Micah Australia updates : People's Climate March : Cuts to aid : Voices for Justice : Prayer vigils as advocacy

November Update Hi Everyone, here is your guide to Micah's latest events, actions and resources.

Events People's Climate Marches (27-29 November) This weekend world leaders will be gathering in Paris on the eve of the United Nations Climate Summit. Meanwhile, across the globe, millions will gather in their cities to create the biggest climate event the world has ever seen. Let’s stand together to protect God’s creation and stand with the vulnerable poor whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by climate change. Click here to find out when and where your local march is happening this weekend & take the opportunity to pray for the Climate Summit this week in personal and corporate prayer using this toolkit. Actions Dear Prime Minister After the biggest ever cuts to aid, Australia is on track to recording its lowest ever investment in aid. That's not something we want to see, so with the mid-year budget update just around the corner, please write to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, to ask him to stop the cuts and start investing in a better future for people in our region and for a world free from poverty. Once you've taken action, you may even consider hosting a 'Mailing Party'. Click here for more details and to take action.  Blogs Prayer as Advocacy In conjunction with our Voices for Justice gathering in October, hundreds of Christians from churches across the country gathered in prayer vigils as a form of advocacy to our powerful God.  Read about what happened in our latest blog and consider how you might use 'prayer as advocacy' this coming week as world leaders negotiate climate change targets which will have most impact on the poorest and vulnerable people in our word. You can download all prayer resources here. Micah Australia http://www.micahaustralia.org/

micahaustralia.org     (02) 8317 5080   |   info@micahaustralia.org   |   Suite 413/410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 Micah Australia is a coaltion of churches and Christian organisations raising a powerful voice for justice and a world free from poverty. Copyright © 2015 Micah.

#AID NOT BOMBS

Plz continue 2 send a msg that we should send #AidNotBombs & that #WeCanDoBetter.That we are #strongEnough #auspol pic.twitter.com/ztZLjeK0is

— lydia_shelly (@lydia_shelly) September 5, 2015

Motivators and mobilisers - Shiree Pilkinton

At left:  Shiree Pilkinton in conversation with
Dr. Sundrum Sivamalia of the Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council Inc (BRMC) 

There is a person in our Ballarat community called Shiree Pilkinton.  She works here in #Ballarat at the Centre for Multicultural Youth.  She does a lot of work with refugees.  Shiree has a host of contacts and friendships across the community.  When she is organising an event and needs some food - out goes the call from Shiree in the DM on Facebook calling for slices and other goodies and the food turns up.

Yesterday, the DM went a bit further than the need for slices and other goodies.  Won't go into all the details but the gist of it was that a woman from an African country who is on her own with a number of children was in a bit of strife.  The woman was behind in the rent and her cupboard was bare. Her money had gone back to Africa to help a relative.  The money she wold have used for rent she had held back to feed the family.

Shiree's SOS went out with an AMAZING response.  She now advises that the woman is so grateful.  There is now food in the cupboard - at least to get her into next week.  There is fuel in her car so she can get kids to schools.  This meant she could release the money she was holding back and has now paid her rent.

It is a good thing to have lynch pins in one's community like Shiree.  They are motivators and mobilisers.  It is good to have responsive people in our community who move in with good will to enable someone like Shiree to place help where it is sorely needed.  The woman Shiree and Co have helped is grateful to one and all.

Australia sinks ever lower - now No. 17 among aid-giving nations. Not a good look!

Cuts announced in #Budget15 will see our nation fall to the rank of 17th amongst aid giving nations this year. pic.twitter.com/ceXSkmyJVE

— Baptist World Aid (@BaptistWorldAid) May 13, 2015

#AustralianAid down the tubes while the rich are getting richer

It's OECD-official. #AustralianAid is at it's lowest levels. Unimpressed? Join http://t.co/CEcVwDzErG pic.twitter.com/M4RpjEaYDe
— Australian Aid (@campaignforaid) April 9, 2015

NGOs in #Cambodia who get DFAT funding are in an awkward position ...

From the Facebook site: If you don't free the refugees we will

Francesca Agosti

20 February at 19:03

NGOS IN CAMBODIA COMPLICIT IN THE AUSTRALIA-CAMBODIA REFUGEE DEAL

With the collapse of Australia’s oversees aid program into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australian aid has become much more strongly aligned to the logic of security and in particular, propping up the detention industry. In Cambodia, this means orientating the aid program towards the controversial ‘Australia-Cambodia refugee deal‘ – whereby DFAT will provide the government of Cambodia with $35 mill in exchange for providing Cambodia as a dumping ground for asylum seekers.

This places NGOs in Cambodia who receive funding from DFAT in an awkward position – in that they now receive their funding from the same agency that is helping to secure the Australia-refugee deal.

NGOs working in the field of governance/corruption/gender are now complicit in Australia’s refugee/human trafficking operations – providing DFAT with an alibi in the form of small highly visible projects that give the impression that Australian aid is fighting human rights abuses, ‘corruption’ and ‘gender inequality’.

In an aid dependent country such as Cambodia, most NGOs have become complacent with the donor funding structure, putting their own short term survival ahead of meaningful political work. For instance NGOs have been eerily silent on the Cambodian government hunting down highland Vietnamese asylum seekers with dogs in the northeastern province of Ratanakiri – an action that appeared to receive tacit support from the Australian embassy.

NGOs such as The Asia Foundation, Transparency International, International Bridges to Justice, Legal Aid Cambodia, Social Services Cambodia, CARE, Cambodia Children’s Fund and Save the Children, now need to urgently ween themselves off Australian aid.

Source: https://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/…/ngos-in-…/

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Australia cuts its aid budget

Picture at left from here

As World Vision's Tim Costello puts it: "Julie was in there fighting. She was rolled. Her new aid paradigm is in tatters."

The indefatigable Bishop was in Papua New Guinea, the second-largest recipient of Australian aid, on Monday when Treasurer Joe Hockey revealed $3.7 billion in cuts to the foreign aid budget as an aside while releasing his mid-year budget update.

Hockey's press conference, with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, was surreal on a number of counts, but mostly because the nation's attention was singularly focused on the siege at Sydney's Martin Place that ended so tragically in the early hours of Tuesday.

Hockey began with a monologue utterly at odds with reality. He reported that the government had made "a good start" to the budget repair task, that the economy had continued to "strengthen" during the year despite "significant offshore headwinds", and that the budget was "on track for a credible surplus".

Much of the commentary that followed commended the Treasurer for not taking the "austerity option" of slashing domestic programs or increasing taxes and charges to offset collapsing revenues. The foreign aid cut received almost as scant attention as the slashing of the Australian Human Rights Commission's budget (an act that smacked of retribution).

 For more please go here

• Copyright © 2014 Fairfax Media

TELL JOE HOCKEY & TONY ABBOT TO GIVE AID A FAIR GO - IT CHANGES LIVES

Aussie aid changes lives.

Tell @JoeHockey & tonyabbottMHR to give aid a fair go - #dontcutaid http://t.co/D8NLkqG9dT pic.twitter.com/VRM7MtQq7X
— World Vision AUS (@WorldVisionAus) December 10, 2014