Fair Trade Worship Together

This Sunday's Worship Together was led by our fair trade rep, Rosemary, and focussed on Traidcraft's campaign to get the big tea producers to go fair trade. My six-year-old was reluctant to help out with a game of hangman that eventually spelled 'Justice' but later decided that was the best bit. The teams called upon to build towers out of straws or newspaper admirably illustrated the importance of having decent materials to work with (amazingly the newspaper tower stayed up until the end of the service in spite of running pre-schoolers). At the end our signed campaign postcards went into the collection plate.

I was taking down the 'sharing board' postcards, prior to putting them into a booklet for people to refer to, and was asked if it had achieved anything. I've been asked for a DVD set, but I said my impression had been that it wasn't really working, despite the enthusiasm of some people for the ideal - delightfully I was proved wrong later that afternoon when John turned up on our doorstep asking to borrow our jam pan. So, I'm now going to try to put regular reminders in the news sheet (with examples of what's on offer) in the hope that this will help encourage more carbon-reducing sharing. Suzanne also suggested that sharing time/skills would be similarly valuable. Given that I've recently been too busy even to keep up with maintaining a weekly green tip slot I may be being over ambitious here, but this is the plan anyway.

Election Hustings - Reading East

Having just read the Reading Post on-line article on the hustings held at the Hindu Temple for Reading East, I'm deeply disappointed to find the author made no mention of climate change. The first two questions were about climate change - what had the candidates done themselves and were their parties committed to 40% reductions by 2020. They all agreed that climate change is a very serious issue. The Conservative candidate, Rob Wilson, said he'd installed good insulation in his home, the Labour candidate, Anneliese Dodds, said she had given up her car and the Lib Dem candidate, Gareth Epps, recommended the green electricity company he uses (I'm afraid I forgot to take a notebook and cannot recall which it was). There were also several questions touching on international development which were again disappointingly ignored by the article.

Creation in plasticine

For the first Sunday back after Easter we've lost a couple of our older Exclaimers to Pathfinders but gained a large contingent of six-year-olds. It seemed like a good opportunity for a term looking at the beginning of all things. So, for the next few weeks we'll be going very slowly through Genesis 1, weaving in some understanding of the marvels of Creation and thoughts on what we might learn about God from this (thinking Romans 1:20) as well as the importance of caring for it all, inevitably.

Today we looked at days 1 and 2 (plus nearly 10 billion years from the Big Bang to the formation of planet earth). To escape the building work in the school, we used picnic benches in the playground so we enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine and clear, clear blue skies. The sight of them all fashioning their plasticine planets was beautiful but I hadn't got my camera - this image is of my son's contribution, slightly squished on the way home. Several of the children did make mini earths, one even included a representation of the earth's atmosphere (we only mentioned the beneficial effects for today, although many of them are already familiar with the consequences of carbon emissions). I've never thought to thank God for gravity before, but one of them did in our final prayers, which struck me as important.

Vulture Funds Victory

Last Sunday there was an opportunity for spontaneous applause when Hamish P stood up to announce the surprise victory in the vulture funds campaign that he has been encouraging us all to send postcards about.

According to the Jubilee Debt Campaign press release:

Landmark Law Passed to Tackle Vulture Funds

UK becomes first country to ban ‘Third World Debt’ profiteering in final hours of Parliamentary session

A landmark bill to protect the poorest countries in the world from profiteering by so-called vulture funds became law today after passing in the House of Lords during the ‘wash-up’ at the end of the Parliamentary session.

Jubilee Debt Campaign welcomed the successful passage of the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill, which is the world’s first law to restrict the ability of Vulture Funds to sue some of the world’s poorest countries for full repayment of debts that they have bought up cheaply.

Last November two Vulture Funds were awarded $20 million in the High Court from Liberia – the second poorest country in the world - for a debt dating back to the 1970s. This law is expected to make that verdict unenforceable.

There was an outcry last month after the bill was blocked at third reading by an unidentified Conservative MP – thought to be backbencher Christopher Chope. But the Government made time for the Bill in the wash-up, after securing cross-party agreement with a sunset clause which will mean the law has to be reassessed to be made permanent in a year’s time.

International support for the bill has been expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana.

Nick Dearden, Director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said:
“This is a landmark law. With this act, the UK has become the first country in the world to stop vulture funds using its courts to profiteer from poverty. It will mean the poorest countries in the world can no longer be attacked by these reprehensible investment funds who grow fat from the misery of others. We now call on other governments, particularly the US administration, to take similar steps to outlaw vulture practices.”

“We hope this is the first step towards creating a more just financial system, which operates for the great majority of people, not a tiny minority of unethical investors.”

Andrew Gwynne MP, Sponsor of the bill said:
“I am absolutely thrilled that my bill has been passed into law. It was completely unacceptable that a small number of companies were ever allowed in the UK courts to profiteer off the third world debt market. These “vulture funds” were completely unjust and it is to the credit of this parliament, and the efforts of the Jubilee Debt Campaign that we have finally managed to pass this law. I said I would put a stop to these vulture funds, and I did.”

Sally Keeble MP, who took the bill through the House of Commons, said:
“These vulture funds are international predators. Their victims are the poorest people in the world. It is excellent that at this stage it has been possible to get this piece of legislation on to the statute books to outlaw the activities of these vulture funds. This was a victory for a broad based campaign led by jubilee debt and other NGOs which brought this issue to public attention.”