MOTHERS UNION EQUIPPED ON ENVIRONME
NT CARE IN THE DIOCESE OF SWAZILAND
The Anglican Diocese of Swaziland Mothers Union held their annual conference, Ndumiso Malindzisa was invited to talk about environmental care.
The MU members were taught a lot about faith based environmental care with the incorporation of science, they were taught on how they can do to reduce the damage done to the environment by human beings. Save the environment as God sent His only son to save us (John 3:16) in addition they were reminded about the first commandment that God gave us which was to take care of the environment (Genesis 2:15). Therefore, we can take care of the environment by being creators just like God as we were created in His image (Genesis 1:26), we create a better environment by planting trees, crops, flowers, healing dongas, remove litter and telling friends about the environment. People are encouraged to use organic farming as mitigation strategy of climate change, though the use of poultry manure from non free range chickens is discouraged as it contains heavy metals which may accumulate in a human body and after some time may cause health problems.
Trees/plants are very vital in our lives (Revelations 22:2) since they provide us oxygen and in turn we give them carbon dioxide which means we have a symbiosis relationship with plants, the more we destroy plants the more the earth will accumulate carbon dioxide which we cannot live with. It is therefore important that each one of us plant as many trees as possible. For us we can at least plant one tree per year just to show our care for the environment, for every tree you cut please do plant a new one.
The women showed enthusiasm towards what was presented to them and they asked questions where they did not understand; on top of that they shared their story on how they collect plastic bags and recycle them by making mats which goes with this year world environment day theme which was, “beating plastic pollution”. They also make wonder cooking bags as an initiative to reduce the use of energy; they display these items during their talent show and competition annually. After the competition a tree was planted to show their pledge to care for the environment.
Ndumiso Malindzisa