Diocese of Winchester

Last week, Mothers’ Union backed calls from Churches in Sudan for peace and a respect for human rights to be upheld as the country prepares for national elections in April 2010 and crucial referendum in January 2011 on unity or independence for Southern Sudan.

Mothers’ Union has families of Diocese stretching across the world who pray for each other regularly, and who collectively form a ‘Wave of Prayer’. One of Winchester’s permanent links is with Kajo-Keji in Southern Sudan, and from tomorrow (January 21st) they and their partner diocese of Kitgum and Muhabura (in Uganda) and Masasi (in Tanzania) will be at the centre of all Mothers’ Union prayers around the world.

As one of the key agencies from the Church involved in bringing humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Sudan, Mothers’ Union has spoken out to lend support to Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, from the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, calling for urgent international support for efforts to maintain the fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The CPA was signed in 2005 ending a long and devastating civil war, but violence is now on the increase across the region.

[Full details of the situation and issues surrounding it can be found among recent Chatham House papers, and recent speeches by Archbishop Rowan Williams, and Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul can be downloaded from the Archbishops website.]

A Mothers' Union literacy group in Southern Sudan

Mothers’ Union has a membership of 15,000 women in Sudan, and runs an extensive Literacy & Development programme (MULDP) in the country, working closely with the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. The CPA has enabled Mothers’ Union Sudan’s Literacy Trainers to extend the programme to communities in Southern Sudan who were previously isolated through conflict. This progress is at risk should the fragile peace not be protected.

Naomi Herbert, Senior Programme Officer for Mothers’ Union said “Before the CPA our development programme couldn’t reach out of the controlled area of Juba and the areas in the North. Since the CPA our volunteers have brought the programme into isolated and previously inaccessible interior regions. Communities are now engaging in new businesses, roads enable markets to be accessible, more food is available, and people have better access to healthcare and natal facilities. All efforts need to be made by governments and agencies to facilitate open dialogue between north and south on key issues of wealth sharing, so that the people of the South are not plunged in to a conflict over resources at a time when peace is making such a difference to the lives of ordinary women, men and children across Sudan.”

However, there are other issues that specifically affect Kajo-Keji. The Diocese of Kajo-Keji has not yet been able to introduce and implement the MULDP. Funding provided by Mothers’ Union for the programme (which also operates in Burundi and Malawi ) used to be matched by funding from Comic Relief for the project, but that source is now exhausted. The challenge is therefore to find funding for the Mothers’ Union’s Literacy and Development Programme that will allow it to continue in the areas it has already reached, and specifically to expand into regions like Kajo-Keji where it would prove equally effective.