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This letter comes to you from Zambia where I have been visiting a remarkable environmental youth group “Agents of Change” in the Copper Belt region. Zambia, where 60% of the population still live below the poverty line, is also one of the top 10 greenhouse-gas-emitting countries in the world as a result of deforestation and degradation. Large numbers of the population live without access to electricity, and charcoal and wood-fuel constitute the main source of energy for the majority of the population. In each shanty home I visited the pot on the makeshift fire was warmed by either logs or charcoal. It was sobering traveling along the roadside seeing large sacks of charcoal for sale, as the cheapest and easiest from of fuel, against a backdrop of a depleted forest.
But work is now being done by local groups to introduce pelt stoves which use pelt fuel made from sawdust, straw and grass. For every household that switches from charcoal to pellets, made from a sustainable process, about six tonnes or 10 trees per year will be saved. And the young dynamic “Agents of Change” are currently launching a 3 thousand trees planting programme too! This narrative illustrates that in dire situations hope can be found.
And a new book called “Progress – Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future”, by Johan Norberg, celebrates this optimistic approach to difficult situations. It has as its tag line that “by the time you have read the first chapter over 2,000 people will have escaped from poverty”. As humans we tend to focus on the negative partly because we are bombarded by news of how bad everything is – financial collapse, unemployment, poverty, migration, environmental disasters, disease, hunger, war – and partly because solutions seem unattainable. And yet, as Norberg points out, Man has made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000. 285,000 more people have gained access to safe water every day for the last 25 years. In the last 50 years world poverty has fallen more than it did in the preceding 500. Contrary to what most of us believe, it seems that our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. Norberg argues that while it's true that not every problem has been solved, it seems that Man has a good idea of the solutions and we know what it will take to see this progress continue. I have just experienced this mind-set and behavioural change in action and despite the terrible poverty and challenges that face communities in the Copper Belt region, there is a case for hope. So looking forward to seeing you for our all age family Harvest Festival Service on Sunday.
The Revd Charlotte Bannister - Parker
Co-Acting Priest-in-charge
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| New College School Parking Code Change
Members of the Sunday congregation are welcome to use the carpark at New College School during this service. If you usually make use of the carpark, please contact Claire (claire.browes@universitychurch.ox.ac.uk) before Sunday to get the new code. If you're interested in using the carpark but don't yet have a pass, please also drop Claire a line.
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| Services
—Tuesdays & Thursdays at 12.15pm
Lunchtime Eucharists —
Sunday 2nd October Harvest Festival 10.30am - Sung Eucharist
Preacher - The Revd Charlotte Bannister - Parker There is no Family Service this morning, all are invited for the Harvest Festival service.
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| | A new incumbent for University Church - The Parish Profile |
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| | Harvest Festival
10.30am on 2nd October, All-Age service for Harvest followed by lunch in the Old Library.
There will be a collection of non-perishable food and toiletries which will be shared between Asylum Welcome and the Gatehouse. Please see the list below for what is particularly needed:
food: Cooking oil, Basmati rice, sugar, flour, coffee, tea, tinned fish, tinned fruit and vegetables, UHT milk, chocolate spread, peanut butter
toiletries etc: shampoo, soap, toothpaste, nappies, wipes, shaving things, deodorant, toilet paper and washing powder.
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| | Poetry Corner
Things
There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.
Fleur Adcock
from Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
This delightfully grim little poem is one of those odd things – the bleak thought that, somehow, helps us to hope. Adcock’s almost cheery misery strikes a chord with us: those insomniac moments where everything seems unbearable. But she makes of those moments a hyperbolic comedy, and belittles the boogeymen by making them, not us, look the fools.
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