MORE HOMILIES

For the Lenten Season, JCTR sent out over 350 copies of homily guidelines for the five Sundays of Lent. Translations were done in seven local languages, prepared by seminarians from St., Dominic’s. The homily guidelines -- notes relating to the Sunday readings, a suggested “sketch” and proposed prayers of the community -- treated topics such as corruption, political responsibility, reading signs of the times and new life/new hope.

This programme of preparing homilies is part of the JCTR’s Church’s Social Teaching Project, an effort to “promote faith and justice” in a practical way. From the evaluation sheets, we have learned of wide use of the notes in homilies, small Christian community discussions, youth groups, etc. Radio Yatsani reads the homilies each week, and the NATIONAL MIRROR prints them in a weekly column.

SEMINARY COURSES

Another dissemination of the church’s social teaching comes in the course that Pete Henriot team is currently teaching at St. Dominic’s Major Seminary with Fr. Joe Komakoma, head of Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace (CCJDP).

Pete also conducted a week’s workshop in early March for the seminarians at Emmaus Spiritual Centre, on the topic of “The Justice and Peace Dimension of Priestly Vocation.”

DEBT CONFERENCES

A lively Debt Forum was held on the evening of 19 February, with about 200 attendees, including the Minister of Finance and National Planning and some MPs. “Jubilee-Zambia Challenges the National Budget” was the topic, with strong emphasis that a pro-poor budget needs debt cancellation and debt cancellation that will benefit the poor requires accountability and transparency.

Jubilee-Zambia is sponsoring a signature petition campaign to lobby the government to put in place a “debt mechanism” to assure honest orientation of debt relief funds toward poverty eradication.” (Contact our office for copies to the petition to circulate!)

On 27 Feburary, Jubilee hosted a second Theological Conference with participants from Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ), Christian Council of Zambia (CCZ) and Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC). The topic was “Biblical Basis for the Call for Reparations.”

Reparations is a burning issue in the debt campaigns in the South Pastor Cholwe Mwetwa, Chingola Baptist Church, made the main presentation and provoked lively and substantive discussion. The report of the conference is available from the JCTR office.

BASIC NEEDS BASKET

The JCTR has been well known for many years for the monthly “Food Basket,” describing how much it costs to feed a family of six in Lusaka. Beginning in January 2002, the new survey includes improved nutritional standards for the food and a wider selection of items necessary for the well-being of family—e.g., housing, water, electricity, etc.

The “Basic Needs Basket” for February reached K823,510 -- realistic as true needs of the people but unreachable for civil servants who might take home less than half that amount! The new “Basic Needs Basket,” coordinated by Muweme Muweme has received wide-spread coverage in the media and stirred lively debate.

PARLIAMENT, BUDGET AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

On 25 February, Pete presented a paper on “Institutional and Socio-Economic Context of the Zambian Budget” to a seminar sponsored by Integrity Foundation Zambia and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Over 100 Parliamentarians from all parties attended the seminar on the national budgetary process. Pete’s paper emphasised the values and ethics dimensions of the budget, both in preparation and content.

RADIO PROGRAMMES

Beginning February, JCTR has been running programmes on its activities on Radio Yatsani. The first programmes featured the Economic and Social Development Project. This was followed by the Church's Social Teaching. Current the programme is featuring Jubilee Zambia which will be followed by the Inculturation Task Force, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) and the Integrity of Creation Task Force.

JCTR AUDIT

With all the talk about transparency and accountability, the JCTR opened its books to a first-ever audit during February. Our cooperating partners (donors) expect us to practise what we preach! So far things look OK....

Bulletin 51