Chairperson:

Heddys Stevenson

The Outreach committee is responsible for:

• Educating our members about what the United Church is doing in other countries; who is working overseas, and who our overseas partners are.
• Educating ourselves and others about any justice issues that might rise.
• Passing on any urgent appeals for help from conference or National.
• Keeping abreast of what is happening in our community and other areas in Canada.
• Raising awareness of Mission & Service.

Our committee covers a wide range of issues from Outreach to Church in Society and Stewardship. We presently have a committee of 6, and meet an hour before the Presbytery meeting; other times if required. We tend to pick one topic a year and work with that as our portfolio is large and our time on the floor small.

Karen & Bill Butt's schedule:

Oct 13 - Rydal Bank 7pm

Oct 14 - Goulais United 6pm pot luck

Oct 15 - Grace United 5:50 pot luck

Oct 17 - Iron Bridge United 11am service

Oct 18 - St Andrews United 6pm pot luck

Biography

Karen and Bill Butt

As overseas personnel, during their initial three-year term, Karen was a consultant to the CCM’s Girls Rehabilitation Centre, a home for 30 girls, ages five to 13, whose parents were dead or missing as a result of Mozambique’s long civil war, which ended in 1993. She helped to care for them, teach them, and plan and operate program activities there, as well as share those methods with other rehabilitation centres in the country.

Bill was a communications consultant to the CCM. He gathered and reported information about CCM for the CCM magazine, which he helped to edit and produce. As well, he helped to coordinate relations between the CCM and its many partners and related agencies worldwide.

For their second and third terms with the CCM, the Butts have been assigned to Quelimane, capital of the province of Zambezia, in the centre-north of Mozambique.

Karen helped to found, and continues to work in, a program called PEDRA, the Portuguese acronym for Program for Girls’ Education. PEDRA’s mission is to develop in girls of Zambezia the ability and motivation to learn, encourage them to continue in school, avoid HIV/AIDS, and develop the talents given to them by God, so that they can grow and become creative and independent women, better able to contribute to their communities. EDRA is an interactive program using many different activities including theatre, music, video, art, crafts, Bible study, and educational games. It also participates in activism for children’s rights, gender equality, and against HIV/AIDS. There are 10 PEDRA centres, all but two of them in rural areas, with about 500 girls currently enrolled. As well, about 100 PEDRA girls receive bursaries to allow them to continue in school.

Bill, as communications consultant, has various roles including training young people in various communication fields (internet, video, journalism, proposal and report preparation, and project management), and helping the Christian Council to report on its activities. He is a founder and Artistic Director of Studio Avestruz, a music and video production facility of the Christian Council in Quelimane, which produces material by, for, and about young people in Zambezia, concerning the issues that most affect their lives, including HIV/AIDS, violence, crime, unemployment, and maintaining faith in difficult circumstances. Its CDs and DVDs are distributed in Mozambique via television and radio, and exhibited in schools, churches, and public places in rural and urban settings.