February 2022 – Visit To Gambella By Anne Figge
NEWS FROM GAMBELLA
FEBRUARY 2022 – VISIT TO GAMBELLA BY ANNE FIGGE of MOTHERS’ UNION UK
We at FACE have a fruitful history with the work of the wonderful Mothers’ Union, a worldwide network of mothers in 84 countries across the world. Your generous support of the MU, through FACE, leads to great improvements in the lives of mothers and their families as they bring up their children in the Christian faith.
For some years FACE has contributed towards projects carried out with women members and their families in Gambella, a poor but Christian region in Ethiopia, who have benefited from the education and health programmes introduced by the MU.
For the past year FACE has been providing funds to support Mothers’ Union in TWO NEW PROJECTS in Gambella, and we want to show how your generosity is having a marked effect on the lives of women and their families in the region, even in these times of extreme uncertainty.
EAGLE PROCESS and MOTHERS’ UNION LITERACY PROGRAMME are both initiatives led by Mothers’ Union and are spearheaded by the Mothers’ Union Coordinators for Anuak and Nuer tribes in the Gambella region.
THE EAGLE PROJECT: Eagle is a discipleship process that enables Mothers’ Union to be a catalyst within the wider church. Eagle Process seeks to empower individuals to transform their situations using God’s given resources while minimising dependency on external donations and support. This process predominantly uses participatory bible studies as a way to bring conviction and transformation to people’s mindsets and behaviours. One way that Mothers’ Union Gambella has expressed this so far is through the establishment of income generating activities using entirely their own ideas, energy and resources.
MU LITERACY is a participatory form of adult literacy that teaches predominantly women and MU members to read and write in small groups. Of course, literacy is a key skill which gives them tools for how to apply their literacy and numeracy in discussing and analysing the world around them. This may lead groups to consider how literacy and numeracy can help them improve their lives, the lives of their families and their community. For example, in learning how to read prescription medication to treat diarrhoea, an ever present threat in very young children; an MU literacy group might also discuss how to treat drinking water in order to prevent such diseases, or what might be the challenges to accessing clean drinking water for local households.
Very recently, within the past weeks, Anne Figge has paid a very useful and successful visit to Gambella to meet with MU facilitators, and has reported to FACE trustees as follows:
- OVERVIEW OF QUARTER 4 ACTIVITIES
Most Quarter 4 activities have been oriented towards planning and implementing the second Eagle Process Conference at the Anglican Centre in Gambella. 32 participants joined for the training, 14 Anuak Eagle Facilitators and 18 Nuer Eagle facilitators.
They came from all over the Gambella region, including two refugee camps (Gambella shares a border with South Sudan). The proposed topics were to meet with the Eagle facilitators trained in November 2020 in order to help them deepen their understanding of Eagle Process and its three-part approach:
1) To help people to regain a vision of themselves and the church as ‘salt and light.’ God’s chosen change agents who are called to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit to a broken and hurting world.
2) To learn how to mobilise local resources in support of holistic ministry to participants’ homes, churches and communities.
3) To realise our calling to build relationships and share resources with the vulnerable, the sick, the suffering and marginalised as well as those who are outside of our culture.
In discussion with the MU coordinators and the Eagle facilitators, the participants seem to have eagerly grasped especially the first and second parts of Eagle process. This has been seen in the way that members have taken responsibility among themselves to lead in the church and to resource the church sacrificially with small scale savings and income generation.
As a result, the training focused more on the relationship building aspects of Eagle Process as well as sharing more refined strategies for income generation and resource mobilisation—such as better management for the savings groups that have already been started. Practically speaking this meant that a lot of time was spent in bible studies, considering the following text and its meaning for the group participants:
–Blind Bartimaeus, Mark 10: 46-52
–Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37
–The woman who touched the cloak of Jesus, Luke 8: 40-56
In each bible study, the group focused on how the love of Christ was shared and with whom.
The group also took stock of the different forms of resource mobilisation that they have been implementing and considered the following scriptures to go deeper into savings group management and investing in income generation.
–Jesus, the Rock (of our savings groups), Luke 6:46-49
–Parable of the Five Talents, Matthew 25:14–28
2. OBSERVED IMPACT AND EVIDENCE OF CHANGE
From the training, the Eagle facilitators were able to share a lot of information about impact on behalf of their Eagle groups. There are on average 13 members present in each of the 32 Eagle groups represented at the training, smallest is 5 members, largest is 30 members.
50% reported that Eagle had benefitted the well-being of their homes and children
“I planted a garden, and I used the money I earned form that garden to feed my children.”
“I used the money I earned from collecting firewood to put into practice some of the health and sanitation advice that we learned from Dr. Wendy, (MU Leader and wife of Bishop of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, Grant LeMarquand, from 2013 to 2018). For example, I was able to buy soap to bath my children and wash their clothes. I was able to use extra sugar and salt to make ORS for my child when they had diarrhoea. All of the things we learned from Dr. Wendy were good but many of these things needed money.”
43% have used what they learned in Eagle to start a small business or income generation activity.
These businesses included cafes, making handicrafts, collecting and selling firewood, collecting and selling grass for traditional brooms, farming for income (e.g, maize, beans, potatoes, bananas, pineapple, papayas etc) and buying and selling vegetables in the market.
38% report that they have more biblical knowledge as a result of Eagle Process through reflecting on Eagle bible studies and teaching it in their homes and parishes.
Many participants recalled and reported teaching others about the bible studies shared in the first Eagle Process, including but not limited to the following:
God’s purpose for creation, Genesis 1:25-31, 2: 18-17
Salt and Light, Matthew 5: 13-16
Elisha and the widow’s oil, 2 Kings 4: 1-8
Samaritan woman at the well, John 4: 1-42
47% feel that they have grown in their leadership capacity within the church as a result of Eagle Process.
‘Before Eagle process, MU would come together for church events. But now, we know ourselves. We have a vision, and we have organized ourselves and the members at parish level.’
MU Nuer now has a 7-person leadership committee that shares communications from the leadership, directs people’s efforts for saving and resource mobilisation and organizes their annual conference that they pay for by themselves (including food, transport and accommodation for the 150 members in attendance).
57% reported that as a result of Eagle process the different tribes in Gambella region are more united.
‘We are now eager to remember one another as friends and to pray for one another. We can greet each other and dance together.’
In the last year, MU Nuer and MU Anuak have had two scheduled events that are ‘friendship’ events (that they pay for themselves). They want to show their unity to the church and the community as an example of change and inter-tribal peace. This is in the face of ongoing peaks and troughs of inter-communal violence in Gambella town.
3. IMPACT STORY
Abwela is a mother of 6 children in Gambella. She is a lay reader and a member of the Mothers’ Union in the Anuak Congregation of St Barnabas
She is also a member of the Eagle savings group at St. Barnabas. Two months ago, the group gave her a loan of ETB 500 ($10). She used the money to buy flour to bake injera and bread. She knew that if she sold the bread and injera in Gambella town it would not provide much of a return. So instead, she took the baked goods to the rural areas outside of town. Instead of selling the bread and injera she traded with farmers who had mangos for sale. Because mangos are difficult and expensive to get in Gambella during this season, she was able to sell the mangos for ETB 10,000. She was able to repay her loan easily and could also pay her children’s school fees for the next term.
4. WE ASK YOU TO PRAY WITH US:
Pray for the participants of the most recent Eagle Conference. That as they return home that they would not ‘just be hearers of the Word and so deceive themselves.’ But in small and large way that ‘they would do what [the Word] says’ (James 1:22).
Please pray for relationships in the Anglican church—that people’s relationships and commonalities would be stronger than their fears and differences. That the Mothers’ Union would continue to be a light for peace in the broader community. That the MU coordinators would be able to easily work together again.
Pray for wisdom for the Leadership Committee of the Anglican Churches of Gambella and the diocesan staff—that they would steward the church and inter-ethnic relationships well during this time. That they would have the courage to be examples of peace, love, and collaboration.
Pray for peace in Ethiopia as a whole and wisdom for the leaders as they negotiate with the TPLF. Pray that civilians, particularly women and children would be protected from violence and fighting.