About the Justice and Peace Group

Update, November 2004

For all of us in the Parish, a vitally important part of our Christian witness is to be evangelists for peace and justice – both in the local community, and in the wider world. This may involve prayer, or finance, or direct action – or all three! Each of us is involved in J&P in many different ways, often working as individuals in our places of work, or for our own chosen charities. But it’s also important that we are able to act as one body through our Community. Very often, in this way, the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts!

Working through the Justice & Peace Group is one way in which the community can leverage and coordinate the different J&P activities. We meet once a month (usually the 2nd Sunday) and ALL are very welcome to come to meetings. Since the meeting locations vary, you do need to check the monthly and weekly newsletters to find out where the meeting will take place; - or alternatively contact Sjoerd (sjoerd@vogt.org.uk). We are also occasionally joined by individuals from other churches!

I thought it would be useful to give a quick summary of J&P Group activities; not only for newcomers to the Parish, but also as an update for everyone else.

Campaigns

We see education into J&P issues - of ourselves and of the community - as an important ongoing activity. Over the years, we've used a number of very useful resource/study packs to help us in this. Examples are CAFOD's "Just Food" campaign; the "Refugee Campaign"; the "Jubilee 2000 Campaign"; and more recently the Trade Justice Campaign. At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on “Operation Noah” – which is the just-launched Christian Ecology Link Climate Change Campaign.

We organise workshop days and vigils on these themes for the community, and where relevant we also organise coaches for national rallies. For Jubilee 2000, the community was well represented at Birmingham in 1998 and in London in 1999. For the Trade Justice Campaign, we went down to London in June 2002 for the world’s largest lobby of parliament; we organised the local lobby of our MP in June 2003; and we went to Brighton at the end of September 2004 to join in the mass TJ rally at the labour party conference this year. For Operation Noah, a number of us attended the launch conference in Coventry at the beginning of October, and one member of the J&P group is also a member of the Operation Noah Management Board. £500 of Parish funds went to Operation Noah in October of this year – to help them get a good start!.

Ongoing Major Projects

CIIR - Primary Healthcare Project in Peru

In 1988, the Parish took on the financial responsibility of funding a CIIR primary healthcare project in Peru. Although we did nothing to help to run the project, we were committed to paying a substantial monthly sum to keep the project going. In return, we were sent regular progress reports which we were able to publish in the Parish newsletter, and we were also able to meet the CIIR volunteers on their return.

The bond of responsibility was a strong motivator in ensuring full community support for this form of "prayer in action".

The "Breakfast Project"

Then in 1990; just as the CIIR project was coming to a successful conclusion, we were approached directly by a Peruvian lady - Gladys Montalban - for help. She was the daughter of the former housekeeper of our Parish priest at the time (Fr Leo) when he was a missionary in Peru twenty years previously. She explained clearly in her letter how the poverty trap of unemployment and malnourishment was a vicious circle - a circle that COULD be broken.

First and foremost they had to ensure that the children of their community received at least one square meal a day; then they could concentrate at school - so that they could become better educated - so that they could get jobs - …. And so on. She, together with a group of resourceful women from their community, would run the whole set-up if we would fund it. And so "the breakfast project" was born.

It did mean a significant increase in our monthly commitments, and it also meant that were taking on the responsibility for the project ourselves rather than working through an international agency. However with unanimous support from the community, it was clear from the beginning that this was the Spirit working through us to make this happen.

The "breakfast project" was giving an average of 300 children two basic meals and one nutritious drink a day - every day. We not only received letters and photographs , but also audited financial reports and budgets. We trusted Gladys implicitly and knew that not a single penny was wasted. A bond between our community and the community in Peru soon formed.

The "Taxi-bikes Project"

However we were very much aware from the beginning that our money was emergency aid rather than development aid, and through our funding of the "breakfast project" we were creating a reliance that could later prove very painful if it had to be broken. We were therefore constantly urging Gladys and her team to be on the look-out for a business opportunity that we were prepared to fund instead. Through a careful process of selection and elimination they were finally able to submit proposals for two possible business projects.

The first was a bakery; the second was a taxi-bikes company! Taxi-bikes - motor-bikes with enlarged side-cars - are a very common form of transport in Peru - typically to ferry people from the outskirts of the city into the centre. With the help of specialist local independent advice, we chose the latter project. It involved purchasing three taxi-bikes. These would then be the property of the group of women .They would hire them out to their husbands in rotation for a fixed amount, and the husbands would then use them all day to earn a living.

It meant three things: A. that the "breakfast project" would be assured of a fixed income; B. the husbands would have jobs and additional income - and C. that it was in everyones' best interests to make sure that the bikes were well maintained. The budget had a sensible contingency for unforeseen set-backs, and allowed for complete bike replacement after ten years. Everything looked solid.

Then, just weeks away from buying the three brand-new taxi-bikes (we had already transferred the money to a bank in Peru) we were forced into a sudden change of plan! The city council had issued a law banning all taxi-bikes from the centre of the city. It would have made it extremely difficult for the husbands to make any money if we went ahead. So, for the same money, instead of three new taxi-bikes we bought two 2nd-hand cars. This was in early 1998. For the first four months, everything went according to plan. The "breakfast project" that had previously relied on our emergency aid had evolved to become the self-financing "taxi-breakfast project" .

Then - El-Ninjo struck. For nearly six months many of the roads were either rivers of mud or were so badly gullied and rutted that they were all-but impassable except by the most foolhardy. Gladys and her fellow women had to try to look after their precious cars, but at the same time ensure that they were still generating some kind of income to keep the breakfast project going. It was a very difficult time, and enormous collateral damage was also done to houses and property.

We did step in again with emergency aid because of these quite exceptional weather conditions. The payments in 1999 were specifically for the repair of the cars. Since then, the taxis do continue to generate income for the families, but every year we DO help out at Christmas by typically sending the equivalent of $1000 to Gladys and her helpers to pay for all those extra things that are still desperately needed in the face of continuing unpredictable weather and storms. You can see elsewhere that we have again sent $1000 this Christmas. This should already have arrived if all went according to plan.

It seems clear that Northern Peru is already suffering the consequences of the greenhouse gases that WE are emitting, in a horrifically destructive way….

"Bonded Labour Liberation Front Project"

Slavery and bonded labour is another important issue for the Parish. Again, the key to breaking the bonds is education. In 1991 the community therefore also took on the responsibility of paying for the running of one school (including the salary of the one teacher). These are special schools set up by the "Bonded Labour Liberation Front" in areas of Pakistan where child-labour (in brick kilns, in agriculture, and in carpet-making) is prevalent. This is a long-term process, and we are committed to continue this funding. We’ve had lovely visits from Pakistani children on two separate occasions now, and last month Britt-Marie Klang gave us a very positive update on the project.

See more photos here.

Seasonal Activities

During the year but particularly at Christmas, there are a number of local centres that receive our regular support. Examples: We buy chocolate-filled stockings for all the people using the Oxford Night Shelter on Christmas day; and in the months leading up to Christmas we organise a van-load of sorted gifts for Simon House. The children of the community are also encouraged to donate one of their toys to a local Womens' refuge.

Fair Trade and Traidcraft

Traidcraft sales are held monthly in both churches and generate significant revenue. These sales are not just important because they promote fair trade, but they also help to make us all more aware of the issues - and directly support the ecumenically-run fair-trade shop in Faringdon. The J&P Group were also actively involved in turning Faringdon into the first Fairtrade Town in the South East of England – earlier this year!

Donations to Emergency Appeals & Charities

Up to 70% of the money we give away goes to our ongoing commitments - the projects that we support. The rest is kept as contingency for emergency appeals and then donated quarterly to a range of different local, national and international charities. The J&P Group decides on behalf of the Community where the money should go to, and often receives suggestions and requests from Community members. In 2004, much of this emergency aid has gone to CAFOD - particularly for their work in the Sudan, and in Iraq (where they work with The Red Crescent, and Islamic aid organisation).

How do we Fund these Projects & Donations?

We do not fund-raise. No jumble sales. No cake stalls. All that we do is rely on the donations of many members of the Parish community, amounting to nearly 50% of the Parish income. That's it. And when we need to raise a large sum quickly (such as with the buying of the taxis in Peru) then we explain the details to the community and people commit to what they can.

A Brief Financial History - an Act of Faith…

In the early eighties, the Parish - like most - was in debt. Our Parish priest at the time made the seemingly foolhardy suggestion that we should give away a fixed proportion of our income to charitable concerns. He suggested five percent. As a result of this, Parish income went UP - the whole community clearly wanted to be part of this act of faith. The five percent soon became ten - then twenty - and after just a few short years it climbed to fifty. Every time that the community decided to put up the percentage given away, the covenants and offertory givings increased to match.

Then - in the mid-nineties a more conservative approach to our financial management crept in, and after just two short years the result was clearly in evidence. Income went DOWN- and was no longer able to keep pace with expenditure. Panic! We almost went down the "responsible" materialistic route of reducing our givings to charities.

However - it was a huge relief to the community when in 1998 we again committed ourselves to throw caution to the wind and leave the broader brushstrokes of our financial management to the Holy Spirit.

Then – last year in 2003 - the "facing harsh financial realities" approach again threatened to get a grip. With enormous expenditure looming to keep our Parish buildings maintained, the suggestion that we should reduce our charitable givings again seemed the sensible thing to do. So each member of the Parish was given the chance to specify how their weekly or monthly donations were to be split between Parish maintenance and charitable giving. But yet again, through an overwhelming majority of the community supporting the 50% split, we continue to allocate nearly 50% of the Parish income to the chosen charities and projects.

THANK YOU!

For more information about the J&P group, contact Sjoerd Vogt (sjoerd@vogt.org.uk).