|
|
|
The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
|
| 16.02.2005 |
|
| Brazil: “These Are the True Heroes” |
| |
Lutheran Foundation Offers Hope to Marginalized Communities
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil/GENEVA, 16 February 2005 (LWI) - Representatives of ecumenical organizations who attended the World Social Forum (WSF) this year had the opportunity to visit projects of the Lutheran Diakonia Foundation (FLD) – an organization of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil.
“Through the exposure visits, many issues debated at the WSF could be seen in practice,” said FLD executive secretary, Rev. Silvio Schneider. The foundation’s involvement includes work with recyclable material collectors; a small-scale farmers’ support center; co-operatives; a quilombo (slave descendants’ community); income and employment-generating projects; and, HIV/AIDS and human rights projects in urban centers.
“Seeing the association of waste collectors at work was a unique experience for me,” said Yacubu Muhammed Bingle from Ghana, who came to Porto Alegre through sponsorship of the German Protestant aid agency, Bread for the World. “Back at home, this type of work has no dignity. Here I see unemployed garbage collectors who have resisted the temptation to become criminals. They have overcome their pride and are turning this task into a profession. These are the true heroes and I’ll go back to my country and talk about this experience!”
Vincent Nanga from Cameroon, supported by Germany’s Church Development Service (EED), a body of Protestant aid agencies, commented on the visit to the quilombo. “We’ve read about them, we’ve heard about them in Africa, but to see how people here live is another experience in itself. Although far away from them, physically, there is a spiritual union between us.” Nanga was particularly shocked by their appalling living conditions. “What can we do to see them integrated in the world?” he asked. At the same time, he was encouraged by their struggle to stand on their own. He commended the FLD and farmers’ support center for their remarkable work with the community.
“If we are discussing the possibility of ‘another possible world’ at the World Social Forum, it is important that people from other countries, who come to Brazil for the first time, make visits like these and get to know the several dimensions of what is being done,” commented EED’s Luciano Wolff.
Rev. Enos Moyo, representative of the Lutheran World Federation Department for World Service in Zambia and director of the Zambia Christian Refugee Service, was equally impressed by the quilombo project. “The message that we are carrying home to Africa is to pray for you. We have seen real challenges here: the need for sanitation, water, education, land itself and now the drought t you are facing. These are enormous challenges and we will pray and have hope for you.” (445 words)
(Adapted from the original Portuguese article written for LWI by Porto Alegre-based journalist Susanne Buchweitz.)
|
If you want to edit this article yourself and adapt it to a given format, follow our editing information
|
|
|
|
|
|
