It aims to get 1000 girls sponsored by the International Day of the Girl on 11th October.

Wolrd Vision UK’s chief executive Tim Pilkington said: “Motivated by our faith, we stand with these girls. World Vision does not accept that they are second class citizens. We believe every girl has a God-given right to reach her full potential. Girls everywhere are standing up for their rights. They are breaking through barriers, raising their voices against violence, and setting themselves free.”

The sponsorships will be used to get girls into school, stop child marriage, provide sexual health services, tackle menstrual stigma and combat sexual violence and harassment.

World Vision staff will also mentor the girls through school and train teachers to support girls through education and provide schools with clean water and girl-friendly toilets (such as those given out in the picture above). 

The staff will also help mothers spot the signs of malnutrition and set up businesses.

Molly, the 10 year old daughter of Ruth Tormey who works on Christian engagement for World Vision told Premier: “Jesus said to love your neighbour as yourself. Your neighbour is not just the person that lives next to you, it’s everyone everywhere! Girls should be able to have clean water and go to school and not get forced to get married or go to work”. 

Ruth Tormey added: “We want to ensure that…

On Wednesday, the United Nations said Zimbabwe was facing its worst ever hunger crisis and revised its humanitarian appeal to step up food assistance to people most affected by drought, flooding, and economic stagnation.

Cyclone Idai struck the country in March, affecting around 570,000 Zimbabweans, as well as large parts of Mozambique and Malawi, wiping out villages and crops. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) say now that more than one-third of the rural population, or 3.6 million people, will be food insecure by October and by January the figure is expected to increase to 5.5 million during the inter-harvest season.

Most of Zimbabwe’s 60 districts will exhaust their maize stocks by October with the WFP needing $173 million to implement its response plan in the next nine months.

Aid charity CAFOD’s country representative for Zimbabwe, Verity Johnson, said: “Years of economic turmoil and climate change, as well as the recent Cyclone Idai, are pushing families to the brink of starvation. Last year’s harvests failed, largely due to extreme weather, ranging from droughts that lasted for months on end, to flooding which wiped out whole villages.

“The cost of food has also risen sharply and there are severe bread shortages across the country. Where it can be found, a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe now costs up to nine times more than it did a year ago. Parents are…

Alain Toledano Valiente is a leader in the Apostolic Movement, an unregistered Protestant denomination in Cuba. 

The pastor was summoned to a police station on Wednesday, where he was told by the station commander that if his church went ahead with a planned women’s event starting on Thursday, called Deborah 2019, he would be charged with the crime of disobedience and would risk imprisonment.

Toledano Valiente received the summons on his 25th wedding anniversary and was told to present himself to the police at 10am the next day.

He wrote on Facebook: “Today we are celebrating 25 years of marriage, my wife and I, and this is the gift of the Cuban government, a policeman at my door and a summons for tomorrow…In my 47 years in Cuba I have learned something, they never come at all good, there are always traps, threats, blackmail, etc. Let everyone know about this new threat to my freedom. I ask above all for your prayers, God cover our lives, and my family who was last threatened, shalom”

The pastor went to La Motorizada Unit 3 Police Station on Thursday and was interrogated for almost three hours by the unit commander.

Toledano Valiente said the church would go ahead with the two-day Deborah conference for Christian women and posted pictures of the event on social media. 

In July, Toledano Valiente was stopped by government agents and blocked from boarding…