One Mothers’ Union member from the Diocese of Winchester has spent several years living and working among the people of Southern Sudan, and she has offered to share her experiences with everyone who is interested in the region and it’s people.

Tales of South Sudan
Crosfield Hall, Romsey 6.00-9.00pm (refreshments from 5.30pm)
Thursday 15th July 2010
Speaker: Poppy Spens

In the last four years Poppy and her husband have set up 2 health centres, a mobile clinic, and this year a children’s’ ward and eye clinic opens. The picture shown here was taken by Poppy and shows Mothers’ Union members who will feature in her slide show.

Mothers’ Union in the Diocese of Winchester is linked in prayer with Mothers’ Union members in the Southern Sudanese Diocese of Kajo-Keji.

The evening will also feature other news about Mothers’ Union work locally and around the globe, including this years Family Holiday which local members and supporters will be running for a week in August on the Isle of Wight.

Directions for Crosfield Hall, Romsey are downloadable here: Crosfield Hall

If you are reading this web-page because you are interested to learn more about these diocese, you are particularly welcome. Once you’ve read the links available, please click on the word ‘comment’ and tell us if you found them helpful, interesting, and also where you are from! We’d love to hear from you.

Information about project work (including our Family Holiday scheme), events and activities among Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester can be viewed by clicking the other link pages and ‘tags’ on the top and left of your screen.

During the last few days we have posted information about three of the Diocese to whom Winchester is linked. Each can be found by scrolling down the postings on this ‘home-page’ or by clicking the ‘tag’ links. There is further background information on each via the ‘International’ heading at the top of your screen.

Muhabura, situated in Southern Uganda, is the last to be featured. In 2009 we became aware that, despite the drought conditions the region was experiencing, Mothers’ Union members were helping many refugees displaced from the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was supported by two donations from the Mothers’ Union Relief Fund, which operates to help members in the relief work they undertake in their local communities. Information from Mothers’ Union head office suggests that Muhabura members continue to care for refugees from D R Congo.

Whether you are a Mothers’ Union member, or just interested in who we are and what we do, may God bless you as you journey through life with him.

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.

A map of Uganda showing the location of Kitgum and Muhabura

Every family is formed by a network of relationships where some members have particularly close relationships, and the same is true of the Mothers’ Union family; each diocese which has Mothers’ Union members is linked closely with a small group of other Mothers’ Union diocese around the globe, so that they get to know each other particularly well. They can they pray for each other, and if appropriate support each other in more practical ways, and occasionally with visits. Each small group of diocese are also at the centre of the daily prayers of all members for a few days each year, forming what we call our ‘Wave of Prayer’.

Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester are linked in this way with fellow members in Kitgum (Northern Uganda), Muhabura (South Western Uganda), Masasi (Southern Tanzania) and Kajo-Keji (Southern Sudan). Together we are at the centre of the ‘Wave of Prayer’ from 21st – 25th January each year.

During that week Mothers’ Union groups in churches across the Diocese of Winchester will be meeting to pray for members in their partner Diocese. An order of service that can be used for these prayers can be downloaded by clicking on this link: MUWinchester_WaveOfPrayerService2010

There are several things to remember if you are arranging such a service this year:

• We are just entering a new triennial of leadership in the Mothers’ Union, but being early in January much updated information is not yet available to us especially regarding the names of leaders and workers. The most up to date information we have on countries is available by following the links attached to the place names above, and by looking at a copies of ‘Families Worldwide’ which will have featured them over the last few months.
• Historically we also have a link with Algoma in Canada which is why they are mentioned in the service sheet, but recently there has been no information as to whether there are any Mothers’ Union members active there.

On Monday 11th January, Archbishop Deng from the Episcopal Church of Sudan and Archbishop Rowan Williams will be meeting with PM Gordon Brown to discuss the ongoing necessity for a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan. Kajo-Keji is in Southern Sudan and directly affected the peace agreement and the forthcoming elections this April and a crucial referendum in January 2011. There will be a statement later that day which will try and feature on this website and the situation and information should help inform our prayers for the Diocese of Kajo-Keji.

In the next couple of weeks we will also seek updated information about situations in our other link Diocese and feature them on this website, so please visit us regularly to keep up to date.

Crops have failed for the third time in 12 months, livestock are dead or dying and families are spending all their time foraging for whatever food they can find. People in the hardest hit areas are eating leaves and roots in the forest to survive.

Mothers’ Union members can distribute support to those who need it most, because they live in and understand the specific needs of their communities. They have identified at least 300,000 families who need our support to stay alive.

There is lots of information available by following the links here to help you raise the profile of this crisis that isn’t being talked about by the governments of the affected countries. Mothers’ Union is one of the few agencies promoting the plight of the region. Please use the downloads and links to highlight the crisis, and raise funds in your community and church.

Click the highlighted text to download your East Africa Famine Crisis – Situation Summary

The poster pictured here is available from our head office in London, but can also be downloaded as a full colour A3 poster by clicking this link: Harvest Has Failed – A3 Poster

There is more information on the central Mothers’ Union website including the facility to donate online here: East Africa Appeal

“Actions in Truth” are working particularly with children’s education and orphan’s including those who have been displaced into northern Uganda, where of course we also have a link with the Diocese of Kitgum.

If you look at their website you will find lots of photographs, news about how much education costs and about sponsoring children in the region. If you use their links page there is access to some songs being sung by the children!

Hand washing stand at Lowero Model Home in Uganda (photographed August 2006)

The government recently recognised the unique contribution that faith-based organisations like Mothers’ Union make in delivering development and connecting with community needs.

As part of its white paper “Building our Common Future” the Department for International Development have said they will be doubling funding to to faith-based groups engaged in such work.

In the mean-time Mothers’ Union is continuing to help an increasing number of communities in Uganda (and soon Kenya) bring about their own development through the Family Life Programme.

Mothers’ Union also welcome the white paper’s recognition that the multiple challenges created by growth, climate change and conflict, can not be solved by the state alone.

It is really encouraging to know that Mothers’ Union is already seeking to do just what the white paper is encouraging; linking with churches, regional and national governments, and fellow development organisations to bring about global solutions to problems which communities experience at a very local level.

This is particularly obvious through the Mothers’ Union Literacy and Development Programme. Click to download an information sheet: MULDP update March 2009.

Although this ground-breaking scheme has helped 45,000 people become accredited literate in Burundi, Sudan and Malawi, Kajo-Keji Diocese in southern Sudan is not yet one where the scheme has been formally launched – due to lack of funds. (Mothers’ Union in Kajo-Keji Diocese is linked to Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester.)

The Literacy and Development programme has recently been reviewed, and despite it’s success Mothers’ Union is trying to improve it still further by increasing the financial skills taught in the numeracy part of the course, so that people can understand how to create and manage household budgets and organise the simple profit and loss accounts needed for business development and income generating projects. It is now partnering Five Talents International to achieve this.

However, this Literacy and Development programme alone needs £1 million to fund this development and role it out into new diocese in identified as being in most need of the skills it can provide. Kajo-Keji is one such diocese.

If you would like more information about the Literacy and Development Programme or the Family Life Programme, please contact us using the email at the bottom right of your screen. If you wish to make a donation to the development work of Mothers’ Union please post it to our contact details.

Without your interest and help this work can not be expanded.

Sudan/Uganda border

Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester have links with diocese in both Southern Sudan (Kajo-Keji) and Northern Uganda (Kitgum) and so this news story from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs offers a particularly interesting insight into the  movement and  return of refugees between the two regions: Between hope and fear – refugees returning home to Southern Sudan

Although Kajo-Keji and Kitgum are not directly mentioned in this article, the experiences recounted resonate with those described by visiting Bishop’s wives who met some Mothers’ Union members in Winchester Diocese just before the Lambeth Conference last year.