wfn.org | Making a Difference Project links mission and justice through literacy

["Penny Blachut" <PBL@warc.ch>]

>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>News Release
>1 July 2008

Making a Difference Project links mission and justice through
literacy

*I want to be able to write the name that God gave me,* 63
year old Grace said, when asked why she enrolled in the Making a
Difference Project (MADIP) literacy programme in Franschhoek,
South Africa. 

She learned how to write her name just two weeks before she
died.

Literacy - and how it is linked to justice and mission - is the
subject of the first of a series of evaluation meetings of MADIP,
a programme of the Mission Project of the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches (WARC). 

Taking place in Belgium between 27 June and 8 July, the meetings
assess how the MADIP programmes of the Uniting Reformed Church in
Southern Africa, the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda and the United
Protestant Church of Belgium have affected both their contexts
and their relationships with one another.

Present at the literacy evaluation were the MADIP coordinators,
educators and students, missiological reflectors and staff of the
WARC Mission Project.

Through their exchange and critical reflection on the challenges
of their very different contexts and approaches to literacy work,
the MADIP churches have sought to deepen their relationships and
strengthen their mission.

*This joint approach to literacy in the context of WARC*s
Accra Confession clearly empowers people and churches in a
variety of ways,* said Martha Frederiks, a missiological
reflector who took part in the assessments.

Added Jet den Hollander, executive secretary of the Mission
Project and coordinator of the MADIP programme, *This
assessment showed how much the work of each church was enriched
by the insights, questions and resources of the others.*

The South African team presented reflections of illiterate farm
workers of the Drakenstein district. Educator Olvin Roman said
there is resistance to the course among bosses who fear their
personnel getting too clever, and among men who feel going to
classes is beneath their dignity. 

But some students have applied for identity cards for the first
time, saying, *Now I am someone, I belong in this country like
everyone else.* Jimmy de Wet, pastor of Zion Church in Paarl,
which launched the literacy programme, noted that in church too
farm workers have begun to speak up.

Challenges to established structures were noted as well by the
Rwandese MADIP coordinators Anysie Uwimana and Sophonie
Rubyagiza. The Presbyterian church has invited other churches to
share in teaching and management of the programme.
*Theologically this witnesses to our belief that God is about
life in fullness for all,* Uwimana stressed. 

Inclusiveness also found expression in the gift to the 303
persons (92 per cent are women) who successfully completed the
course. Christians received a Bible, while Muslim participants
were given money to buy their own Koran. 

Three of the 10 MADIP literacy centres are based in a Congolese
refugee camp. Women there remarked: *We have been stuck here
for as long as 12 years but now we are developing ourselves and
we feel different and worthy. In the self-reliance projects we
even produce things that we can sell.* 

>From Antwerp, Belgium, powerful testimonies were heard from the
Assyrian Bible Study group. Belgian and Assyrian women explore
-in Flemish - the stories of strong women in the Bible. Besna
Olcauz-Olcas emphasized how the Assyrian women, having fled
repression in Turkey in the 1990s, found in the literacy group a
safe place where they can tell their stories.

Dinette Kooiman said the Belgian group members learned to accept
that they cannot solve other women*s problems, but that
listening can empower the other to find new solutions.

>***

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) brings together
75 million Reformed Christians in 214 churches in 107 countries -
united in their commitment to making a difference in a troubled
world. The WARC general secretary is Rev. Dr. Setri Nyomi of the
Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana. WARC's secretariat is
based in Geneva, Switzerland.

>Contact:
>John P. Asling
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>150 Route de Ferney
>P.O. Box 2100
>1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
>tel.  +41.22 791 6243
>fax: +41.22 791 6505
>web: www.warc.ch