The clouds opened up, dropping heavy rain and forcing members of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP) to huddle under a thatch roof to meet with members of the Trio Farmers’ Cooperative in Belize. SDOP recently spent a week visiting villages in remote sections of the country to see how work has progressed in enterprises that have received SDOP financial support.
In a culture where women often go unheard, the fisherfolk women of Sri Lanka made certain their voices were loud and clear.
Their story began in 2010 when the Sri Lankan government, as part of its plan to attract more tourism and conference business, decided to build a seaplane project in the Negombo Lagoon.
The World Council of Churches Ecumenical Water Network (WCC-EWN) began the 2018 edition of its annual Lenten campaign “Seven Weeks for Water” here last week.
ZAMBIA – It was dark, really dark. And it is not always the wisest choice to drive through the rough bush roads when the sky is black and evening has turned to night. But the radiator was leaking and the starter motor was broken. So every 40 minutes we had to stop and find water at the nearest borehole and ask some people from the villages to help push the truck. We were hours from our destination and not sure where to stop. I stood by the side of a quiet street where the truck was stopped yet again, wondering if I could sleep in the bed of the truck, wondering where my colleagues would rest if we did not make it to a guesthouse of some sort.
The gravel road is mostly abandoned now. With only small spots of fallen snow and flurries along the way, one would not believe this was the same road that led masses of people to the world’s highest lift-served ski area at 17,785 feet. After navigating hairpin turns and watching the houses and farmland of the Bolivian “altiplano” (high plateau) become smaller and smaller (if one dared look over the narrow road’s edge), the Chacaltaya glacier, in all its nakedness, soon would be revealed. Today’s view of the glacier, however, is much different from that of years past. Now only a few small remnants of ice and snow remain.
