Ncumisa

Green Anglicans attend a “Change Makers Design Shop” Green Anglicans joined around 30 change makers from around the country gathered to co-design campaigns tackling socio- economic issues from the roots up. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Environmental Network addresses environmental issues in the province by supporting churches and Dioceses with the goal of becoming eco-friendly and fulfilling Gods call to Earth Keeping. However this will not be successful unless we have a strategy to bring this vision to the churches. Jonathan Hobosch and I attended the “Change Makers Design Shop”, a week long workshop designing campaigns to tackle issues that are undermining peace and environmental justice at the root in the context of Southern Africa.  One of the issues that we find as a challenge in the Anglican Church is to encourage sustainable ways of living in our churches including the use of water and electricity and incorporating care for creation in our worship. The challenge of earth keeping within scripture and the reality of environmental factors involves understanding the injustice of the depletion of natural resources in the country but also recognising the impact caused by churches. “Change Makers” equipped us with skills and resources we can use to find solutions to our issues in the church. We were able to draw up a diagram that will give us a guideline towards our goal, to find out why we need to bring about change and what are the issues that need assistance. We learned the theory of change which is a process which includes outlining the building blocks required to reach our goal and also evaluating our mandate. At the end of the workshop we realised that all of this can be achieved if we are rooted in faith and shaped in scripture which shows us how we need to take care of creation.   -Ncumisa Magadla

“Many young people at one point of their lives are trying to find the answers to the problems created by the men who God created.” – Anonymous On the weekend of the 25-27 July 2014, young people around the Cape Town Diocese gathered at Manyano Campsite in Paarl. This assembly was to have fun and get young people talking about the issues they saw as key areas for the Diocese to focus on at the Synod in August. This was pretty slick that the Youth had invited the Green Anglicans Environmental Network team to presenting about Young Green Anglicans and things to consider for the young people to partake within the diocese. The Anglican Communion states that the fifth mark of mission is ‘to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation in sustaining and renewing the earth’ What makes a Young Anglican Green? Worship: – organise green events at church or youth to celebrate the environment. Personal lifestyle: – reducing their carbon footprint with actions such as; Transport, Water, Electricity, Litter and Simple lifestyle- is worth living Jesus did. Action and Advocacy: – a Young Green Anglican would inform themselves about issues like green energy, fracking, nuclear power as well as get involved with local clean up days and any campaigns about the environment. God created us to take care of his earth and not for us to destroy it – Jason (Cape Town Youth) Things To Consider When Hosting An Event: Have a green team Have bins for Cans, Paper, Plastic, Compost and non recyclable waste, e.g. Styrofoam. If possible make an A5 booklet rather than loose one-sided paper. Make sure of the numbers so food is not wasted. -Jonathan Hobosch

An era of Young Green Anglicans has begun one year after Revd. Rachel Mash presented at last year’s Provincial Youth Consultation (PYC) which was held in the Diocese of Lesotho. This year’s Provincial Youth Consultation was hosted by the Diocese of Kimberly and Kuruman and didn’t they go all out in helping to be good stewards for the environment!!. The pictures displays Jonathan ‘Mr. Green lantern’ Ho’Bosch who saved paper by manually printing back to back 70 copies. The next picture is the Diocese of K&K’s display of recycling information done by Thuto. We had Revd. Gabriel Barnett and his young people with ‘Mr. Green Lantern’ do some sorting of waste after visiting the Big Hole. (Picture:   Green Environmental Network Jonathan Ho’Bosch, Revd. Rachel Mash, Nina Pretorius and Ncumisa Magadla receiving their flagship from the Western Cape Premier Helen Zille on Mandela Day at Spier in Stellenbosch. “It’s not hard to go green, it just wants one to start caring for what God blessed us with”- Thuto Makgoe a Young Green Anglican in Kimberly. Things To Consider When Hosting An Event:  Have a green team Have bins for Cans, Paper, Plastic, Compost and unrecyclable waste, eg. Styrofoam.  If possible make an A5 booklet rather than loose one-sided paper.  Make sure of the numbers so food is not wasted -Jonathan Ho’ Bosch  

Anglican Church is awarded “110% Green flagship status!” On Mandela day (18th July) the Premier, Helen Zille, awarded the Anglican Church a flagship as part of the 110% Green initiative ran by the Western Cape Government. A flagship is given to an organisation that has made an outstanding commitment towards educating about environmental awareness as well as contributing to the green economy. The event was held in Spier Wine Farm, Stellenbosch in collaboration with the Mandela Day 67 minutes of community service.  The Environmental Desk at the provincial office (Green Anglicans) attended the event to receive the flagship from the premier but were also involved in different groups which looked at sustainable ways of living. As a highlight of the day a “Food Forward” project was launched on the same day to “raise awareness around food wastage, catalyse action and reduce inefficiencies within the food value chain.” Here are a few shocking facts regarding food wastage: Almost a third of national food production is wasted in South Africa ( 9 million tonnes) – this is the weight of  1.6 million elephants! Meanwhile over 11 million South Africans go hungry. The water we waste every year could fill 600,000 Olympic sized swimming pools, whereas 9 million families don’t have access to clean drinking water. The project aims to encourage a reduction of food wastage in the Western Cape Province, by mobilising key stakeholders to decrease inefficiencies at every stage of THE FOOD CHAIN, from production all the way through to consumption. This project is endorsed by 110% Green initiative which encourages all Anglicans not to waste food. -Ncumisa Magadla

You are organising a conference or an event however you want to remain environmentally friendly through the duration of the event? Click (below) a checklist to assist you GREEN your event. Greening Events