and discrimination and strengthen the local battle against HIV in the constituency. It was an amazing trip – and brilliant to see more of the diverse landscape of Zambia – I have uploaded a few photo’s to give you a taste. Visit our Flickr pages (slideshow) to see them all.

The rains keep coming

You’ve probably heard about the flooding in Mozambique, we are also having severe problems caused by the same rains and rivers. At Jubilee Centre we have estimated that there are probably around 200,000 displaced people in the country at the moment – yet for some reason it isn’t mentioned in the media locally or internationally. In one of the townships we work in around 200 of the mud brick houses have collapsed, meaning over 1,000 people are homeless. There is no drainage so nowhere for the water to go, and no foundations to hold the houses up.

Yesterday I spent the day meeting with a group of women and visiting the long-term sick, but by the time we came to leave, the road had been washed away. My colleague, Martha was bravely driving but we skidded and got stuck. I managed to work out how to put our decrepit vehicle in four wheel drive and drove praying that we wouldn’t slip into the deep gullies that had appeared. Meanwhile Martha was helpfully shouting ‘left a bit, right a bit’ from outside the vehicle! My heart was pounding so hard when we reached a bit that looked impossible to me, but everyone just said to give it some welly – people pay good money to do this sort of thing at home! But we managed and it certainly gives you a sense of achievement. I didn’t stop to take a photo of the non existent road – but we have uploaded a few photo’s of the day into our Community Faces photo set on our Flickr pages.

Micah Challenge Zambia website

We launched a website for Micah Challenge in Zambia yesterday – you can see it at: www.micahchallenge.org/zambia

It is a simple site that we’ve set up using WordPress.com, the same system that this website uses, and it hasn’t cost a penny so far – another example of what you can do for free on the web! There is not much content on it on at the moment but that will change as things develop.

An electric buzz

Last Friday I spent the afternoon being inspired by my collagues. We were doing an anti AIDS school programme based around a video, but the school neglected to tell us there was no power. In an instant, we had to completely rearrange the programme in front of 100 pupils.

We are a young and inexperienced team (this being our first school) but two team members jumped up and started telling stories, getting the students excited about all that we were going to do. After we got over the amazement of what our colleagues were doing, we had enough time to rearrange the programme into something that could work with out electricity.

By the end of the afternoon I was looking around at groups of students working together whilst young Zambian facilitators inspired them. It was one of those wonderful moments and it wasn’t interrupted by the buzz of electricity.

Stand up… sit back?

We are currently in the UK, preparing to return to Zambia next week. Whilst in the UK we have been doing lots of talks about our work with Jubilee Centre and CMS. As we’ve been doing our talks it has been great to meet lots of new people and catch-up with old friends – and we’d love to carry on the conversations started on our visits through our blog. In our talks we’ve used a number of resources and mentioned a number of responses we can all make to fighting poverty. I have promised a few people that I’d put links to those resources and responses on our blog – so here are those links:

Supporting Jubilee Centre: If you would like to support the work of Jubilee Centre in Zambia financially or through prayer the following two leaflets explain how to do this – Jubilee Centre Leaflet and Jubilee Centre UK Giving Form.

Supporting Matt & Polly: We produce a regular newsletter and prayer letter which you can sign up to by contacting us – you can also subscribe to receive updates from this blog website by email. If you would like to support us financially in our work with CMS for Jubilee Centre click here.

Micah Challenge campaign and video: We have been using a video in our talks by Micah Challenge in the UK – you can get a copy of this video here or find out more about the Micah Challenge campaign in the UK at www.micahchallenge.org.uk

CMS: For further information on the work of CMS visit: www.cms-uk.org

We have also mentioned two books in our talks – both of which are really useful resources for exploring the kingdom of God and our role as part of it. We have blogged about Colossians Re:mixed by Brian J Walsh & Sylvia C Keesmaat before and will try to blog about The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren in the coming weeks.

MP visits Mapalo

You may remember that prior to the recent general elections in Zambia the church leaders Jubilee Centre works with in Mapalo successfully engaged all the candidates standing for MP and Councillor in the needs of their community by creating a Memorandum of Understanding between the community and their elected leaders. Last Saturday saw this engagement reach a new high point – the MP visited Mapalo and met the leaders. The first time an MP has visited the community outside of election campaign time!

After the elections the church leaders wrote to their new MP asking him to keep the promises he had made to the community when he signed the memorandum – they also copied this letter to the Speaker in parliament asking him to release the MP to visit them! All responded favourably to the letter and last Saturday the leaders held a meeting with the MP and new Councillor to agree a way forward to meeting the needs in the memorandum. At the meeting the MP thanked the community for their support, telling them that he would, “never betray the trust [they] gave him.”

Obviously there is still a long way to go and much to be done to hold him and the Councillor to their promises – but a significant milestone has been reached. There is now open dialogue and the starting of a shared approach to transforming Mapalo between the community leaders and their elected representatives.