Welcome to St John’s Cathedral. The news items below highlight topics of general interest.
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AFGHANISTAN:
EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Achieving safety, justice and dignity in communities impacted by conflict and natural disaster.

As each new year approaches, none can predict the challenges which will inevitably confront aid agencies. Beyond the ongoing challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many more, as climate change accelerates the effect of natural disasters which shape the lives of people in various places of the world: earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, typhoons, floods, fire and drought. 

Among the greatest of current disasters are those which are not ‘natural’, but man-made. Beyond man’s impact on climate change is conflict – war, internal unrest, and even genocide – which add to natural disasters displacing people from their homes…. 

Today, there are more refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people worldwide than at any time since World War II. That’s more than 80 million people forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and disaster. 

They are the world’s most vulnerable people; mothers and fathers struggling to feed their children; sons and daughters missing out on an education; people dying for want of basic medical care that we take for granted in Australia; and families who, after losing everything, are not getting the support they deserve to rebuild their lives.

It’s a terrible injustice. And one that we can, and must, overcome. 

Front and centre among the current refugees are those fleeing Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban in August 2020. Their urgent need has deflected attention from those refugees who have spent years in camps awaiting the chance for a new life: more than 660,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, all of them suffering the lack of basic needs for survival – food, medical assistance and vital  support   to   rebuild   their   lives;

hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees camped in Bangladesh to escape persecution and violence in Myanmar; severely overstretched refugee camps in Ethiopia housing close to 792,000 refugees; and more than three million Iraqi people forced from their homes in Iraq, devastated by decades of violence and conflict. These people arrive at over-crowded refugee camps, terrified and exhausted, their children traumatised, having had no safe place to learn or play.

Then there are those nations which are constantly plagued by emergency needs. The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with typhoons regularly causing destruction through their agricultural areas, and displacing millions of people from villages which are not built to survive strong weather.  Further complicating these urgent needs, the Philippines is also deeply affected by ongoing conflict creating a climate of fear among many parts of the population. 

Act for Peace not only supports these emergency responses, but is also teaching vulnerable communities how to plan for and respond to disasters, and continues to promote a culture of justice and peace through human rights and advocacy work.

Emergencies will always be ahead. Thankfully, Act for Peace will always be there, working through their local partners and supporting people to reach safety, and achieve justice and dignity in their lives.