Sunday 18 October

Micah Sunday comes each year as part of the Stand Up Take Action campaign. Stand Up invites you to be a part of a group somewhere who will stand up to show their support for the fight against poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Last year nearly 117 million people worldwide took part in Stand Up events. This year they are aiming for even more. Micah Challenge is a part of this campaign, and on Micah Sunday we invite Christians to actively demonstrate their support. The dates for Stand Up this year are 16-18 October, with Micah Sunday being on 18 October.

The Debt of Our Prayers 

For Micah Sunday this year we invite you to focus on the Lord's Prayer, and to look again at the implications of praying this prayer as rich Christians. An African writer, Osayande Obery Hendricks says "... the Lord’s Prayer has as its paramount concern bread for subsistence in a time of hunger, relief from debt when an unjust debt structure crushed the people underfoot and the establishment of God’s sole sovereignty when the people’s misery was largely the by-product of Caesar’s authority...". How often do we think in those terms as we repeat the familiar words?

A group of Christian leaders who campaign for justice in the fight against hunger are calling on the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to 'step up to the plate' and seek tangible results in realising the right to food - writes Peter Kenny.

The Geneva-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance sent the letter to Ban as the first of a series of actions in a global campaign on food launched on the same day the World Council of Churches and its donors discussed the issue after being addressed by EAA members.

"Churches have always helped people in need of food, but now we want to tackle the root causes of hunger as a structural problem," the Rev Malcolm Damon, chairperson of the EAA's Food Strategy Group, told Ecumenical News International on 13 May 2009.

According to the UN an estimated 100,000 – 200,000 people have been caught in the fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government.

Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians have crossed into the government controlled transit camps in the last few days despite heavy fire. They have fled with no belongings. ACT (Action by Churches Together) International, of which CWS is a member, reported the arrival of 35,000 IDPs on 21st of April alone. The camps have limited capacity to meet basic needs, deal with the injuries sustained during the fighting and severe trauma. They are dependent on outside sources of supplies. The influx of new arrivals will stretch existing resources and will require immediate financial assistance.

“the attitude I see is not of a people in crisis but people doing business as usual. …to succeed you must change and start doing business as unusual.” Mr. Dev Chamaroo, the Director Policy and Planning Board of Investment of Mauritius, addressing a conference in Zambia.

There has been a mixed reaction to the G20 meetings earlier this month, with a widespread response that too much of it was ‘business as usual’, and not enough of an attempt to take this opportunity to re-think the way that we work.

“There is no sign that political leaders have made a radical break with the discredited model of economic development that has led us to this crisis. There are no significant measures to combat inequality, or to reorient the economy to a more sustainable path. The changes in global economic governance are very limited” says a statement from Eurodad (European Network on Debt and Development).