Grants fund dreams for peace around the globe
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Akim Werkpewolo (center) enjoys playing games at an interim care center for former child soldiers in Virginia, Liberia.
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Akim
Werkpewolo (center) enjoys playing games at an interim care center for
former child soldiers in Virginia, Liberia. Werkpewolo and more than
15,000 teenagers like him, lost their childhoods when they were forced
to become soldiers in Liberia's 14-year-long civil war. The Peace
Builder Children's Club in Liberia, a recipient of a United Methodist
Board of Church and Society Peace with Justice Grant, will teach the
former child soldiers about peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness
through seminars and workshops. The Peace Builder Children's Club is one
of 15 grants totaling $49,500 awarded by the board. The funding comes
from a churchwide offering taken on Peace with Justice Sunday. A UMNS
file photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo #06529. Accompanies UMNS story
#293. 5/17/06 |
May 17, 2006
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
WASHINGTON (UMNS) — The most vulnerable people in Liberia are small, young and defenseless.
The West African country is trying to recover from 14 years of a
bloody civil war that was often fought on the backs of children. The
Peace Builder Children’s Club is the dream of a United Methodist
missioner to change ex-combatant children into “bearers of good tidings
of peace.”
“These children, who have been soldiers, they know the things they’ve
done, and they worry that they will not be accepted back into society,”
says Frido N. Kinkolenge, a North Carolina-supported missioner in
Liberia. A $5,000 grant from the United Methodist Board of Church and
Society will help make the Peace Builder Children’s Club a reality.
“Boys and girls as young as 10 have been recruited by force by
different belligerent powers to fight,” says Kinkolenge. “They were fed
drugs, taught murder and (they) murdered by utilizing hacking machetes.
Children were used as channels for carrying out hatred across Liberia.”
The club will be for children ages 14-16. They will learn to work
with their peers in United Methodist churches, United Methodist schools
and communities in Grand Bassa, Rivercess and Sinoe counties and the
Morweh circuit. The children will receive education about peace,
reconciliation and forgiveness through seminars and workshops,
Kinkolenge says in his request for the grant. The grant will also
provide training for 200 people to work with the children in the
different counties and circuit.
Peace Builder Children’s Club is one of 15 Peace with Justice Grants
totaling $49,500 approved at the spring meeting of the United Methodist
Board of Church and Society.
The funding comes from a churchwide offering taken on Peace with Justice Sunday, which falls on June 11 this year.
Grants for 2006:
- Partners in Justice For Peace, Grand Rapids (Mich.) District Peace
with Justice Community and Female Light Production for All Occasions
Partnership ($5,000). FELIPRO will implement a business-cooperative
model in which women are all owners learning to produce marketable
embroidered art for local, tourist and international markets. The
partnership will result in an art and training center.
- United Methodist Action for Justice and Peace in Central Congo,
West Congo Annual Conference ($5,000). The grant will help train 100
election observers in each annual conference and inform people about
democratic values for the upcoming national election process.
- Lost Boys: Found! A Time of Reunion, Vision, Advocacy and Hope,
Crossroads United Methodist Church, Ashburn, Va. ($5,000). Five “Lost
Boys of Sudan” have partnered with Crossroads United Methodist Church to
plan a reunion of lost boys who have resettled in the United States.
Lost Boys: Found! will be held at George Mason University July 7-8 and
will draw attention to the current conditions in Southern Sudan.
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Philip Karhan stands in the doorway of his house in Virginia, Liberia, which he shares with three other former child soldiers.
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Philip
Karhan stands in the doorway of his house in Virginia, Liberia, which
he shares with three other former child soldiers. Karhan, who is from
Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), was beaten and kidnapped from his home and
forced to fight in Liberia's civil war. The Peace Builder Children's
Club in Liberia, a recipient of a United Methodist Board of Church and
Society Peace with Justice Grant, will teach the former child soldiers
about peace, reconciliation and forgiveness through seminars and
workshops. The Peace Builder Children's Club is one of 15 grants
totaling $49,500 awarded by the board. The funding comes from a
churchwide offering taken on Peace with Justice Sunday. A UMNS file
photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo #06528. Accompanies UMNS story #293.
5/17/06 |
- International Interfaith Accompaniment Program to Facilitate the
Truth and Reconciliation Process in Liberia, Manhattan District, New
York, and United Methodist Church, Liberia ($5,000). The program will
serve as a visible expression of solidarity with those seeking
reconciliation and peace. Religious leaders will be paired with members
of the international faith community to cultivate community-wide
affirmation for people who want to testify before the commission. The
religious leaders will accompany those testifying and will prepare the
community for receiving back their “neighbors.” The program will also
provide spiritual support to the commissioners as they endure the daily
burden of hearing of the atrocities and the inhumane experiences of the
witnesses.
- Skyline Urban Ministries, Oklahoma Area ($4,000). The grant will
be used for a Peace Challenge Camp for fifth- and sixth-graders that
will push the possibility of forgiveness in creating a culture of peace.
Topics at the camp will include the causes of hatred, prejudice and
tolerance, forgiveness and the qualities of heroism.
- The Micah Project, First United Methodist Church, Tacoma, Wash.
($4,000). The grant will support staff during a 12-month timeline for
organizing an anti-poverty summit; help coordinate a living wage
campaign; manage the expansion of the church’s fair trade store; and
work on long-term sustainability, including financial networks.
- Youthbridge Peace Education Expansion Project, Marvin United
Methodist Church, Tyler, Texas ($4,000). Seven new teachers will be
trained for the expansion of a peace education program that teaches
peace building during a year-round program in Vukovar, Croatia. The
program had its beginning at Marvin United Methodist Church in 2001.
More than 500 teenagers have gone through it, and the goal is to reach
one-fifth of the approximately 3,000 teens in the area by the end of
2007 and to maintain that ratio.
- Student and Youth Participation in Conference on Theology of
Peace, Methodists United for Peace With Justice ($2,500). Methodists
United for Peace with Justice, a national association of laity and
clergy, and Temple United Methodist Church, San Francisco, will bring at
least 30 diverse students and young people from all five United
Methodist U.S. jurisdictions together to draw upon the Wesleyan
tradition of “holy conferencing.”
- Pilgrimage of Peace to the Holy Land, the Holy People, Southwest
Texas Conference ($2,000). Peace with justice coordinators and
participants of other faiths will travel to Israel, the West Bank and
Jordan to gain an understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its
impact on neighboring countries and the possibilities for peacemaking.
- Urban Renewal/Ministries Project, Jefferson United Methodist
Church, Goldsboro, N.C. ($2,000). This project is reaching out to the
community by offering various programs geared toward restoring physical,
mental and spiritual wholeness including quarterly fun day activities
for children and their families; weekly reading and math club for at
risk children and Fit For God, a weekly fitness class held at the
church.
- The Lighthouse, a United Methodist Community Center, in
Louisville, Ky. ($2,000). The grant will be used to help pay the fees
for a child psychologist who will work with children scarred from abuse.
- Just Lead, Lennon-Senney United Methodist Church, Knoxville, Tenn.
($2,000). The grant will help the church expand after school and church
ministry to three days a week with student and family relational
activities. The church hopes to reach 60 elementary, middle and high
school youth.
- Justice for Our Neighbors, North Texas Conference, ($2,000). This
is an immigration legal counseling clinic serving low-income immigrants
in the Dallas metro and surrounding area. The funds will be used to
support an immigration attorney’s salary and benefits and fund two “Know
Your Rights” workshops.
- A special grant was made to the American Indian Alliance for $500.
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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