TACKLINGTRAFFICKINGRead an update on the high’s and low’s of tackling child trafficking in Malawi.

TOWARDSTRANSFORMATIONWe unpack the problem of global poverty and how best to address it.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEWSLETTER

AUTUMN/WINTER

2015

www.salvationarmy.org.uk/id

ENRICHINGLIVESFind out how we’re helping people in DRC toenrich their diets and enrich their lives.

HOW WE USE YOUR MONEY

CONTENTS

TOWARDSTRANSFORMATION

TACKLINGTRAFFICKING

OVERCOMINGVIOLENCETOGETHER

NEWS

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JOURNEYTO MALAWI

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PROJECTSOur VisionLife with dignity, equality for all people and a world without poverty and injustice.

Our MissionOur mission is to resource, empower and support developing communities to defeat poverty and injustice and enable them to build a better life and future.

We engage people to comprehend injustice and take action to restore our world as a place where justice, dignity and equality are a reality for all people.

The Salvation Army is at work in 127 countries worldwide.

Want to know more?If you would like to find out more about our work, are interested in ordering resources or would like to inquire about booking one of our team members for an event, simply contact us and we will be happy to help. Similarly, if you have a story to tell us about how you are helping to tackle poverty and injustice then please get in touch:

The Salvation Army International Development UK101 Newington CausewayLondon SE1 6BNUnited Kingdom

TEL 020 7367 4777EMAIL id@salvationarmy.org.ukWEB www.salvationarmy.org.uk/id

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@SAIDUK

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bit.ly/googleplussaiduk

@SAIDUK

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COVER STORYENRICHINGLIVES

EDITORIAL

Have you been watching The Great British Bake Off this year? I must admit, it’s not really my sort of thing (I’m more of

an eater than a baker). However, I’ve had to maintain at least a passing interest in the goings-on under that giant marquee. That’s because we’ve been having a friendly competition in our team. We have each been paired with a contestant from the show, and when that contestant is eliminated we have to bake something as a forfeit. It’s mostly a thinly veiled excuse to have cakes in the office every week, which is why I’ve been willing to go along with it. But it is impressive to see how the TV bakers manage to transform a pile of mostly similar ingredients into a whole range of weird and wonderful creations.

This issue of DEVELOP is all about transformation, but not really about cakes (although doughnuts do feature briefly – see p7). Throughout these pages you will find examples of transformation taking place, whether it’s through the impact of tree-planting on food crops (p12), the fresh start offered through training programmes (p5) or the hope offered to women escaping situations of violence (p14). We also see the transformational impact that the Live Below the Line campaign has had on us in the UK and on our global neighbours as we hit an exciting milestone (p3).

You can also read about the positive transformation as well as the challenge of bringing lasting change to children trafficked in Malawi (p10). Starting on p4 I also begin to unpack something of the learning of our team about what poverty is and how to best to tackle it.

Ultimately we’re all more or less the same. We too are made up of mostly the same ingredients. We each have various gifts and skills and yet we all have the potential to do wonderful things. I hope that as you read the stories within this magazine you will continue to join us on this journey towards transformation – for the love of God, ourselves, each other and the rest of creation.

Carl JobsonActing International Development Manager, The Salvation Army International Development (UK)

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

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NEWS

NEPAL EARTHQUAKEEarly on Saturday 25 April, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, devastating the capital region of Kathmandu. More than 8,000 people died and over 8 million people have been affected. This is the worst earthquake to hit the area in 81 years.

In the months since the earthquake, The Salvation Army has distributed 1,000 tents to families so they can live on land next to their destroyed houses, enabling them to begin the rebuilding process. The Salvation Army’s International Emergency Services team in Nepal has also distributed more than 110,000 kg of rice, almost 36,000 kg of dhal, 7,000 litres of oil, 2,650 kg of salt, more than 2,000 packets of noodles and in excess of 2,300 litres of water.

The team has also provided 10 water filters, four water tanks, almost 3,000 tarpaulins for shelter, 904 solar lamps, 33 solar chargers, 775 jerry cans, 440 hygiene kits, 800 school kits and a large number of small items including mosquito nets.

The Salvation Army has also been managing six camps in the Kathmandu valley, ensuring the safety of residents before they return to their home communities.

‘We are making a difference in people’s lives here,’ said Colonel Carol Telfer, who was co-ordinating the response until July. ‘On behalf of the team I want to thank Salvationists and friends from around the world for the support you have given in enabling us to do this.’

Together with the local Salvation Army officers and volunteers, The Salvation Army’s international disaster relief team used the Army’s Sisters Café in Kathmandu as the operational base for their response. Regular readers will be familiar with this café, a social enterprise being supported by SAID UK to provide training and support to survivors of trafficking and those vulnerable to it (see the Autumn/Winter 2014 issue of DEVELOP for more info).

Like the majority of buildings, the café itself did sustain damage, but was able to open again within a week. While none of the staff or apprentices was injured, all were affected and sustained damage either to their homes or their families’ homes. We are currently looking at boosting the welfare fund of the project to assist them to rebuild and recover from the earthquake.

As the team’s and the country’s attention now turns towards rebuilding and recovery, please continue to keep the people of Nepal in your thoughts and prayers.

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100K RAISED THROUGH ‘LIVE BELOW THE LINE’Live Below the Line started in the UK in 2011 to give people a small glimpse into the reality of life in extreme poverty. Over the past five years we have loved seeing more and more people take part to help us tackle poverty and injustice. During this time, more than 950 people have taken the challenge and we’re pleased to announce that they have raised over £100,000 to support our work!

The money raised has made and is still making an incredible difference to the lives of the people we work with around the world. To put it into

perspective, £100,000 is the amount it costs to train 150 farmers to pass on simple farming techniques in their communities. That’s the equivalent of around 4,500 people equipped to defeat their hunger and rise above the poverty line because of the passion and commitment shown by those of you who have taken the challenge.

The challenge has had a big impact, not only by raising money to support our projects, but also by changing the way we think about poverty and hunger. Some of our participants shared how the challenge affected them. Bethany told us that she ‘found the experience spiritually rewarding and [she] gained greater humility’. And when asked how he would describe the challenge, Gary said it was ‘an eye-opening, challenging and essential experience!’ The impact of Live Below the Line clearly goes beyond the five days on which your dinner plans are affected; indeed, Beth told us that she found the week ‘really tough’ but that it has ‘changed the way [she thinks] about food and poverty for ever’.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the Live Below the Line challenge with us over the years and stood alongside communities all over the world in the fight against poverty and injustice.

FOR THE LOVE OF UPDATECLIMATE LOBBY REVIEWOn Wednesday 17 June, as part of the Climate Coalition’s ‘For The Love Of’ campaign, more than 9,000 people came together in Westminster to share and celebrate the things they love and to ask their MPs to take action on climate change for the sake of all that they hold dear.

This was the first large-scale lobby on climate change in five years, and more than half of MPs had never been lobbied in a high-profile way regarding the climate. Together, thousands of people changed that. Each one of the 330s MPs who were lobbied knows how much their constituents care about this issue that affects us all.

It was a vibrant day with homemade bunting colourfully expressing the range of interests that were represented at the lobby. As people waited to meet their MP, people were invited to take part in a variety of activities and events including two ecumenical services and the creation of a beautiful mural which grew throughout the day as people of all faiths added messages of hope and pledges for action.

The lobby closed with a rally finale hosted by comedian Arthur Smith, with the gathered crowds hearing from a selection of passionate speakers including faith leaders, grandparents, celebrities and campaigners.

CLIMATE MARCH 2015But this was just the beginning. In December 2015 representatives from 196 countries will gather in Paris for the UN climate summit where they are expected to sign a new climate change agreement.

Tackling climate change is a central component in addressing world hunger and eliminating extreme poverty. It is therefore vital that a strong and fair deal is agreed, as this will help encourage individual countries to implement strategies and policies for carbon emissions reduction.

That’s why, on Sunday 29 November, the eve of the summit in Paris, hundreds of thousands of people will once again gather and march in London and towns and cities across the globe as part of a global climate protest.

If you would like to attend, please contact us on at id@salvationarmy.org.uk or 020 7367 4777 so we can provide you with more information on plans for the day, or visit www.salvationarmy.org.uk/climatechange.

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Carl Jobson, Acting International Development Manager, explores our assumptions of poverty, how best to tackle it and what part each of us can play.

TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION

If I asked you to close your eyes and think about what poverty looks like, what image would come to mind?

Would it be of an African famine, of children with protruding bellies and flies around their faces? Would it be a homeless person from your local community? Or would you think of a massive, sprawling and crowded slum found in countries like India?

Our perceptions of poverty are fundamental to how we then approach tackling it. If poverty is a lack of food, then the solution will be to give food. Yet we know there must be more to it than that, because giving food doesn’t solve the problem, it just offers a brief respite from it. This means that perhaps the problem is a lack of access to food. If so, the best solution to the problem then changes to some way of helping someone access the food they need, either by helping them grow enough food, or earn enough money to buy it.

But is that all poverty is? A lack of access to material things like food, water and shelter? I used to think so. We live in a materialistic society, so we tend to view poverty as a material problem. But does that do it justice? An American reporter once asked Mother Teresa which was the poorest country she had ever been to. She said:

‘Yes, yes, yes. I have been to many countries and seen much poverty and suffering. Everywhere I go people tell me of their hardships and struggles and ask for help, and I give what I can. But of all the countries I have been to, the poorest one I have been to is America.’

A bit shocked, the reporter reminded Mother Teresa that America was one of the richest countries and therefore questioned how it could be the poorest. ‘Because,’ she replied, ‘America suffers most from the poverty of loneliness.’

Mother Teresa knew a lot about material poverty – she saw more of it than most and she experienced it first-hand. But here she highlights our blind spot when looking at global poverty, because we tend to think of it as only a problem elsewhere. We rarely think of ourselves as being in poverty.

The problem with thinking of poverty in purely materialistic terms is that this means the opposite of poverty must be wealth. We use terms like ‘developing countries’ to distinguish the materially poor parts of the world from ourselves, the ‘developed countries’. Let’s take a minute to stop and think about what that means. We are ‘developed’. They are ‘developing’. That says to those of us on both sides of that definition that some of us have got it right, and the rest should emulate them. The UK is one of the world’s economically richest countries – but have we got it right? Our country still has material poverty (albeit of a different type and scale) and increasing inequality. We too have our own poverty of loneliness and isolation. We are overconsuming in an unsustainable way, causing massive environmental and health problems for ourselves in the process. We have not got it right. We are developing too, but is it in the right way?

In the book When Helping Hurts, the authors define poverty in a different way – as a set of broken relationships between us and God, ourselves, each other, and the rest of creation. This means that poverty exists for one or more of the following reasons:

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

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FEATURE

CORNELIUS’S STORYRead as Cornelius shares with us his experiences of living in poverty in Pakistan

Cornelius lives in a remote village in the industrial area of Mominpura in Pakistan. Life in these villages is very difficult – the nearby landlords and factory owners control most of the electricity, water and sanitation. This means that the village has broken roads and bad sewerage, and the water supply is contaminated by the factories’ waste.

The Salvation Army established a corps in this village in 1998 and is restoring the lives of people through its community development and education and its women empowerment programmes. Cornelius has lived in this village for three years, and is now part of the Sally Ann programme – a training programme which aims to provide people with a steady source of income to improve their livelihood. He told us:

‘My life was not an easy life. Me and my family survived in extreme poverty, mostly suffering all our lives. I used to live in a rented accommodation with my daughter and wife. My wife died due to a kidney problem five years ago. I did not have money for her medicines and hospital costs. My daughter stopped going to school, and even buying food was a problem. I was so hopeless and helpless.

Over the last ten years I have worked in different embroidery workshops, but due to the country

situation most of the workshops closed and my jobs were finished. Later I worked as a watchman at a disputed property. One day some people attacked and tried to kill me; I received three shots in the leg and one in the arm, but I survived. I had to leave this job and move village, but I had no source of income, no food, or clothes.

I knew how to do embroidery work so I started to work with Sally Ann in 2013 and saved some of the income I received. I bought a push cart and some utensils, and started selling rice, daal (lentils), meat and soup in a factory area. This proved very helpful for me.

My hope in joining the Sally Ann programme was to get some income to feed myself and my daughter, but the project has done more than this. I have not only supported my family but I’ve also started saving to start my own business which has turned life upside down. Now I am happier than ever in my life. My daughter has started to go to school again. I have paid off all my debts and I am out of the stress and pressure I had been through all my life. The fear of poverty and hunger is no more. Now my daughter and I have smiles on our faces which before was only a dream for us. My life is totally changed now. I thank God that this is not a dream - we are living a real life.’

MY HOPE IN JOINING THE SALLY ANNPROGRAMME WAS TO GET SOME INCOME TOFEED MYSELF AND MY DAUGHTER, BUT THEPROJECT HAS DONE MORE THAN THIS.

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• We are not living in the way that God intended. • We are not aware of our own abilities and capacity to

bring about change. • We do not live in a way which supports and respects

others. • We are not being good stewards of the resources we

have been given.If we look at poverty in this way, then we can all start

to identify areas of poverty within our own lives. By accepting this, we can start to address the problems of poverty in our local and global communities in a more humble and equal way. It also means, going back to the earlier example, that poverty must be more than a lack of access to food (or whatever the material need might be). Instead, the lack of food could be due to a whole range of factors, such as:

• A lack of skills or self-belief that someone can grow or earn enough to obtain enough food.

• An over-burdening of the soil, reducing over time its fertility and ability to produce enough food.

• A sense of dependency left behind by a previous food aid hand-out programme.In reality, it is likely to be a combination of all these

and other factors.Here at The Salvation Army International

Development (UK), we don’t just want to tackle people’s material problems. The material problems of poverty are indeed wrong – we need to see these change, because no one should have to go to bed hungry, or get sick from drinking dirty water. No one should have to struggle to earn enough money to provide for their family. No one should be vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation due to the desperation of poverty. But these are just the symptoms of a broken

and unjust world. We can take steps to address these material problems, but it must be part of a wider vision: to see life with dignity, equality for all people and a world without poverty and injustice. In other words, to see our world restored, to play our part in helping these broken relationships to be reconciled. We don’t just want to see communities with access to the food they need. We want to see communities transformed. We want to see people empowered to bring about their own change, to live life in all its fullness.

This is a much more ambitious goal. And, as we’ve seen above, this is something we are all striving for, because none of us is there yet. It’s not about making other people more like us, or assuming we’ve got it all right. It’s about approaching these problems in a humble way, by accepting the fact that while we may be culturally different, we are inherently the same, and we are all in need of reconciliation - in our communities, in our nation and in our world.

How then do we bring about lasting change?

The simple answer is, we can’t. That is to say, those of us in the UK can’t bring about lasting change to a community in Pakistan or Malawi from where we are. We’re not there – we can’t begin to understand the complex challenges present in a particular community. But we can support those who do.

The Salvation Army is a community-based organisation. We are first and foremost a church, currently based in 127 countries, so we are already present in many parts of the world which have the least material resources. We are also a church that believes

TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION cont...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

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CHIRINGA CORPS, MALAWI Violet Ruria, Programme Adviser for Sustainable Livelihood Development, tells us about her visit to Chiringa Corps earlier this year.

Chriringa Corps is situated in the southern part of Malawi. Access to clean and safe water in the region is limited, so water-borne diseases are very common. Over the past three years The Salvation Army has worked with 30 communities in this area to construct boreholes, which are managed and maintained by water committees in each village. However, The Salvation Army has also been involved in a number of activities to provide further support and build on the impact that access to clean water can provide.

To ensure that the community can afford the repairs of the water pump, the Salvation Army corps (church) in Chiringa started two village savings groups. These groups meet every Tuesday and each is made up of about 25 members, the majority of whom are women. The group meetings provide an opportunity for social interaction and a time for Bible reading and prayers. The members are drawn from the community and they strengthen their personal relationships as they participate in the meetings.

While I was there I met Mercy Ammon, the chairperson of the Tadala Group. Mercy explained to me that the group deliberately chose the name, which means ‘We are blessed’, to keep reminding them that they are all blessed with the ability to overcome poverty.

According to Mercy, during the group meeting the members each contribute some

money which is pooled together and loaned to members to start small businesses. The members also contribute to a separate fund which is retained by the group to pay for repairs to their water pump in the future.

Mercy is one of the members who has benefited from the loans available within the group. She used her loan of approximately £7 to start a small business making doughnuts and flavoured ice water to sell at the market. She told me she was able to pay off her initial loan and she is hoping to get a second loan to further expand her business.

Mercy explained to me why she and the other members joined the group:

‘To save any money in our community is very difficult since we have no banks, but with the group I can be assured that I can put in small bits and take out a loan to start and expand my business. From meeting with other members, I can learn and share my life with others, so I am better off now.’

Project Manager Mathews Tulombolombo says:

‘As the project came to its end, I was thrilled to see how well the village savings groups were doing. Whenever possible, groups are now established in villages after a well or sanitation system has been installed. Because the villagers have a financial stake in the project, they are far more committed to keeping the well working than when we were previously just setting up water supplies.’

FEATURE

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in transformation – not just spiritually, but in a whole-life transformation. We believe that ultimately only God can bring about this whole-life transformation, but the great thing is that he calls us, as his Church, to be involved in it. In fact, we have seen that our community development efforts work best when they are worked through or alongside the local corps (churches) who are already present and active within the community before a project begins, and who remain long after any specific intervention has ended. That way, our community development projects should always enhance the ongoing mission and ministry of the local church as they journey towards transformation.

Another crucial step towards real and lasting change is to start with what a community has, rather than what it needs. By realising the bounty of gifts, skills and resources that already exist within a community, these can start to be utilised to address the needs that are there. What’s more, this approach can not only address the material needs, but also the poverty of being (a broken relationship with one’s self, or lack of self-worth) that can exist as a result of past and present stigma, exploitation and paternalism. We’ve seen the resources of communities utilised most obviously though the various savings group projects we have been supporting (see p7) . By utilising the resource of community spirit and the impact of their collective monetary wealth, together people can start to realise their own dreams for the future. This is supported and enhanced by the Salvation Army staff and volunteers locally who are able to work alongside the groups and provide training to enhance their skills and develop new ones too.

What part do we in the UK have to play?

So what can we do about it, when we’re physically so removed from the reality of life for the majority of the world which has less of the material resources than us?

Well, first and foremost we need to be willing to embrace transformation ourselves. We need to be open to the areas in our own lives which need to be restored, to acknowledge where there may be a breakdown in our relationships with God, ourselves, each other and the rest of creation, and work to repair, reconcile and strengthen them.

By doing this we will then naturally start to have a more positive impact on others locally and globally. That’s because I believe living transformed lives means that we will give more generously, live more simply and become more active citizens. And while we may not be able directly to bring about the transformation that we want to see for the world’s materially poorest, we can support our brothers and sisters around the world whom God is already using to bring about this transformation. We can support those faithful servants by using the material resources that we do have to support the transformational and restorative work that is happening around the world.

At the moment this is still important – we still need to give. Our world is unequal and unfair. There is a finite amount of material wealth, and we need to share some of our material abundance to support our colleagues around the world in their transformational work. But we must always remember that we need to give in a way that humbly acknowledges our own poverty, that enhances people’s ability to bring about their own change and support efforts that promote whole-life transformation.

TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION cont...

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FEATURE

TRANSFORMING LIVES IN DRCEarlier this year we spoke to Major Tsilulu, The Salvation Army’s Projects Officer for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Territory, who shared with us how they are helping to tackle poverty and transform lives.

Why do you think it is so important for The Salvation Army to be taking action on poverty?

In DRC there are many NGO’s (non-governmental organisations) who are working on the ground. The Salvation Army is one of those organisations. But it’s important for The Salvation Army to take action because of our way of working. Other NGO’s just come into the community, they do some projects, and they leave. But The Salvation Army is a community-based organisation. We are already in the community. Through our outposts, through our corps, we are there.

What else makes The Salvation Army unique in the way it can respond to issues of poverty and injustice?

The Salvation Army is a church and a social organisation. Through our mission – saving souls, growing saints and serving suffering humanity – we are unique among the other

organisations working on the ground. Our values and doctrines make us different because we not only provide community development in one aspect, but also a holistic approach. We are working with the community to address their social problems, but we are also working with the community to solve their spiritual problems.

What is your vision for the future of the community development work in DRC?

My vision is that the community members are able to address their problems through their own resources. This means that we wish that the DRC Government will be able to fund solutions locally in terms of empowering the population, in terms of creating jobs. If people have jobs, if they have enough income, they will be able to solve their problems. Now we have the support of [SAID] UK, but our dream will be for the future that the community will be able to fund solutions through their own resources.

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Anne Gregora, Programme Adviser for Anti-Trafficking and Gender-Based Violence, highlights the successes and challenges of tackling trafficking in Malawi.

TACKLING TRAFFICKING

The Salvation Army’s anti-child trafficking centre in Mchinji continues to support boys and girls

who have been trafficked. Predominantly these children are rescued by the centre staff after tip-offs from community volunteers who notice signs of exploitation, or by the Malawian labour and social welfare departments who conduct raids on local farms and establishments. Once rescued, the children spend three to six months at the centre as they go through a process of recovery. Every child has experienced different forms of exploitation and responds in different ways. For this reason we have an individualised, child-centred approach to recovery. Each child’s needs are assessed and responded to during their time in the centre. This ranges from counselling, to attending school, to extra tuition, to community sports, to vocational training. During their time at the centre their families are also located and visited to conduct a safety assessment and to prepare them for their child’s return.

Kenneth is one of the many young people who have passed through the centre. Kenneth was rescued after a community awareness volunteer spotted him working as a cattle herder. Kenneth’s parents died in 2009 and his aunt welcome him and his siblings into her family. However, Kenneth told me that he was forced to work because the family could not afford for

him or his siblings to go to school. While Kenneth was at the centre he started going to morning devotions. Attendance is voluntary, but Kenneth wanted to attend. He told me that these devotional times changed his life. Whilst at the centre, Kenneth also completed a carpentry course.

On leaving the centre, determined to continue his disrupted education, Kenneth borrowed tools from his local neighbourhood and started to build stools, chairs and tables to sell. Kenneth now makes enough money for both him and his younger siblings to go to school. Kenneth told me that he enjoyed his time at the centre, as the staff treated him and the other children like family.

This is a belief held by many of the children. On a recent trip, I met with a number of children to ask them what they liked most about being at the centre. All the children said that they loved the staff and the opportunities afforded them as a result of being a part of the recovery programme. In fact none of the children I met wanted to leave. This is both a beautiful and difficult thing to hear from the children. It is difficult because it reflects the lives that the children led before being trafficked and the life they may soon return to. Many of the children at the centre are vulnerable to trafficking because they come from villages where there is not enough food, jobs or support to meet their basic needs. As a result they have no other option but to take exploitative jobs, or they are tricked into leaving their homes for offers of work.

WHILST AT THE CENTRE KENNETH COMPLETEDA CARPENTRY COURSE. NOW HE IS BACK HOMEHE USES THESE SKILLS TO SUPPORT HIS FAMILY.

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awareness about trafficking, recruiting volunteers and leaders in the community to take responsibility for trafficking prevention, training local police officers to combat trafficking through the judicial system, introducing income generation initiatives to increase the ability of families to provide for themselves and supporting communities, and advocating for better education systems. This community and economic development takes time to ensure that it is sustainable.

We are currently working with the team in Malawi to reflect on the work that has been done out of the Mchinji centre and to learn from the children we have supported as to what more we can do to protect the children of Malawi from trafficking.

TACKLING TRAFFICKINGPROJECTS

Malawi is one of the world’s most densely populated and least economically developed countries. There are many challenges in this, such as unreliable power, underfunded health services, a poor education system, high HIV/Aids prevalence, water shortages and large international debt. Agriculture accounts for 90 per cent of its export revenue, so it comes as no surprise that Malawi is a source country for children subjected to forced labour. Most Malawian trafficking victims are exploited within the country, with victims generally transported from the southern part of the country to the central and northern regions. Children are trafficked to work in the tobacco industry, tea, coffee, and sugar plantations, goat and cattle herding, the fishing industry and brickmaking. Traffickers will entice families to part with their children, promising work as farm labourers that will pay lucrative amounts of money for them to bring home at the end of their year of work. In reality children live in poor conditions with little food or water and long hours of work, and they rarely receive any money at the end of the year.

The staff at the centre understand the pressing need to go beyond just supporting the children while they are at the centre, and to work in their home communities to try and change some of the conditions that made them vulnerable to trafficking the first place. This is no small task. Working with ‘source’ communities means raising

Children’s groups all over the UK are being encouraged to raise money for the work of the anti-trafficking centre in Mchinji through the Change 4 Change Appeal.

If you’d like to get your children’s group involved (or get involved yourself), contact us on 020 7367 4777 or visit www.salvationarmy.org.uk/change4change.

TAKEACTION

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Alex Lengo has been helpingthe community to learn thebenefits of planting treesaround their cassava crops.

Charlotte’s crops haveincreased substantiallysince planting acacia trees.

Find out how The Salvation Army is enriching the diets and enriching the lives of people living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

ENRICHING LIVES

WHEN I WAS PLANTING ONLY CASSAVA IWAS JUST COLLECTING SIX BASKETS OFFOOD. NOW I AM ABLE TO COLLECT 29.

By planting acacia trees alongside their cassava plants, farmers are seeing the amount of crops they can harvest increase dramatically. The Salvation Army has helped by providing the acacia seedlings and giving training on how to use these to increase their crops yields.

Charlotte is one of the farmers who have planted acacia trees alongside their cassava crops. She told us:

‘When I was planting only cassava I was just collecting six baskets of food. Now I am able to collect 29.’

Farmers like Charlotte are also able to grow a wider variety of crops on their land, such as avocados, mangos and other fruit trees. This helps the family to eat a wider range of food, adding nutrition to their diet, and to provide some more valuable crops to sell.

Charlotte said, ‘I am very happy with this project. I really enjoy the beauty of working together with the other men and women involved. We have learned a lot and gained knowledge of planting cassava and acacia trees. This has helped us gain more money and feed our children. Now they have breakfast and dinner, and can go to school. The children’s lives have changed and they are now in good health.’

Charlotte is one of 150 farmers in this area that The Salvation Army has supported to plant acacia trees on over 100 hectares of land. These farmers are now being encouraged to share what they have learned with their neighbours so that even more people can benefit from their new-found knowledge.

If you drive for a couple of hours out of the chaotic hustle of the DRC capital Kinshasa, providing you can

successfully navigate the potholes, checkpoints and constant lane changes by other cars, you will arrive in Menkao. Despite being relatively close to the capital, the main resource available for people to earn a living is their land. This is why most people rely on growing cassava, a staple crop in the region, to survive. It is a root vegetable which is often ground down and mixed with water to turn into bread or porridge. However, constantly growing the same crops on the same plot of land causes the nutritional content of the soil to reduce over time, which means that many people in the region struggle to grow enough to feed their families.

The project manager, Alex Lengo, told us:‘The community were confronted with the problem of

poor soil, as it was no longer giving a good return. So the community gathered together to find a solution. They expressed their need to the local Salvation Army corps and asked them to come and talk to the community to see if there was a way they could support the community to solve that problem.’

The Salvation Army and community members worked together to come up with a solution using acacia trees to increase their yields, as Alex explains:

‘Acacia trees have many virtues. One is that it fertilises and enriches the soil. So they decided to plant the trees around the cassava plants to increase the production of their crops.’

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PROJECTS

SUPPORT THE HELPING-

HAND APPEAL

Children need to be well nourished so that they have the energy to grow, learn, develop and discover. Without access to good, nutritious food, children cannot reach their potential. By providing seedlings and training, you can help mothers to grow healthy, nutritious food for themselves and their families. This helps ensure healthier kids and happier families, and provides a tremendous step forward in people’s efforts to overcome their poverty.

Through the 2016 Helping-Hand Appeal, members of Salvation Army Adult and Family groups across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland will be fundraising to support people like Charlotte as they strive to provide enough nutritious food for their families.

COULD YOU GET YOUR GROUP INVOLVED IN THE HELPING-HAND APPEAL?

You can enrich the lives of others like Charlotte who are striving to provide for their children in the face of malnutrition. With your support we want to help another 500 families to grow the nutritious food to beat malnutrition and provide for their family. £400 could help train another farmer in DRC to use acacia trees to improve their soil and grow the food they need to support their family.

To hear more from Charlotte and find out more about the appeal, go to www.salvationarmy.org.uk/enrichinglives, or call us on 020 7367 4777 to order your fundraising pack.

Planting acacia trees is helping families toenrich their diets and enrich their lives

13

Around the world, one in three women or girls will experience violence in their lifetime simply because

they are female. Intimate Partner Violence (sometimes known as domestic violence) is considered a form of gender-based violence as it is predominantly the male partner who attempts to dominate and control the woman through actual or threatened acts of emotional, financial or physical abuse. These women and girls are stripped of their sense of dignity and worth. No one should have to endure this kind of physical or emotional pain. However, in some places around the world, women and girls do not have access to the support, safety or legal protection they need to stop the violence perpetrated against them or to recover from the impact of the violence on them.

Tres Arroyos, a city in Argentina, is one of the places where access to support for women who have experienced such forms of violence is limited. The number of cases of domestic violence is increasing, whilst the number of victims who are hidden is exacerbated as men hold the financial power. This is due to the nature of the agricultural work which is the main form of income for the city. There are few support options for these women and the legal infrastructure is not strong enough to protect them.

The Salvation Army corps (church) in Tres Arroyos has become aware of the need to support women who have been abused. Through consultation with the community its members have decided to respond by running group therapy sessions. These groups provide a space of mutual help for women. At the meetings the women are cared for, listened to and supported by the team and by other women. Although each person has a different story, at the heart of these groups is the possibility that the women can speak out and share what is happening to them.

Claudia, The Salvation Army’s project officer for South America East, explains: ‘As the women speak out, the awareness of the problem increases and new perspectives over the problem arise. As they participate, they begin to identify possible solutions to the problem and dare to break down the circle of violence they are immersed in. Sharing is the starting point of a healing process. Another important factor is the emotional support they have as they are accompanied by other women living and feeling the same as they do. These relationships become a support network which is vital for breaking down the social isolation they live in.’

Alicia* is one of the women who attends the group therapy. Alicia is 47 years old. She has three children,

Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is one of the most prevalent human rights violations. It knows no social, economic or national boundaries, but in some places women and girls are unable to access the support they need. In Argentina The Salvation Army is reaching out to support some of the women affected by this injustice…

OVERCOMING VIOLENCE TOGETHER

*Alicia’s name has been changed

AT THE HEART OF THESEGROUPS IS THEPOSSIBILITY THAT THEWOMEN CAN SPEAK OUT

Through these groups,women have the chanceto support each other asthey recover from theirexperiences of violence.

14

PROJECTS

OVERCOMING VIOLENCE TOGETHER

two boys aged 23 and 18 years old, and a one-year-old girl. Alicia has been part of the group since it started, and she has regularly attended the two meetings per week. She joined at a point when she had just separated from her husband after 23 years of marriage. During her marriage she suffered physical, psychological and sexual violence. For a period of the marriage, her now ex-husband stayed in prison for 10 years, and Alicia was responsible for raising the kids alone. When her husband was released from prison, they remained together for another year and a half, but the violence continued. When Alicia fell pregnant and their baby girl was born, she finally decided to separate from her husband in order to ensure that her baby would not be witness and victim to the same abuse her two elder boys suffered. She decided to start all over again.

The group has been a tremendous emotional and practical support base for Alicia. As she left home with few possessions, her group mates spontaneously helped her with furniture and clothes for herself and the baby. Now, nine months on, Alicia has started working again as a dressmaker. She has regular clients, and is now also teaching dressmaking at a Public Social Centre in Tres Arroyos. Her new-found confidence and success at her job means that she is able to pay the rent

of the house she lives in with her daughter. The house is very small and humble, but she has said many times that she now feels ‘happy and in peace’. Her ex-husband continue to exercise psychological violence against her and her daughter from a distance, but Alicia is learning tools and techniques to remain strong and limit the control her ex-husband holds over her.

Alongside these groups there is also a Learning through Playing programme for the mothers’ children who are aged between 7 and 14. This programme is a safe place where children can process the violence that they have witnessed or experienced, can develop healthy non-violent relationships and can find good role models. Children who have witnessed and/or been the victims of violence inflicted by a parent are affected in a multitude of ways. This concurrent programme is essential to addressing the effects of and breaking the cycle of violence.

While anyone is suffering at the hands of violence, we need to continue to fight to ensure that our vision of life with dignity, equality for all people and a world without poverty and injustice can be realised.

You can help us support projects like the one in Tres Arroyos by making a donation to our gender-based violence work. Turn to the back of the magazine or visit www.salvationarmy.org.uk/disqualified to help others like Alicia overcome the injustice and exploitation they have faced.

TAKEACTION

The corps also supports children affectedby the violence they have been exposed to.

15

Back in Easter, a group of four families from The Salvation Army’s Central

North Division in the UK travelled to Malawi with SAID UK. The main reason for the trip was to visit The Salvation Army’s anti-child trafficking centre in Mchinji (see page 10), a project for which the visiting group, along with many others from the division, have been fundraising for over two years now. However, the journey really started in September 2013 at a children’s discipleship weekend, where the group learned about the centre and decided to support. Since then they have raised over £5,000 for the centre.

During their time at the centre, the group and the children there had a great time playing with inflatable balls, balloons, skipping ropes and loom bands. The loom bands were particularly popular, as Grace

JOURNEY TO MALAWI

said: ‘I was making some for a girl called Agnessa and she was making some for me! We were smiling and having lots of fun. We didn’t need a language to talk to each other; we just knew we were friends.’

It was lots of fun, but it was hard at times too, as Nyasaha told us: ‘The children I befriended told me their stories and how they ended up in the centre. Some of them were orphans and had nobody to take care of them. Others were rescued from slavery and all the worst unfriendly environment for children that I couldn’t imagine.’

It was an incredible, life-changing trip for the entire group. Emily said: ‘I am lucky to have been able to experience this life-changing opportunity. I have had an amazing time; and not only have I got to meet new friends in Malawi, I have also been able to strengthen my

If you have a group interested in visiting some of The Salvation Army’s work tackling poverty and injustice overseas, contact us on 020 7367 4777 or journey@salvationarmy.org.uk.

friendship with those I was fortunate enough to share it with.’

Caitlin said: ‘We have laughed, cried and prayed together. We went to see the difference that we were making with the money we raised, but the truth is they have made a difference to me far more than they will ever know.’

16

INCOME

EXPENDITURE

£603,110.83

£810,504.42

WATER &SANITATION

9%FOOD &AGRICULTURE

14%

ANTI-TRAFFICKING& GENDER-BASED

VIOLENCE30%

OTHERDEVELOPMENT

PROJECTS14%

INCOME GENERATION

14%

UK ENGAGEMENT5%

INCOMEGENERATION

14%OTHER

DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

10%

WATER &SANITATION

5%

FOOD &AGRICULTURE

30%

OTHER OVERSEAS

DONATIONS11%

The following pie charts show a breakdown of the money that you gave during the financial year 2014/2015, and how we

used this money during this time. During this year we saw a great influx of donations to our anti-

trafficking work due to CRY FREEDOM and the Captivated Helping-Hand Appeals. Thanks to everyone who donated to these or any of our programmes to help us tackle poverty and injustice in our world.

THE CHARTS EXPLAINEDDEVELOPMENT PROJECTSThis is where the majority of your money is used. Money spent on projects includes all of the money that is sent overseas to enable The Salvation Army there to carry out the project. It also includes costs of any monitoring visits carried out by our team to add expertise into these projects and to carry out the necessary monitoring and evaluation.

FUNDRAISING AND UK ENGAGEMENTWe also invest some of our income into fundraising and other UK-based engagement to generate more income and support for our work. We do this to enable us to support even more people around the world. For every pound invested in fundraising we raise about £4-5 for our work.

ADMINISTRATIONFor every pound you donate to our work, at least 95p is spent on development projects (as detailed above). We work hard to ensure that your money is used effectively. This is why we strive to keep the amount of your donation that we spend on administration as low as possible.

OTHER OVERSEAS DONATIONSWe also receive money through our office to be passed on to The Salvation Army overseas for a particular country or project that our department is not actively involved in. In these situations our office facilitates the transfer to the relevant Salvation Army territory along with any particular instructions given by the donor. However, as these donations are not going towards our UK-funded projects we do not provide any project support or monitoring for these.

Do get in touch with us if you have any further questions on 020 7367 4777 or id@salvationarmy.org.uk.

HOW WE USE YOUR MONEY

CHILDREN10%

OTHEROVERSEAS

DONATIONS9%

ANTI-TRAFFICKING& GENDER-BASED

VIOLENCE21%

ADMINISTRATION2%

CHILDREN2%

I am a UK tax payer and I want The Salvation Army to claim back the tax on all donations I have made in the last four years and on all future donations.

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Please tick which area of work you would like to support:

WHEREVER IT’S MOST NEEDED

ANTI-TRAFFICKING WATER AND SANITATION

INCOME GENERATION CHILDREN

FOOD & AGRICULTURE GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

CHANGING DETAILS?

As you know we only mail out a couple of times a year – so it’s vital that we know when you move

house so we can keep you up to date with the work we’re doing and the difference that your

support is making.

To change your details call us on 020 7367 4777 or email id@salvationarmy.org.uk with your

name, old postcode and new address so that we can update our database.

HOW YOU CAN HELP A small monthly commitment from you can make a huge difference to:

Í Communities who currently don’t have access to clean water Í People needing to earn a decent living to support their families Í Farmers who cannot grow enough food to live Í Men, women and children all around the world who have been,

or are at risk of being, trafficked Í Women vulnerable to abuse and exploitation Í Vulnerable children in need of love, care and support

You can choose to give to one of these areas or make a general donation so that we can use your money wherever it is most needed in our development work.

You can also make one-off donations through the post, over the phone or online. Call us on 020 7367 4777 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm), visit www.salvationarmy.org.uk/id or fill in and return the form overleaf to make your donation.

SUPPORT US REGULARLYWe rely on your donations to make our work possible. Thank you for all that you give - we really do appreciate your commitment and sacrifice.

The easiest and most helpful way you can support us is by signing up to a direct debit or, if you already do give in this way, increasing your monthly donation by a small amount. Please tear off, fill out and return the form on the reverse and we’ll do the rest.

The Salvation Army International Development (UK), 101 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BN, United Kingdom

TEL 020 7367 4777 EMAIL id@salvationarmy.org.uk WEB www.salvationarmy.org.uk/id

The Salvation Army is a Christian Church and registered Charity Central Trust: Registered Charity No. 214779, and in Scotland SC009359 Social Trust: Registered Charity No. 215174, and in Scotland SC037961 Republic of Ireland: Registered Charity No. CHY6399

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