Our Vision: ABM wants to see people everywhere experience the wholeness of life God offers in Jesus Christ, and supports our partners as they participate in God's mission.
COVID-19 Global Emergency Response
Wed 01 Apr 2020
ABM has launched a global emergency appeal in
response to COVID-19.
ABM is helping to equip partners with the resources they need to help communities during this crisis, both in Australia and around the world. We will continue to keep you informed about developments, and how together we can face this crisis.
By late April 2020, the COVID-19 had infected more than 3,000,000 people around the world and killed more than 200,000. In most developing countries, the nightmare is only just beginning. Widespread lockdowns have taken away precarious livelihoods, and informal markets are drying up. Many are living in cramped conditions with no tap water – perfect conditions for a virus to spread. Those who fall to COVID-19 may not even be able to find a hospital bed, let alone a well-equipped hospital. To escape cramped urban conditions, many are returning to their home villages, but it is likely some are taking the virus with them.
In this time of turmoil, ABM and our supporters stand in solidarity with our church partners and the many millions in developing countries who face this approaching peril.
During these uncertain times, and as we seek to understand and as we feel the impact of COVID-19 ourselves here in Australia, ABM continues to be in contact with our Overseas Partners to assess and respond to this crisis. Partners are working hard on information campaigns including the distribution of handwashing and hygiene kits to prevent COVID-19’s spread. We anticipate the loss of livelihoods and lack of basic services in many of the communities where we work.
Key responses to the pandemic from ABM’s partners include:
- In Myanmar, the Church in the Province of Myanmar (CPM) is forming and training village health committees, raising awareness of COVID-19 based on government health messaging, and providing basic health and hygiene items such as soap, masks and thermometers.
- In the Philippines, strict government lockdowns continue. Once the lockdowns are eased, E-CARE will engage in COVID-19 awareness-raising, and assisting people to move into alternative livelihoods where these have been curtailed by the pandemic. ABM’s other Philippines partner, IFI-VIMROD is using mobile phones to relay basic primary health-care messages to their staff in the communities who are passing these on to community members. IFI-VIMROD is also looking to work with local government (Baragays) to provide rice to families unable to go out and buy it in the markets.
- In Kenya,Anglican Development Services Eastern are reprinting and distributing government COVID-19 health information leaflets, and training communities to erect simple handwashing “leaky kits” in key locations.
- In Zambia, ZACOP is integrating health messaging into its gender equalilty and gender-based violence awareness-raising.
- In Papua New Guinea, Anglicare and the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea have procured personal protective equipment to enable them to continue to operate their clinics safely, and are planning to introduce COVID-19-related health education into the Anglican schools. Children, in turn, are able to inform their families.
- In Vanuatu, the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM) is circulating government-approved messaging via phone and Facebook to community contact points (including water and sanitation committees) across Torba and Sanma provinces. ACOM is also reproducing government brochures for community distribution.
ABM seeks your support so that together we can support our partners to help those less fortunate who lack resources to combat this disease.
It is a challenging time for all of us, but we want you to know that we are here for you with love and faith as always. Thank you again for being a part of our community.
Please note that all donations are tax deductible.
Image: CPM development project staff distributing COVID-19 prevention posters and hygiene kits in a Hpa-an village, Myanmar. © Anglican Church in the Province of Myanmar (CPM).
DECEMBER 2020 UPDATE -
ABM’S GLOBAL REACH ENABLES A GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19
Your donations are helping ABM to fight COVID-19 across the globe. Awareness-raising, distribution of protective equipment, alternative income support for workers displaced by COVID-19, food relief and hygiene kits: these are all helping families to stand firm as the winds of COVID-19 swirl around them.
HOW TO DONATE
Online: You can donate online to the COVID-19 Emergency Appeal here
or by clicking the button below: 
Mail: You can enclose a cheque/money order (made out to the Anglican Board of Mission - Australia) and send it to:
Anglican Board of Mission – Australia
Locked Bag Q4005
Queen Victoria Building NSW 1230
Telephone: Sydney 02 9264 1021, Local Call 1300 302 663
Email: info@abmission.org.au
(Please don’t forget to write down the Code CO001EX and/or the campaign name COVID-19 Global Emergency Response and include it with your donation.)
- Alternatively, you can phone 1300 302663, Sydney 02 9264 1021 or email us at info@abmission.org.au
- ABM advises that there are administrative expenses for receiving and receipting donations for its international appeals. Final costs can only be totalled after the appeal has concluded. However, in previous emergency appeals, ABM contained administrative costs to 10% or less of total funds received.
Gifts/donations to ABM will be applied to the support of project selected. In the unlikely event of this emergency response project being oversubscribed or not proceeding to completion, donations will be directed to ABM's Global Emergency Rapid Response Fund or ABM’s Global Disaster Risk Reduction Fund. These funds are similar in that they enable ABM to provide timely relief during an emergency, and help ABM’s partners to be better able to respond to disasters when they occur.
