Fiona Beevers, a member of Bradford Cathedral, has just been repatriated from Khartoum where she has been working as head teacher of an international school.
Formerly Deputy Director of Education for the Diocese of Leeds, Fiona witnessed a growing crisis affecting daily life of ordinary people, with high inflation and food shortages, and now the coronavirus.
You can listen in or ask questions as she chats with Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Revd Toby Howarth in a live Zoom webinar on Monday, May 25 at 4pm.
For details on how to register, please email communications@leeds.anglican.org in advance.
Fiona has been a member of our diocesan Sudan Working Group for many years, and helped write a school world education pack on Sudan whilst working with our Diocesan Education team.
She has seen life for our partner church in Sudan getting more and more difficult. The World Food Program says that last year up to 60% of families were estimated to be unable to afford 'the local food basket'. Last month the inflation rate touched 100% with the price of basic food commodities rocketing.
The nation is now in lockdown due to the appearance of Covid-19, ramping up the difficulties, adding to the stresses on livelihood. Transport has been stopped making it impossible to commute, and street trader have been cleared.
The Church in Sudan is centred on the poorest in Sudanese society, people in insecure work who rely heavily on daily wages. Fiona has seen some of the effects of this first hand and can describe how these events are impacting real people. With growing international concern about what is happening in Sudan, an appeal is being put togerther to provide the Church in Sudan with grant funding, so that when the people are in great need, then our brothers and sisters should have something in their hand that they can share, as a blessing.
Archbishop Ezekiel of Sudan wrote to us saying “What is needed most is food items for the most affected people - those who work in day to day jobs. Because of the current situation, they are unable to go out from their homes, and therefore have no income to feed their family, particularly the women who sell tea in streets. Each of our five dioceses have been asked to submit a proposal to the Province identifying the number of people most in need and the committee which will be responsible for distribution.”