The third “L” is for Lobbying…

“Justice” is mentioned over 2000 times in the Bible.  “Sin” is mentioned 900 times.  It is important to get our proportions to align with God’s.  We sometimes get our priorities wrong.

The dictionary defines this word as: “men of letters, the learned class”.  By the way, we make no claim to be “illuminati” – we are merely the “literati”.

The activists that C4L has trained over the past 20 years are change agents in their communities – they must address the causes, not just the symptoms.  This is essentially what Justice-ministry tries to do.  Biblically-speaking, there is a prophetic aspect to this ministry, which is one element in the programming mix at C4L.

Distributing food to the hungry is an “inferior good”. It is better to give them seed and tools to grow their own food. But that is pointless if their fields are land-mined, if their crops are watered by acid rain, and the marketplaces are flooded with free food-aid. We have to think – not only of emergencies and human development – but also of situation-analysis to help create optimal conditions for our target group.

Justice and Peace Ministry

Whether you call it “lobbying”  or “advocacy” or “public engagement”, it always involves “speaking truth to power”.

The first thrust of public engagement by C4L was the Childermas Letters, linking children and leaders with the theme: “Transforming leadership, so that children are safe.” These were annual letters circulated at the time of Childermas (between Christmas and New Years).

Through its monthly Bulletins, C4L has often tackled the Triumphalists who tried to entrench waste, graft and patronage as a-way-of-doing-business in South Africa.

In 2011, C4L also organized a poster campaign against the Mpumalanga Murders.

C4L then deployed its youth alumni at community level in awareness-raising projects – funded by donors.  For example on the themes of Human Trafficking and Body Parts Trafficking. 

C4L’s biggest volumes in this regard was training 1200 “green activists” in 2015 and 2016. Here is one example of the message that they are carrying to community level: https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2019/02/18/save-eskom-yourself-solar-chuck-stephens

Starting in 2017, C4L started to tackle the “War on Blessers” as it has been dubbed by the ex-Minister of Health. One sample of an article written about this topic is indicative: https://www.voices360.com/the-main-reasons-why-partial-decriminalization-is-best-for-south-africa

Voter Education

Before the 2019 elections in both South Africa and Canada, C4L launched a VOTER EDUCATION PROJECT.  Its focus was to get Youth to register to vote and to think about how to cast their vote.  A ballot like this is not just a privilege but a civic responsibiltiy and must be exercised with due attention and care.  Voting on auto-pilot is not a democratic ideal.

So we piloted a print-media magazine for youth called The WeighBridge.  It was aimed at first-time voters. There is now a WEGHBRIDGE READER of the four pilot issues.

Download Issues of The WeighBridge

Document Title	Size	Revision	Click here to open
Issue 2 Tweaking Democracy	734.00 kB	Feb 07, 2019	Issue 2 print ready version
Issue 4 read-easy version	1.35 MB	Jun 30, 2020	Issue 4 read-easy version
Issue 4 print-ready version	1.35 MB	Jun 30, 2020	Issue 4 print-ready version

Even before the Covid crisis caused government to tighten alcohol restrictions, C4L had been vocal in support of raising the drinking age from 18 to 21.  So many social evils stem from alcoholism that this is a good place to start.