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and Leadership Formation. Children and youth are often drawn to gangs who engage in drug trafficking as it is among the few means of livelihood. “There is a high youth population in these neighborhoods that have been involved with armed gangs that dominate the drug trade.” In 2011, Alpha and Omega Baptist Church, one of Buenaventura’s five Baptist congregations that are affiliated with the Colombian Baptist Convention, opened a mission center to work with children and youth. The center has so far worked with more than 80 children and 40 youth to empower them “to be peace leaders and promote evangelistic and sports activities as alternatives to the armed gangs,” stated Moreno. Additionally, “We expect to train 20 youth leaders to work with the community in peacebuilding, conflict resolution and leadership through peacebuilding and conflict resolution workshops, [and] urban gardening to increase food security.” There is a special focus on women. “We will involve an equal number of women in the leadership training process,” declared Moreno. “The result will be an increased recognition of the role of the women in the community, in particular through their leadership in the urban gardening project, increasing food security for their community.” Young people will be encouraged to “continue their education and generate an alternative vision for their life.” The overall aim

A mission center to work with children and youth . . . to empower them to be peace leaders and promote evangelistic and sports activities as alternatives to the armed gangs.

Left & right: Peacebuilding activities with children and youth in the communities of New Dawn and Glory in Buenaventura sponsored by Baptists

is to “lead to improvement in the capacity of the youth to choose not to join armed gangs and to promote a culture of peace and peaceful conflict resolution in the community.” A BWA delegation visited the cities of Bogota, Cali and Buenaventura in Colombia in June 2013 to observe the peace work of Protestant and evangelical churches in the country, and to explore ways to support this work. Among the needs identified by a group of Baptist pastors in Buenaventura that met with the BWA delegation were hunger and poverty relief, employment, income generation alternatives to the drug trade, places of refuge, education, therapy for trauma and the empowerment of city residents.

CBM. In another, the Ethiopian Borena Zone Water Program, CBF, working with a network of partners, constructed 27 wells in Miyo District. BWAid contributed to the project through CBF. In the case of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011,

BWAid collaborated with the Lebanese Society for Education and Promotion of Social Development and with the Jordanian Evangelical Committee for Relief and Development in providing relief for refugees. In response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, BWAid partnered with

the Brothers’ Brother Foundation and Baylor Scott and White Medical in delivering three shipments of medical equipment supplies and medicines to Sierra Leone and Liberia, and with Kids against Hunger and Packaway Hunger to deliver five shipments

of 1.3 million pre-packaged meals to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. In fulfilling its mission, BWAid draws on the full support of

the services offered by the BWA such as finance and accounting, promotion and fundraising, and communications. “Through BWAid, Baptists working together in BWA

are fulfilling one of the organization’s strategic priorities to collaborate with Baptists worldwide, ‘to respond through relief and sustainable community development,’” said BWA General Secretary Neville Callam. “I expect that BWA will remain faithful to the mission the Holy Spirit inspired it to commence some 95 years ago,” he added.

worldwide to respond through relief and sustainable community development. JULY/SEPTEMBER 2015

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