A message from Canon Ian Woodward, Chairman of our Salisbury Sudans Partnership
May I welcome you to this first and introductory edition of our Salisbury -Sudans Partnership website. We are to some extent finding our feet and I’m grateful to members of our Sudans partnership committee for their initiatives and commitment in putting this together. We still have much to learn about creating and sustaining interest about our work embracing the range of our activities in education, humanitarian aid and development in the Sudans and our fund-raising activities and how you can help sustain and grow our partnership link through our health, and advocacy efforts to help bring peace. We are amongst the most active diocesan partnerships in Church of England-some 40 or so. Most have a partnership link with another diocese in the world-wide Anglican Communion, though the diocese of Salisbury’s relationships are somewhat wider ranging than most with our association embracing two provinces – Sudan and South Sudan and comprising over 70 dioceses.
Not all of these dioceses have close active relationships with Salisbury – that would be a monumental challenge, but there is an awareness of the relationships we all share since we came together in the decennial Lambeth conference most recently held in Canterbury in 2022. In our diocese we have 19 deaneries and 15 of them have parishes with active links with the Sudan dioceses. We will be reporting regularly on their activities including making visits to parishes in the Sudans when the security situation allows - strengthens the bonds we make and share, and constantly hold the Episcopal churches in our prayers the foundation of our partnership.
A unique feature of our partnership is our Medical Link mainly in Western Equatoria province in South Sudan which supports parish-based health care clinics with the supply of basic medications and has growing expertise in neo-natal care. This is especially important as the Sudans have amongst the highest umbers neonatal deaths – one in four babies and one in six mothers.
We will welcome contributions from across our diocese and updates on what our deaneries and parishes and their individual links in the Sudans are up to.
We are grateful that Bishop Stephen takes a keen and very supportive interest in our partnership he will be contributing to future editions of our web-site.
Do look out for our next edition and thank you for your prayers.
