Moliehi Mohare, 20, knows this all too well. She began her antenatal visits at a clinic closer to her home, unaware that the small facility didn’t offer delivery services. When she learned the nearest health clinic where she could safely give birth was seven hours away, she braved the long, rocky journey through the mountains to reach the Bobete Health Centre’s Maternal Waiting Home, supported by Partners In Health and Alongside Hope.

Upon arrival, Mohare was welcomed by nurses and received a baby starter pack containing a onesie, receiving blanket, hat, cloth diapers and baby shirts. “I didn’t know that Bobete Health Centre provided these things,” she said. “I had brought what I could from home, but it wasn’t enough. I’m really happy and grateful for the support I found here.”

Alongside Hope’s World of Gifts has featured the new baby starter packs for the last three years and they are a favourite gift for donors and churches. During Advent in 2022, St. Andrew’s in Cole Harbour, N.S. raised money to buy new baby kits for the Bobete Clinic. For every $25 that was donated, a diaper was added to a display in the Narthex to encourage donations. At the end of the campaign, the diapers were donated to a local women’s shelter and $2,000 was forwarded to Alongside Hope. You can still support the program at alongsidehope.org/worldofgifts. (Makes a great Mother’s Day gift!).

Like many women in remote communities, Mohare began her antenatal care late, not realizing she was pregnant until six months because her periods had continued. She arrived at Bobete in time to spend the final weeks of her pregnancy at the maternal waiting home, where she and other women received three meals a day and health education from nurses.

Lesotho continues to face one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, an estimated 566 deaths per 100,000 live births. Given the challenges of inaccessibility to health care, many women must make a perilous choice between risking childbirth at home or enduring a dangerous journey to reach care.

Thus, Alongside Hope has stepped in with crucial support. Working with Partners In Health (PIH) Lesotho, the project has helped ensure that expectant mothers like Mohare are not left behind. Through the starter pack initiative and covering transportation costs for appointments during the first trimester, pregnant women are not only encouraged to come to Bobete, but this has also extended the reach of the health centre beyond Bobete’s usual catchment area.

Mojaba Mokoena, a registered nurse and midwife at Bobete, says the starter packs have a meaningful impact on the women she cares for. “These packs truly ease their worries,” she explains. “Many arrive anxious because they don’t have enough for their newborns, but receiving these items brings them relief and restores their sense of dignity as they get ready to give birth.”

Alongside Hope’s support reaches beyond supplies, also covering emergency transportation for pregnant women when ambulances aren’t available, and offering beds, mattresses, blankets, and food to those staying at the maternal waiting home. For mothers who must be referred to hospitals for delivery, financial assistance is provided to help cover their costs.

Through this support, Alongside Hope is helping women like Mohare bring life safely into the world, no matter how far or difficult the road may be.

The post Alongside Hope Delivers Dignity and Health to Mothers and Newborns in Lesotho’s Remote Areas appeared first on Anglican Life.

Bishop John was elected Bishop in 2016, but has been painting for 25 years. “I started painting when my wife encouraged me to ‘stop talking about trying to paint, and try it!’” he says.

Most of his paintings are done in oils and acrylics, but Bishop John also uses water colour techniques of pulling colours from berries and grass, and even did a painting that incorporated mud from the River Jordan.

For Alongside Hope’s Christmas cards, Bishop John offered up several options, all widely liked by staff. The two selected images are titled It Happened in Bethlehem and Winter Light. Both images call to mind the everlasting light of Jesus.

“It Happened in Bethlehem is one of a series that has much to do with my relationship with people before and after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,” he says. “On one hand this painting represents light and hope in the sky over Bethlehem. Bethlehem is of course in the background as there was no room in the inn. On the other side, it represents (in a very deep way for me these days) explosions of violence that push grace into shadow.”

Winter Light is a “mental composite painting,” says Bishop John. “In central Newfoundland there are several small farming communities. These are beautiful spots, some inland, some by the sea. What you see here are both places. I carry them in my heart.”

Bishop John’s subject matter ranges from Newfoundland seasides dotted with colourful dories, to local wildlife and still life. “I choose a wide variety of colours, and pay attention to value and tone. Colour then can come alive and speak through the eye then into the imagination and hopefully…the heart.

“I constantly explore new genres and types of painting and paint in as many styles as I can. My art comes from places and people that have affected and still affect me. Peaceful, frantic, light, dark, heartbreaking, inspiring and hopeful. Some [images are] painted with confidence, others with a tentative heart; just like life where each story, tear, laugh and encounter contains beauty, truth, challenge and possibility.”

You can view and purchase Bishop John’s paintings online at newfolkart.ca. He has participated in four public exhibits with each one selling out. Money raised from these sales has been primarily given to charity and outreach. Proceeds from the sales of Alongside Hope’s Christmas cards will support families and communities around the world in need.  Support the work, and spread the word!

To order your cards, visit the Alongside Hope’s website at: alongsidehope.org/Christmascards2025.

The post Bishop Watton’s Cards for Alongside Hope appeared first on Anglican Life.

Initially the workshop was designed to be parish-led, but in June 2019, PWRDF invested in training nine facilitators from across Canada, dedicated volunteers who are passionate about truth and reconciliation, to deliver the workshop. In August 2022, three more facilitators joined the ranks, to meet the growing demand from Anglicans wanting to learn more about the history and legacy of colonization. Tom Mugford, a lay canon in the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, appointed by Bishop Sam Rose to lead Indigenous Ministries and Advocacy, was trained in Ottawa with Karen Luyendyk and Audrey Lawrence. Mugford and Lawrence are both Indigenous, bringing non-Settler perspectives and voices to the team. 

When the pandemic hit and congregations were unable to gather, our facilitators were sidelined. At first, it seemed like a daunting task to replicate the tangible and visceral feelings of walking on the giant floor map of Canada, the centrepiece of the workshop.

But as the pandemic took hold in 2021, and with the devastating discovery of unmarked graves next to residential schools, so too did the desire for greater understanding and reconciliation. “We realized we needed to create a virtual version for groups to use online, and that could complement the in-person workshop down the road, when pandemic restrictions lifted,” says Rumsey.

The map is still front and centre in the virtual presentation. But instead of laying the names of Indigenous groups on the floor, the names appear on the map on the screen while participants read them over Zoom. As the facilitator guides participants through the waves of immigration coming to Canada over the centuries, arrows swoop in with text to populate the map. The virtual workshop also makes use of video technology and resources that were sometimes unwieldy or optional in the original version.

Today PWRDF is revving up to launch the Mapping Exercise 3.0, a new and improved in-person version that combines the best of the original workshop with some of the video pieces of the virtual workshop for groups that are able to gather in person. The online version will still be offered.

Mugford, a beneficiary of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement, first learned of the Mapping Exercise through Archdeacon Charlene Taylor, a former Diocesan Representative for PWRDF. She had been asked to recommend someone to the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada to join the facilitator team. “Knowing my connection and personal history she recommended me,” says Mugford. “So I attended a meeting with Suzanne Rumsey and [PWRDF Volunteer Coordinator] Kim Umbach and thought I could handle it.” Yet Mugford admits he went to the training in Ottawa with some trepidation. “You can sometimes feel very vulnerable when going into these kinds of settings, not knowing what you’ll be presented with, but all my fears were gone right away.”

There’s a word Mugford likes to use: reconcile-action. “It means actually doing something,” he says. “PWRDF has created a very tangible education piece for the country. You as the settler get to see your place in this history of Canada, and that’s important too. People are inspired to continue their learning but don’t leave traumatized. They develop a sense of empathy and understanding, versus pity. You learn to make a difference in the world and use your privilege. Reconciliation is not about pointing fingers, it’s acknowledging where we are as a country and where we are as a church.”

Mugford is a parishioner at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in St. John’s but visits various churches in his role at the diocese. Baptised by Bishop Sam in June 2002, he sees Indigenous spirituality as “part of the Anglican tradition, not in addition to it.”

To learn more about the Mapping Exercise or to book one for your parish or community group, visit pwrdf.org/mapping-exercise.

The post PWRDF Mapping Exercise Trains Eastern Newfoundland Facilitator appeared first on Anglican Life.

The Indigenous People’s Alliance of Manitoba-North (IPAM-N) will use the funds to purchase and distribute face masks and supplies for cleaning and disinfecting. The items will be delivered to Sherridon, Pikwitonei, Thicket Portage, Grand Rapids, Wabowden, Cormorant, Easterville, Leaf Rapids, Lynn Lake, Moose Lake, Brochet and Thompson.

The needed supplies were identified by IPAM-N members, including Freda Lepine, who is also a member of PWRDF’s Indigenous Partner Advisory Committee.

“It’s a big thing,” says Lepine of the $50,000 from her home in Wabowden. “We stretch our dollar. We don’t want to help just one community, but this allows us to get cleaning supplies to many communities.”

Throughout the pandemic IPAM has been supporting several communities with food hampers, educational supplies, and delivering meals to those who are shut-in. They have also made it possible for food to be harvested and for younger people to learn about this cultural tradition, which also plays a vital part in food security. “We were able to provide funds for gas for hunters to get out and harvest six caribou which were then shared with the community,” says Lepine.

Lepine notes that IPAM may be able to include some of these cleaning supplies with food hamper deliveries, in order to maximize efficiency.

These four photographs are from the truck shipment to Bearskin Lake

PWRDF is in conversation with other communities in need, most notably Tataskweyak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, which declared a state of emergency due to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant. At midnight January 7, the community of 3,000 went into lockdown, said Bishop Larry Beardy on Facebook. “Our health staff are tired and overwhelmed,” wrote Beardy. There are only two nurses at the health centre on five-hour shifts and two front line responders doing testing. “The cases are exploding in our communities. Please pray for the sick, and all in the communities.”

Bishop Beardy is the Indigenous Suffragan Bishop of Mishamikoweesh’s Northern Manitoba Area Mission. PWRDF Executive Director Will Postma has spoken with Bishop Beardy as well as with Bishop Geoff Woodcroft of the Diocese of Rupert’s Land about an additional emergency response that is being finalized. Goods and supplies for communities in northern Manitoba would be purchased in Winnipeg and then transported to the north. Bishop Woodcroft noted supplies purchased with PWRDF funds would add to goods and donations already received by the Diocese.

While temperatures plunge to 30 and 40 degrees below zero, please keep these communities in your prayers as they try to self-isolate and return to good health.

How can you help?

To make a donation to this response, go to the PWRDF website at pwrdf.org and click on the tab for “Give Today.” You may also donate by phone at 416-822-9083 or leave a voicemail toll-free at 1-866-308-7973 and we will return your call, or mail your cheque to PWRDF, 80 Hayden, 3rd floor, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 3G2. Please mark Indigenous COVID in the memo field.

The post Responding to COVID-19 in Indigenous Communities appeared first on Anglican Life.

The annual World of Gifts campaign makes it possible for you to invest, too. Supporting World of Gifts is an investment in a sustainable future for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. 

The campaign launched in October and leads up to Christmas, but the opportunity to give and support our partners is year round. The 2021 guide supports 17 partners as they plan for a healthier and stronger future. Programs include restoring and preserving seeds in Bangladesh, providing families with supplies to raise chickens in Colombia and Zimbabwe, continued support of “smart” dairy farming initiatives in Kenya and of course, back by popular demands, giving goats to people in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Cuba. 

Goats and these other conservation agriculture initiatives improve nutrition for smallholder farmers, and also improve their yields so they can earn more income in the local markets. Supporters can still “buy the whole farm” and support a range of agricultural projects with one gift.

Support for World of Gifts in Newfoundland and Labrador has always been strong. In 2018, Sunday School children from St. George’s, Gambo, collected coins for two months and raised $571.20 to buy 80 chicks, 5 goats, 30 ducks 2 20-kg bags of seeds and mosquito nets.

During last year’s campaign, despite the pandemic, churches and individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador donated $28,762 to World of Gifts. Ten parishes raised funds to support World of Gifts, with donations totalling $6,692. This includes the confirmation class at Holy Trinity Church in the parish of Grand Bay, who raised enough funds to “buy a whole farm.” 

The clean water project in Kenya is still being supported in World of Gifts in 2021. Through our partner Utooni Development Organization, PWRDF has been supporting the construction of shallow wells, and last year raised enough funds to build 17 wells with a hand pump and four well with a solar-powered pump. If a donkey is not suitable to help a family carry water from the well, UDO also provides water tanks to store the water. 

There are also opportunities to invest in women recovering from sexual violence in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and new mothers in Lesotho. Financial support at these critical times can have an enormous impact. 

This year’s guide is also promoting our new Indigenous Responsive Programs grant. For 25 years PWRDF has supported and accompanied Indigenous organizations in Canada working to reclaim their language and culture, to improve community health with clean water and safe birth, to support economic opportunities and to engage youth. The new responsive program aims to expand our support of Indigenous communities by providing grants of $5,000 – $15,000 to Indigenous-led groups working in Community Health, Climate Action, Empowering Youth or Safe Water. With a gift supporting this program, you are investing in Indigenous communities as well as Indigenous leadership. 

Like any good investment, the return on World of Gifts is high: communities become stronger, healthier and more resilient, and we are able to live out Jesus’ commandment for us to love our neighbour, no matter where they may be.

The post NL Dioceses Invest In The Future With PWRDF’s World of Gifts appeared first on Anglican Life.