Micah Challenge Australia Blog

 

The Micah Challenge blog is a space for discussion and debate about the issues of global poverty, faith, advocacy and justice and the Millennium Development Goals. This blog aims to provoke thought and challenge you to learn more about the issues discussed. We welcome your comments.

Micah Challenge is a global campaign of Christians speaking out against poverty and injustice. Click here to visit the Micah Challenge website.

  • I Love Needles

    Posted by Simon

    30 March, 2012

    It’s not often that you get to hear from a person in TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People. Sure, we hear speeches from Barack Obama on TV all the time and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is used daily by the majority of people in the developed world. But last week, 200 plus people and myself attended a Child Survival Forum hosted by RESULTS International, primarily to hear Dr Seth Berkley speak, a 2009 member of TIME’s top 100 club. Who, you might say? A guy who, quite simply, loves needles… Dr Berkley is the CEO of the GAVI Alliance, a multilateral organisation that has given life-saving vaccinations to over 319 million children in the past ten years, saving an estimated 5.5 million children’s lives. Impressed now? Globally, the GAVI Alliance ranks as one of the most effective and cost-efficient multilateral organisations working to eradicate poverty. The GAVI Alliance is a unique public-private partnership that focuses solely on immunising children in developing countries against deadly diseases such as pneumonia,… read more

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  • On the to-do list and bookshelf of our new Foreign Minister

    Posted by Ben

    28 March, 2012

    It no longer really counts as news that Australia's Foreign Minister is former NSW Premier, Senator Bob Carr. But it's worth reflecting for a moment on what we are hoping and praying for from our new Foreign Minister. Aid is only one part of the Foreign Minister's portfolio, but it's a significant and growing part of the Federal budget, and it is probably the policy area in which the Australian Government has the most direct contribution to make in the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and end extreme poverty. The Australian aid program has been expanding in recent years and, by and large, has been becoming more transparent and increasingly focused on measuring its effectiveness. Senator Carr, in a recent radio interview, said that our aid program is "something that we can all be proud of". I couldn't agree more. On that basis, I think that our new Foreign Minister should build on the bipartisan commitment to lift aid spending to 0.5% of Gross National Income by 2015, and pursue lifting aid to… read more

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  • In the Delhi of night

    Posted by Nils

    6 March, 2012

    Leaving India at two o’clock in the morning to catch our flight to our next destination, I stopped to reflect on the past previous ten days in this fascinating country. What had we learned? What could we take away? India is like no place on Earth. Of course that could be said of any place, but there is something about this country that I haven't found in other countries I've visited. For instance, Western countries have a vaguely similar way of life to each other. They are capitalistic, democratic, and predicated on the notion of economic growth. India however is different. It is a mixture of ancient and modern; it is founded on deep religious principles yet is being intruded upon by the forces of Western secularism. As an Indian colleague of mine pointed out, there is a tension in the country between a fervent desire to be like or imitate the West, and at the same time a disdain for the West and its influences. Perhaps it is this last reason which explains why India is - currently at least - able to maintain this tension. I wonder how long it can… read more

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  • How lamentation turned me from apathy

    Posted by David

    28 February, 2012

    “God whispers to us in our pleasures... but shouts in our pain: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. During the past week of PrayACT, we have dwelt on the importance of prayer as action. As our week of focused prayer for the MDGs comes to a close, I have been reflecting on the last prayer of Jesus as he hung on the cross:
 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). This prayer was Jesus’ lamentation – the cry that prefaced the overthrow of sin forever. It was this act of lamentation that opened the way for God’s hope for a new humanity and God’s reign of justice in our world. Generations before this moment, the prophets too, lamented the actions of the people of Israel – a cry of grief at consistent injustice. God met these cries of injustice with the sending of Jesus. Emmanuel; God with us – justice to be embodied and displayed amongst us. Allow me to share a story from my own walk… read more

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