NEWS & VIEWS

Visit of Dr and Mrs Jide and Pat Puddicombe to Halton Guild

On Tuesday 3rd January Dr Jide and Mrs Pat Puddicombe visited the Wesley Guild at Christ Church, Halton, Leeds. Jide is a GP in Lagos and Medical Advisor to Methodist Church Nigeria. He chairs their Medical Board which oversees the health work of the church and is very active in working with NHCP. The Puddicombes enjoyed a storytelling evening at the Guild, where six of our Trustees are members.

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More progress at Royal Cross

The maternity building almost completed; the doors, windows and tiles have been fixed	The new laboratory building at lintel level
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Thanks to the generosity of a local donor, the new maternity unit at Royal Cross Hospital at Ugwueke is almost complete. The hospital has also received a substantial donation of equipment funded by the Methodist Church in Britain.

The Nigeria Health Care project has given money which will be used to help complete the laboratory. Chief Paul Okorie, the hospital administrator reports that patients have to go all the way to Umuahia for lab tests. A functioning laboratory at the hospital will be another major step forward for patient care at Royal Cross.

Ros Colwill Receives World Methodist Peace Award

For her courage in advocating for those marginalized by society, her creativity with which her vision has brought a level of mental health care in Nigeria, and her consistency in persevering in spite of the difficulties and challenges, Ros received the World Methodist Peace Award at the World Methodist Conference in Durban, South Africa in August 2011. This Award is presented to individuals and/or groups whose work and ministry has contributed to peace, justice and reconciliation. Previous recipients of the World Methodist Peace Award include Lord Donald Soper from the United Kingdom and  Nelson Mandela from South Africa.

Peter Grubb, Chair of NHCP writes: "The vision of Ros Colwill to create a safe place for the treatment of people with mental illness has probably exceeded even her dream. Her charisma and commitment has captivated many people in Eastern Nigeria and as a result thousands have been saved from a life of degradation and an early death to be restored to sound mental health and their families to be able to serve a useful and fulfilling life in their own communities. Her work has encouraged nearby state authorities to train staff and fund services for the mentally ill throught a wide area of Eastern Nigeria. Well done Ros."

Nigerian legislators pass the National Health Bill

On May 19 2011, the Nigerian National Assembly passed the National Health Bill into law. The bill aims to provide all Nigerians with a basic minimum package of health care. The bill should improve access to health care, particularly primary health care, with an emphasis on maternal and child health. We pray that this radical and far-reaching legislation, which does include provision for major increases in funding, will help to transform the health of the Nigerian people.
NHCP looks forward to continue to support projects in Nigeria which help to meet the health needs of some of the most needy people in the country.

From the 2011 AGM

We had a very successful AGM on the theme of ‘Learning in Partnership’. Cath Butterfield, who works for the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) outlined the work of that organization – particularly the development of links between organisations in this country and health projects in Africa.

NHCP supports the mental health project at Edawu, which has a THET-registered link with the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. We hope to find a similar link for the mental health project at Agboke. Paula Dawson, one of our Trustees, plans to apply for an International Health Links Funding Scheme start-up grant for a link between Nottingham and the new Nursing School at Royal Cross Hospital, Ugwueke in Abia State.

Cath had previously worked with Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) and also spoke about their work on behalf of Shane Godbolt the Director of Phi. Phi, like NHCP, was founded in 1992. Phi has expanded from its original work of setting up support for libraries in the developing world to a much wider brief of enabling better access to appropriate and accurate health information, always working in partnership with others. There is a Nigerian chapter of AHILA (the Association of Health Information and Libraries in Africa) and we hope to forge a partnership with them and Phi to improve the access to health information at Ebenta School of Health Technology and at the neighbouring Bethesda Hospital in Benue State.

Caroline Todd-Earlam who works with The Amaudo Training Unit (TATU) linked to Amaudo-UK is a regular attender at our AGMs as we work closely with Amaudo-UK. This year she was able to share with us the excellent training programmes that they have developed. She emphasized how to overcome the constraints of different learning styles and, often, no electricity to enable learning about mental health which is both appropriate and effective. We all took part in a ‘hearing voices’ exercise which gave us some insight into how people feel when they are psychotic. We look forward to working closely with Caroline and her colleague Kate Lumley on training initiatives.

The idea of a themed AGM appears to have worked well. Mark your diary for 12 noon on 12th June 2012 at Christ Church Halton for the next one.

Changes of Trustees

At the AGM in June 2011 we said farewell to two of our Trustees.
Jack Liversidge has been associated with the Project from the beginning and has been a great asset to the team. He was unable to attend the AGM but wished us all well. His words of encouragement and his attention to detail have been most welcome.
Dr Abayomi Sobo was able to join us at the AGM and say goodbye in person. He is a retired and very experienced physician with many contacts in Nigeria. His ‘local’ knowledge and insight has been very helpful over the many years of his involvement with NHCP.
We wish them both well and hope to see them at next year’s AGM.

We were also able to welcome two new Trustees.

David Laycock was, until recently, a Lay Worker in Leeds and has a lot of experience working in the charitable sector. He is a Methodist local preacher. He was previously a civil servant with the Benefits Agency.

Mrs Susan Solanke is chair of the Nigeria Fellowship at Westminster Central Hall in London and is a very regular visitor to Lagos, where she worships at Ereko Methodist Church. She has close links with members of the Nigerian community in London.

We welcome them both to NHCP and are sure that they will bring their many skills and talents to the Trusteeship.

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Trustees' Away Day, Willersley Castle, Derbyshire, March 2011

NHCP Trustees met on 18th March 2011 to review the progress of the charity and plan for the future. We were blessed to be joined by Dr Olubunmi Olayisade, Africa Secretary for the World Church Office of the UK Methodist Church, who facilitated the day, and Deaconess Ronke Oworu, Health Secretary of Methodist Church Nigeria. Outcomes from the day were to:

• make closer links with the Nigerian diaspora in the UK
• define principles to help us in making decisions about funding
• consider changing the organisational structure of NHCP
• develop an information pack for churches and other interested parties which can also be downloaded from the website
• reform the AGM so that there is time for themed presentations as well as routine business

Further work on these outcomes was done by the Trustees on 29th March.

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January 2011

Change of Coordinator

From 1st January 2011, Peter Grubb hands on the Coordinator’s role to Dr David Cundall. Here they are, taking a moment’s relaxation during the 2010 visit to Nigeria. Peter (left) has been the ‘leading light’ of the Nigeria Health Care Project from its beginning in 1992 and we are delighted that he will continue as Chair of the project. David (right) is a community paediatrician from Leeds who has links with Nigeria.

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New Health and Medical Secretary Appointed - February 2009

We are pleased to report that Deaconess Ronke Oworu is the newly appointed Health and Medical Secretary, Methodist Church Nigeria. She took over from the Very Revd Okon Ekerendu. She is a member of the Conference Medical Board and worked closely with Okon on health matters. Ronke is a registered psychiatric nurse and also a registered nurse with over 25 years experience working in both fields of psychiatry and general practice. She is a Deaconess by calling and started work with Methodist Church Nigeria as the Project Development Officer Women’s Work in 2003 where she worked for five years, sending reports annually to the World Church Office African desk of the Methodist Church in Britain. She has been a member of the medical board for two years, during which time she was involved in drafting the health policy for the church which was accepted at the last conference. We look forward to working with Ronke and meeting her on our next visit.

Ros Colwill

Ros has returned to Umuahia and is developing a spiritual direction and retreat centre. The permanent site for Ozuzu-Oke (which means wholeness in the Igbo language) was dedicated by the Prelate of Methodist Church Nigeria Rt Rev Dr Sunday Ola Makinde GPJ on 17th January 2011

How our Support for Health Care is seen by the Nigerians

Often as we travel around Nigeria people will say to us, "You are like the Macedonians to us." To help us understand the passage from Corinthians, from which this image comes, the Revd Howard Smith has contributed the following:

The Macedonian Way of Giving

"We must tell you, friends, about the grace of generosity which God has imparted to our congregations in Macedonia. The troubles they have been through have tried them hard, yet in all this they have been so exuberantly happy that from the depths of their poverty they have shown themselves lavishly open-handed. Going to the limit of their resources, as I can testify, and even beyond that limit, they begged us most insistently, and on their own initiative, to be allowed to share in this generous service to their fellow Christians. And their giving surpassed our expectations; for they gave their very selves, offering them in the first instance to the Lord, but also, under God, to us. The upshot is that we have asked Titus, who began it all, to bring this work of generosity to completion. You are so rich in everything-in faith, speech, knowledge, zeal of every kind, as well as in the loving regard you have for us—surely you should show yourselves equally lavish in this generous service! This is not meant as an order; by telling you how keen others are I am putting your love to the test. For you know how generous our Lord has been: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:1-9)

Paul is overjoyed to cite the Macedonian Christians, despite "the troubles they have been through", as an example of what true giving is all about.

• Giving generously does not just refer to the amount that is donated, but to the manner of the giving, the spirit in which the gift is made. (Remember in all of this the incident with Jesus in the Temple when he refers to the widow making her contribution out of a spirit of deep devotion.) The Macedonians obviously wanted to share in the work of aiding other struggling congregations. Their struggles had taught them a lot about faith and trust, about the activity of God's grace in their lives. Their love had been formed through those struggles and now they wanted to express their faith, to be a part of the work of aiding others who were facing difficult times. Their giving was not a matter of economics; it was an outpouring of gratitude for what they had experienced through their own sufferings.

• It followed that their giving was not cool and calculated, but almost, one might say, foolish. They did not measure their giving by what they could afford, but by the measure of their own exuberant happiness in what they had already received, which was beyond any calculation. So their giving was without limit; it was lavishly open-handed. What a picture that provides: not a hand counting out the coins in a calculating way, but a hand from which falls every last penny in an outpouring of generosity and thankfulness of spirit; a foolish way to give, for it could leave one bankrupt—yet how can one be bankrupt, say the Macedonians, when one has been given so much.

• The Macedonian way of giving was not to give according to what they could afford but according to the need that was presented. Having been through the struggle themselves—and presumably still going through it—they understood the experiences of their fellow-Christians. They had, to use a contemporary metaphor, walked in their neighbours' shoes and felt where they pinched. They weren't looking from the outside dispassionately: they were participating imaginatively and passionately in the struggles of their fellows. Of course, it isn't easy to enter into the experiences of others, when our circumstances are so different; yet if we listen attentively, imaginatively, and with our hearts attuned to them, we can catch some word that will echo in our own hearts and bring us into their lives with compassion.

• So their giving was not simply of money, but of themselves; their giving was an expression of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Christ. It was for them an act of communion, of breaking the bread of their lives to share with others, as Christ's life had been broken for them. They felt themselves to be part of that Body of which Paul speaks a good deal in his letter to the Romans and will have spoken and written about to his many other congregations. The Body was a reality for them: they were part of an organism, not just an organisation. They felt for those others who were part of the Body with them and who were experiencing suffering. So it was as integral members of that Body that they gave themselves, sharing the pain, through an act of solidarity expressed in the generosity of their financial giving.

• The Macedonian way of giving was not just to respond to any pestering for money that they received. It was not a response to financial appeals: it was far more fundamental than that. They gave in response to what they deeply and firmly believed, namely the extreme generosity of the life of Jesus. They knew "how generous our Lord Jesus Christ has been"; they knew that when they were poor in spirit, disregarded, ignored, treated as of no consequence, there had come into their lives a Spirit of Love manifested in the life of Jesus the Christ which had transformed their lives and enriched them beyond measure, so that now they knew themselves to be of great worth in the sight of God. This had happened because Jesus had made himself poor, a slave put to death on a cross, in order that they should know the Love of God, which was their true inheritance. It was out of this overwhelming knowledge that they now felt that inner compulsion to give of themselves and all that they had, without reserve, to assist others in need.

• So, one might conclude by saying that the Macedonian way of giving was an Act of God—an expression so often associated with disasters, but here quite clearly belonging to an act of collective human heroism! Paul begins this section of his letter by saying just that, that this is an act of God: "We must tell you, friends, about the grace of generosity which God has imparted to our congregations in Macedonia." What the Macedonians were doing was an act of God, for this is the way that God always acts in the world-through people, through ordinary men and women, whom he empowers to love, to care, to live and to give of themselves generously to one another in an act of communion, in and through which God offers himself in Christ so lavishly and openhandedly to us.

What better way to live and to give than the Macedonian Way!

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