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President's Column: Change, Hope and Hard Work
As I write this column, transformative change is happening in Africa. Not just in Northern Africa and the Arab world but in Sudan, where the people of the war-ravaged southern region recently voted in a largely peaceful referendum to declare independence as Africa’s 54th nation.
I couldn’t be more proud of the work that Episcopal Relief & Development and other organizations in the Anglican Communion have done to help the Episcopal Church of Sudan prepare for the referendum, educate voters and ensure its success.
But now the hard work really starts.
Challenging as the election was, building a nation almost literally from scratch is a task of an entirely different order of magnitude. The country is desperately poor with minimal infrastructure. There are millions of displaced people, largely refugees from Southern Sudan now returning. The institutions of governance and civil society do not yet exist in a meaningful way.
Further complicating matters, tense negotiations must take place between Southern and Northern Sudan over their many oil fields, and how assets and revenues are to be divided.
In this unprecedented, fluid, hopeful yet perilous moment, the Episcopal Church of Sudan stands as a bastion of stability with one of the only existing infrastructures in the country. This is why Episcopal Relief & Development is providing a major infusion of resources and technical support to help the Church maintain peace, address refugee assimilation, and strengthen civil society in order to get the nascent nation off to a healthy start.
Elsewhere on the continent, Episcopal Relief & Development’s NetsforLife® program partnership is getting millions of children off to a healthy start, which itself is transformative not only for them and their families, but also in unleashing the educational and economic potential of their communities and countries.
I am also proud that NetsforLife® is transforming the methodology of malaria prevention. It is far exceeding its goals for net distribution, net usage and lives saved, and it is now considered among the most effective malaria prevention programs. This is due to its documented results and capacity to educate families, empower communities, and engender a net culture in regions where there had been an unbearable loss of young lives claimed by malaria.
The common threads in these efforts are our steadfast spiritual commitment to put our faith into action, our partnerships with local dioceses, our focus on grassroots empowerment, and our holistic approach to changing the root causes of suffering and impoverishment. There is another common thread, too — you! The support from you and other members of the Episcopal Church is what enables us to create change, build hope through hard work — and heal a hurting world.
Yours faithfully,
Robert W. Radtke, President
