PWRDF is the Anglican Church of Canada’s agency for sustainable development, relief, refugees, and global justice. With the support of Anglicans from across Canada, PWRDF makes financial and human resources available to support partners’ initiatives to improve the quality of daily life and address the root causes of poverty and injustice. This list is an outgoing communication service from PWRDF only. Please contact Yvonne Lane at ylane@pwrdf.org for more information on any of the following items:
We’re celebrating our 50th anniversary, and everyone is invited to visit our Internet CAFE. Find out what’s happening across the country, share your own stories and photos with other Anglicans in Canada, sign our guestbook, download resources, and get some ideas for planning your own event. We hope to see you in the CAFE soon96 www.pwrdf50.org
It's a chilly time of year in Edmonton, but a warm welcome will await a refugee family of three from Colombia. St John the Evangelist Anglican Church has agreed to sponsor the first of fifty refugee families who will begin new lives in Canada as part of PWRDF’s 50th anniversary program. Gail Millard, diocesan refugee coordinator for Edmonton, confirmed that the family, which includes a 16 year old daughter, is expected to arrive within a month.
Other refugee families arewaiting for sponsors to help them resettle to Canada. We are particularly looking for sponsors at this time in Toronto, Vancouver, Prince Albert and Calgary for ethnic Karen refugees from Burma (Myanmar), who have been living for many years in refugee camps in Thailand. If your parish is interested in sponsoring a refugee family, or if you would like more information about this life-changing ministry, please contact your diocesan refugee coordinator, or Carolyn Vanderlip, 50th Anniversary Program Facilitatorat 416-924-9199 ext 266 or cvanderlip@pwrdf.org
We are pleased to announce that PWRDF will provide “seed money” to parishes sponsoring refugees under the 50 Refugee families sponsorship project. In an exciting development, Citizenship and Immigration Canada has agreed to match these funds. This means that for each sponsorship, we will be able to provide approximately three months of income support for the refugee family (based on CIC guidelines).
PWRDF has contributed $30,000 to the ACT appeal, earmarked for Al Ahli Arab Hospital of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. The Al Ahli Arba Hospital in Gaza City was founded in 1882 and provides health care services to refugees and residents. Under normal conditions, the hospital cares for 4,000 patients and 30,000 outpatients each year and provides a numbers of other very needed services to the community. All of these programs have been threatened by the current circumstances. For more information, and for ways to donate to this emergency, please check out our website at www.pwrdf.org
US church leaders in December wrote an open letter to President-Elect Obama urging him to change the Cuba policy of the United States in ways that will assist the churches in their work and also to end the travel ban for all Americans. You can view this letter here.
Mahjabeen Chowdhury, Program Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region, takes her work very seriously. So much so, that her son’s karate teacher started an awareness program amongst his students and their parents after learning more about the impacts of bottled water. Now he is taking the cause further, in terms of social causes and connecting his students with young first nations communities in Canada. You can read more on our website at www.pwrdf.org.
justgeneration.ca and the Diocese of Bujumbura in Burundi have been in dialogue for more than a year now about the possibility of building closer connections between youth in Canada and Burundi. In order to learn more about the work of young Anglicans in Bujumbura, a delegation of young people from Canada will be traveling to Burundi this February. The Diocese of Bujumbura has been a PWRDF partner since 1992, and our work together involves health, primarily in HIV/AIDS, gender issues, and sustainable development.
Simon Chambers, the justgeneration.ca Facilitator, will be traveling with three members of the Youth Council to Bujumbura from February 9-24, 2009. The delegation will be attending the final day of the Africa Round Table (a gathering of PWRDF partners in Nairobi, Kenya), and then traveling on to Bujumbura to spend a week learning about the work of PWRDF partners in the Diocese and specifically about the ministry of young people there. They will then spend a couple of days formulating a plan on how to build stronger relationships between youth in Bujumbura and in Canada.
You can read more about this trip as it unfolds on the PWRDF blog, which can be found at pwrdfblog.livejournal.com. Visit www.justgeneration.ca or the blog regularly to hear more about what’s going on with this delegation!
Zaida Bastos, Program Coordinator for Africa was recently in Vancouver, BC and gave presentations at Christ Church Cathedral and to a group representing other parishes in the diocese. In his words of thanks, Peter Goodwin, our Diocesan Representative commented:93..Those in attendance appeared deeply moved by the personal stories you presented. This provides us with the incentive to go forth in the diocese and share such stories to illustrate the powerful impact that PWRDF funding for programs can have in offering opportunities to individuals and communities to significantly enhance their life circumstances...
Cheryl Curtis, Executive Director, recently attended a meeting in London, UK with The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and an invited group of relief and development practitioners and professionals at Lambeth Palace. The consultation followed on from recommendations made by bishops at the Lambeth Conference for a more collaborative approach to existing relief, development and advocacy activities in the Anglican Communion. Presently, the Church of England does not have its own relief and development agency.
CIDA has designated the week of February 196 7, 2009 as International Development Week across Canada with the theme Development for Results. For more information, check out this site.
This month we celebrate those who have already held 50th anniversary events96 St. Anselm’s Church, Vancouver in November, 2008 and we send our prayers to those who have planned events for the months ahead. A listing of those we are aware of is on our 50th anniversary website www.pwrdf50.org.
Primate’s World
Relief and Development Fund
The Anglican Church of Canada
80 Hayden Street
Toronto Ontario M4Y 3G2