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2009-06-16 issue:

Hope for those affected by violence, AIDS

MCC helps fund day-care center in South Africa, peace workshops in India.

by Mennonite Central Committee

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In the South African language of Southern Sotho, Bophelong means “the place of life.” It is a fitting name for a bright day-care center full of smiling children in Thembisa township, near Johannesburg, South Africa.


Children play table games at Bophelong day-care center in Thembisa township, South Africa. Joanna Hiebert Bergen.

But many of the children at Bophelong have lost one or both parents to AIDS and are being cared for by either a grandmother or by siblings not much older than themselves. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is providing financial support to the day-care center to ensure that the children have a loving, adult presence in their lives.

“The walls are full of posters, numbers, letters and pictures,” says Joanna Hiebert Bergen, MCC’s HIV/AIDS coordinator, who visited the center earlier this year. “It is a day-care center where children are given opportunity to learn, to grow and to thrive.”

Hiebert Bergen also traveled to Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa to visit a variety of organizations that MCC supports in helping people affected by HIV and AIDS.

In many places, the effects are devastating. The disease often strikes people in the prime of life, between the ages of 20 and 40. When parents are too sick to work, children often cannot afford to attend school and are left to beg or work in menial jobs.

In South Africa alone, 1.4 million children have lost at least one parent to AIDS.

Organizations such as Bophelong play a key role in supporting them.

“These children would go hungry if not for the nutritious meals and snacks provided by the day-care center,” says Hiebert Bergen. MCC provides financial support or personnel to 69 organizations responding to HIV and AIDS in more than 25 countries around the world.

These organizations provide care for adults and children with HIV and their families, teach communities how to prevent the disease and advocate for people affected by it.

Information about MCC’s response to HIV and AIDS, including ways to help, is available at mcc.org/aids.—Amanda Thorsteinsson for Mennonite Central Committee

Hope for peace in India
Christians in India’s Orissa state regard the outcome of April and May general elections as an answer to prayer, according to the Rev. Dr. Bijoy K. Roul, South Asia administrator for the Brethren in Christ Church. Orissa’s Christian minority was the target of widespread attacks in late August 2008, and many Christians blame radical Hindu groups for inciting the violence.

The elections gave more national parliamentary seats to India’s governing Congress Party, which is secular, and fewer seats to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is associated with Hindu nationalism.

MCC is promoting peace in Orissa by sponsoring workshops on peace and reconciliation and helping local leaders receive specialized training in these areas. MCC is planning to sponsor two Brethren in Christ church leaders from Orissa to attend Henry Martyn Institute, a school of interfaith relations in the Indian city of Hyderabad. Along with other Christian groups, the Brethren in Christ were directly affected by the violence, with homes and church properties burned.

Orissa’s Brethren in Christ churches are planning to organize a peacemaking dialogue with Christians, Hindus and political leaders this year. Roul is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for peace in Orissa. In the run-up to the elections, the state’s governing party broke off an alliance with the BJP and promised to improve security for Christians, such as those who fled their homes during the 2008 violence.

“There are still some people living in the forest area in camps,” Roul says. “It will take some more time” for them to return. On a broader scale, Mennonites and Brethren in Christ throughout India are organizing peace committees to ease tensions. MCC is providing financial support to this effort, which is organized by Mennonite Christian Service Fellowship of India.—Tim Shenk of Mennonite Central Committee

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