social justice

The Group continue to meetregularly to knit squares for blankets. The following emailhas been received from the Knit a Square organiser:

The three month old baby girl lying in the corner, lay listless. I stroked her perfect, tiny hand and with the little energy she had left, a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.

In less than a month, these babies will still sleep on this same floor, a piece of old linoleum laid on the bare African soil. But the temperatures will have dropped and will continue to do so for winter in Soweto. I took this photograph yesterday, 30 March, 2010.

Scattered throughout Soweto, and all the informal settlements, are hundreds and hundreds of small creches like this fashioned out of whatever comes to hand, old window frames with no glass, stained carpet pieces, plywood, corrugated iron.

Our work is to get to as many as we can to wrap warm blankets around these babies and children, many of who are affected or infected by HIV/AIDS and most of who have lost or are losing their parents.
The squares are arriving abundantly. But we have outgrown our limited resources. We need a manager on the ground in South Africa. Someone who will organise DAILY, the sewing groups and distributions, who is familiar with the informal settlements and can source the networks to find these thousands of children. Ronda will always be involved in knit-a-square, but this is now an organisational role beyond that of the organic spread of volunteers; our wonderful family, their friends, church groups and our truly remarkable Sowetan volunteers.
We are serious about putting blankets around these children. About bringing joy to their sad eyes. About telling the world of their plight.
We know you are serious about sending us the knitted and crocheted squares to do this. But now we must ask you to help us further.
We need to raise a minimum, to start, of $3000 a month to incorporate in South Africa, hire a part-time manager and some additional facilities outside of Ronda's home and to achieve our common purpose in South Africa.

That is $3US a month from 1,000 of our 3,500 plus members. We would like to suggest that it becomes a membership fee, because that way you own what we are doing here as much as we all do. $36 per year is a small fee to pay to know that we are ALL achieving what we set out to do.

Our hope is to find a young enthusiastic and energetic South African who will, among other things, fund-raise here to cover other organizational costs. But we must have funds to do this.

These children, and thousands like them, rely on us now to keep them warm through the glass-less windows this winter and for years to come.

Moved by the plight of the people of Haiti, the congregation have been raising funds for the appeal launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee. The proceeds from a famine lunch, where almost 60 people sat down to soup and bread, and a lively auction have been added to the retiring collections taken over the past two weeks,resulting in £1000 being sent to the DEC to provide necessities for the suffering people.

An honest exploration of how we can enlarge our understanding of asylum seekers and refugees.

Saturday 12 September 2009
10 am to 1 pm

Trinity Church, Totton
Hazel Farm Road, Totton
Southampton SO40 8WU

Organised on behalf of the
Church & Society Group
Wessex Synod of the URC

For details of this conference and a booking form, please see the Church Secretary

It is estimated that there are 11.6 million orphans in sub-saharan Africa. 1.4 million live in South Africa.
They live in terrible poverty. They need love, shelter, food, education and warmth. Many children's charities are working hard to provide the first four. Charity knitting and crocheting can provide the last. Every single square that is sent is used in a blanket to keep an AIDS orphan or abandoned child warm.
For more information and to offer your help, please speak to Audrey Mann

The United Reformed Church has made its strong opposition to the new European Parliament seat held by the British National Party clear by starting a petition.

In a statement issued by the church's joint public issues team, church leaders labelled the seat win by BNP leader Nick Griffin a "disgrace" and have urged members to show solidarity over the matter by signing the petition.

Leaders say the document aims to "show the rest of the EU what we think of the racist BNP". It is due to be handed into the European Parliament on the day that Nick Griffin takes his seat.