Canadians launch Micah Challenge

By Meghan Wood

THE CANADIAN branch of the Micah Challenge was launched October 18 at the Laurentian Leadership Centre in Ottawa.

The Micah Challenge is a global Christian campaign to halve world poverty by 2015. It is led by the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents three million churches in 111 countries, and 260 Christian relief and development agencies.

Geoff Tunnicliffe, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) director of Global Initiatives, attended the global launch in New York on October 15. "This is a unique moment for the Canadian church to step up to the plate and join with our global community in demonstrating God's love to the world's most vulnerable and impoverished people," he said.

The leading Canadian partners in the Micah Challenge are the EFC, the Canadian Council of Christian Charities Relief and Development Group, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and the Canadian Council of Churches Commission on Justice and Peace.

"Canada has a reputation for compassion to the wider world," says Dave Toycen, president of World Vision Canada. "The Micah Challenge is a strategic opportunity for Christians to express their love for their neighbour in a powerful, life changing way."

An online commitment and petition is available online for Christians who want to become directly involved. It will serve as a springboard to record the global support received from Christians internationally.

South African Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane is the successor to Desmond Tutu and was once a political prisoner along with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. During his address at the global launch, he said, "When Christians work with one another, united across nationalities and races, across rich and poor, across men, women and children, we have an enormously powerful and influential voice. We must speak loud and clear."

Ndungane described the Micah Challenge's eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the most "ambitious commitment the world has ever made to combating poverty."

Stephen Bradbury, Chair of Micah Network, says the MDGs are "in harmony with the Christian mandate to give justice to the weak and the orphan, maintain the rights of the destitute, rescue the weak and needy . . . We in the Micah Challenge will be doing all we can to encourage the world's governments to deliver on their promises."

According to the organization's website, the MDGs are measurable, time-bound targets and are drawn from the broader "Millennium Declaration" that was signed in 2000 by all UN member states. The goals are to:

* Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
* Achieve universal primary education
* Promote gender equality and empower women
* Reduce child mortality
* Improve maternal health
* Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
* Ensure environmental sustainability
* Develop a Global Partnership for Development