The Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign held a rally in Hyde park, London this afternoon. The Archbishop of Canterbury sent this video message to the rally.
Earlier in the day the Archbishop addressed an ecumenical church service at Methodist Central Hall via this video to mark the commitment of the faith communities to ending hunger.
Liz Ford reports on the Hyde Park rally in The Guardian: G8 urged to act on hunger after 45,000 gather in London’s Hyde Park.
Huffington Post UK has this report: Enough Food For Everyone If: Danny Boyle, David Beckham, Bill Gates, Speak At Anti-Hunger Rally.
Here are transcripts of the Archbishop’s two messages.
Hyde Park Rally
“It’s amazing that you’re here today. It’s absolutely wonderful that you’ve come together. We’ve come to celebrate the opportunity we have to end hunger in our lifetimes. The only way that’s going to happen is by mass movements of people, like yourselves, getting together, encouraging governments to go on doing what they’re doing well. And a lot of things are being done very well. We’ve seen that in our own country. One of the great things we can celebrate is giving away 0.7% of our national income to help those run the world who need it. I encourage you, keep the pressure on. We can change the world in our own lives.”
Ecumenical Service
“I’m very pleased to be able to welcome you, most warmly, to this service today – to the celebration of the generosity that Jesus Christ has shown us, which we’re called to share with others round the world.
The G8 is the centre of financial resource and power in all kinds of ways. Many members of the G8 are increasingly deeply committed to using that power for the global good. Our own Government is one that has very courageously, at a time of austerity, increased its giving in aid. But it’s important that we put before them the needs of the global community in which we live and with which we are inter dependent.
One of the biggest issues we face is around how aid is used. The issues of tax transparency are increasingly at the top of the agenda and are really, really important.
One of the things that most excites me as a church leader is the role that the church has in ending global hunger and poverty. In many parts of the world, the churches are the most effective networks, through which generosity from other people can be used most effectively and without actually displacing or diminishing the work of the people on the ground locally – local people developing their own countries.
My prayer would be that in this country and across the world, that we are deeply committed to enabling people to be self-sustaining, so that global hunger can be ended in our lifetimes.”
It is interesting that Welby brought up transparency. Also this: “In many parts of the world, the churches are the most effective networks, through which generosity from other people can be used most effectively and without actually displacing or diminishing the work of the people on the ground locally – local people developing their own countries.” He’s right that the churches are often most effective, and it’s because we tend to partner with locals, like the local church. There is a real problem that a lot of charities actually displace locals who could be doing the job, and generating a… Read more »
There are some interesting tensions and juxtapositions with regard to the churches’ advocacy for the poor and hungry. Public advocacy and food banks alongside significant participation in the Thatcher obsequies, the conflicting messages over the occupy movement in both London and New York, the unease with liberation theology, and the lack of effective advancement of the millennium goals among the church going public. Churches of course are heavily invested in the bankers’ economy that the G8 countries have made a priority since 2008.