The Uganda experience

Four premature babies shared an incubator which was only supplied intermittently with electricity. Instead of nappies, they had plastic bags which had already been used.

This was just one of the sights to be seen on a 3 week visit to 4 dioceses in S W Uganda with Mid Africa Ministry. Southwark clergy wife, Caroline Barker, joined 7 clergy and a Reader (photo below) to share the amazing experience of being with the Anglican church in one of the poorest countries in the world, where the East African revival began.

Caroline told The Bridge "We visited churches, hospitals, schools, Batwa Pygmies, a Bible College, orphans, water and training projects. Kinkiizi Diocese has no electricity, no tarmac roads and no telephones, yet a thousand people gathered for a four hour service at the Cathedral at which the collection took an hour. As each group came forward with their offering of money, sugar cane, even a goat, they danced and sang joyfully.

"If you would like to go on a trip like this, contact CMS or MAM. It makes a difference to you, the MAM workers there and supporters back in the UK" she added.

Battersea celebrates Barbados Independence Day

On Sunday, 25 November, the national flag of Barbados flew proudly and the pulsating rhythms of a steel band punctuated the Battersea air, when for the 2nd consecutive year, Christ Church and St. Stephen's hosted a commemorative service to mark the island's Independence Day (30 November).

The service conducted by the Vicar, Canon Peter Clark, was attended by over 350 people, including the Deputy High Commissioner for Barbados, the Mayor of Wandsworth, and the Bishop of Croydon.

Music was provided by the Barbados Overseas Nurses' Assoc. Choir, the Aria Voice Choir (photo above), Beechcross Chapel Steel Orchestra, vocalist, Shelly Ann Goldbourne and Saxophonist, Andr‚ Brown. At the reception afterwards, Bishop Wifred proposed a toast to Barbados and Canon Peter Clark responded by toasting the Bishop on his forthcoming retirement.

The service was organized by Winston and Glendine Dottin, members of Christ Church.

Still waiting for the Jubilee

The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) launched its new theme in Parliament Square on 31 December.

During the Queen's Golden Jubilee year, debt campaigners across the country will remind her Government that after all the promises only 15% of the unpayable debt of the world's poorest nations has been cancelled. How much longer must the poor wait for their Jubilee, they will ask?

With Tony Blair calling for a new world community to tackle poverty and liberate each individual's economic and social potential, JDC's target is to press for those words to be translated into action. But politicians rarely take such action unless driven by public opinion and the public seem to be under the misapprehension that debt has been dealt with.

Not so. Debt cancellation has been wretchedly slow and patchy, and unless that changes, the UN's goal of halving extreme poverty across the globe by 2015 is, to quote Secretary General Kofi Annan, a "pipedream" .

How you can help

• Order A2 or A4 posters and display them where they will be seen by the public.
• Join up with other debt campaigners through London Jubilee (mail@londonjubilee.org.uk or 020 7401 7957).
• Get your Churches Together group or even your church to subscribe to JDC (£25 per annum) and help further their important work.
• Lobby your MP, and consider forming a small JDC group.

For more information contact: Jubilee Debt Campaign at PO Box 36620, London SE1 OWJ
Tel: 020-7922 1111 e-mail: kim@jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk