Church leaders attend the channel of hope workshop

Archbishop of Tasmania the Most Rev. John Harrower sitting center at front row with Archbishop Vunagai, Bishops and other Parish leaders and other leaders of the Churchs' Ministries after the Channel of Hope workshop

THE PRIMATE and Bishops of ACOM, Parish leaders and other leaders of the Church’s’ Ministries attended a ‘Channels of Hope’ for gender orientation workshop organized and funded by World Vision Solomon Islands at the World Vision office in liaison with the Anglican Board of Mission Office.

Channels of Hope for Gender workshop is one of the advocacy initiatives that World Vision is using around the world to promote healthy family relationships.

The Workshop was facilitated by Pastor Marklyn Baldlo from Tanzania and Annie Kaseketi from Zambia, Africa alongside Tim Kostelo, the CEO of World Vision Australia, Su Bazzana of World Vision Australia and  the Archbishop of Tasmania the Most Rev. John Harrower.

At the workshop, the participants learned about how God ordered Male and Female relationships, explore personal attitudes and mindset that compromise God ideals governing gender relationships. The participants also learned how to recognize cultural  justification for Gender – based violence and a vision for transformed relationships as well as the implications of the new understanding for self, to family and for community.

At the opening of the workshop, The Most Rev. Harrower highlighted the importance of marriage as a relationship between Christ and the Church. Marriage is to be loving, generous, joyful, forgiving and growing.

He also highlighted that often we misinterpret the wonderful and liberating message of Love, and turn it into a heavy burden on victims when we insist on victims forgiving without the community confronting the violent perpetrator.

“We have put too little energy into condemning violence and holding offenders accountable on grounds where we have been silent when we should have spoken loudly;” Rt. Rev. Harrower said.

He encouraged the church to actively address gender violence by recognizing violence happens and talking about it in our church, condemning it as always wrong and distractive, believing and supporting victims, praying for those suffering abuse and for those who abuse, challenging offenders from all walks of life to change and then supporting and assisting them to change, participate in changing community attitudes.

Secretariat of the Pacific Community in their recent findings shows that 64-65% of women aged 15-49 reported physical and sexual violence from intimate partner.