Spotlight on Latin America

"Evangelicals want to do mission without understanding the history of poverty." This was one of the challenges brought to us as six of our Micah Challenge coordinators met together for 3 days of advocacy training...

Also - Read our regular weekly updates from Jean-Valery Vital Herne - our Haiti Coordinator

Nicaragua, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru campaigns were represented during the meetings held at the Paz y Esperanza office in Lima.  A number of church, civil society, advocacy and media experts led the coordinators through a series of seminars designed to increase their capacity in advocacy campaigning.  The challenge from Dr Dario Lopez Rodriguez from Concilio Nacional Evangelico del Peru, was to understand the structural, corporate nature of the history of poverty, and the unity required to tackle it.

Equally importantly the time together allowed us to gain a much clearer picture of the global nature of Micah Challenge, and the stories shared were inspiring.

Graciela de Celis shared how, in Argentina, political candidates had been rated according to their positions on the MDGs, with churches being given the report and asked to vote responsibly.  Luz Urania from Nicaragua told how, through working together with local organisations, they had managed to get support for 123 primary schools, joining together to secure support from a larger agency.

Our new coordinator, who started less than a month ago, Jose Gerrado from Colombia, was inspired to start planning his Micah Challenge campaign, sharing that he was now able to "walk on two legs again", having felt half of the gospel had previously been missing!

A challenging but very productive meeting, following a similar event with the European coordinators earlier this month.