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“The people we serve do not live in the spotlight.

Their plight often goes unnoticed. Finding the means to respond is hard.  

These are the unseen poor, living in the world’s hardest conditions. At the Lutheran World Federation we see people going hungry, fleeing violence, falling sick and having no means to help their loved ones get treatment.

Fortunately for them, ALWS does take notice.  

You turn every stone to ensure that suffering stops.

I have witnessed ALWS commitment first-hand in Burundi, a country where two thirds of the population simply do not have enough to eat. Many children will not grow to their potential, as they become stunted. 

I will never forget a lady called Jeanne who proudly held her two chickens, telling me that before your help she went years without having protein.  

Although she still had very little, each day she had two precious eggs.

Unlike others who follow where the media is, ALWS has stood by Burundi through thick and thin. Australian support has helped us enable thousands to put their trauma behind them and stand on their own two feet.  

In Burundi and beyond, our humanitarian workers benefit from ALWS training and their detailed monitoring.  They help us improve each year.  Having been unable to walk as a child, I am particularly grateful for ALWS training in dealing with people with disabilities. 

70 years later, the world IS a better place thanks to ALWS and the generosity of the people of Australia. Jeanne and her six children would agree. 

I mean this from my heart.”

Pablo Lo Moro
LWF Regional Program Co-ordinator
Burundi

“I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude towards ALWS for acting as a faithful partner with LWF here in Burundi.

With your support, we were able to empower and support vulnerable households in Ruyigi and Cankuzo, two of the poorest provinces in our country. Your support since 2009 is restoring hope, dignity and self-reliance for 2,052 families, with flow-on benefits to another 8,885 families.

We see immediate positive results, and credit all the successes to the invaluable supports you provide.

We hope to continue this program so we can allow each community member to achieve our Government’s motto: ‘Each mouth has food and each pocket has money’.”

Claudette Nzohabonimana
National Country Director
LWF Burundi 

“I have worked for LWF in Kakuma Refugee Camp for 21 years, and take great pride in the strides LWF has taken in empowering refugees in the camp, supported by ALWS.

Tailoring has been a favorite skills training for women in the camp due to their low literacy level. I am very much grateful to ALWS who has tirelessly walked with us to help hundreds of vulnerable women in the camp obtain tailoring skills.

It has been a great pleasure to see women who cannot read and write learn how to sew, sit for national exams and pass, make money from sewing and buy their own sewing machines.

Income from sewing has greatly improved their living standards.

They supplement their family food basket, buy basics and household assets for their household members, expand their shelters and most importantly support their children’s education”

Hilda Thuo
LWF Livelihoods Officer
Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

“On behalf of the Rohingya refugee community here in Cox’s Bazar, and the Bangladeshi host people, I would like to give sincerest thanks to ALWS on the continuous support you give through LWF and the RDRS family.

You have been most valuable as you bring love to life for these vulnerable people, especially as we struggle with massive movement restrictions due to COVID-19.

Through your support, more than 14,000 refugee and host community people are being supported with WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), Food Security and Reproductive Health.

Your support in planting tree saplings contributes to the cause of climate justice and creating a green refugee camp.

All of us extend our best wishes to ALWS and your supporters on your 70 years of service.”

Bhoj Raj Khanal
LWF Emergency Hub Coordinator
Asia & the Pacific

“Congratulations ALWS on reaching your 70^th anniversary.

What an inspiration you have been to the Lutheran congregations, schools and community groups affiliated with your aid and development programs, and what a blessing you have been to the thousands of people you have reached out to with practical support, in the spirit of Christian love.

Lutheran values are woven into the history of my community in Mayo where we have more than 20 Lutheran congregations and six Lutheran schools.

As the Member for Mayo and as a Lutheran school mum I have been proud to be involved in ALWS events and fundraisers.

Rebekha Sharkie MP
Federal Member for Mayo

“The ALWS mission to assist refugees, displaced people, support settlement and engage with a changing world with people affected by crisis is a story of thinking and acting locally and globally.

It is a fantastic endeavour by successive generations of the Lutheran community to support refugees and displaced people in many parts of the globe, and then make the connections back to settlement and building communities in Australia.

In 1967, ALWS joined what has become the Australian Council for International Development – ACFID, and has remained an active member since.

ALWS supports the work of the wider international development sector through their longstanding involvement in ACFID networks and committees.

This serves to continually strengthen and improve the work of the broader Australian development community and we are grateful to them for this.” 

Marc Purcell
Chief Executive Officer
ACFID

“ALWS joined the Australian NGO Cooperation Program in 1999, and over the years has been a valued partner to the Australian Government’s efforts to reduce poverty and create prosperity and stability in our region and globally.

ALWS responded to the call for our partners to confront the COVID-19 scourge, rapidly pivoting six of their ANCP programs, reaching over 90,000 people with health and hygiene information, water and sanitation.

ALWS works in some of the hardest places on earth, targeting their assistance to the most vulnerable.

On behalf of DFAT I would like to congratulate ALWS on 70 years and look forward to working together into the future.”

Jon Burrough
Director
NGO Program and Partnerships Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

“As the local Federal MP representing communities where the ALWS had its origins, it is a privilege to note this important anniversary.    

While 2020 is like no other year, it does demonstrate the enormous value of the Service’s existing roots in many of the world’s developing nations, with part of our government’s NGO Cooperation Program funding now being diverted to help curb the local spread of Covid-19.

When a previous crisis saw the need to relocate homeless and displaced citizens from battle-weary Europe after World War II, the Lutheran Church was here in my home town of Albury, at the ready to help resettle refugees and migrants arriving at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp.   

There can be little doubt the love and assistance so many of them received helped turn Australia into the wonderful multicultural and peaceful democracy we are now.

For this we owe ALWS our thanks for the vital role played on home soil, just as significant as the ongoing service it provides across the globe every day.”

The Hon Sussan Ley MP
Federal Member for Farrer

“The LLL is blessed to have partnered ALWS in a variety of ways during your 70 year history.

Whether supporting the ALWS community education Awareness Program in Lutheran schools, or sponsoring Walk My Way, or helping fund community development work in Indonesia, LLL sees the great value of working together in partnership.  

This partnership extends to LLL savings account holders and supporters who make this support possible for ALWS. We thank and praise God for each and every one of them.

We look forward to assisting and working with the ALWS into the future.”

Allen Kupke
Chief Executive Office
Lutheran Laypeople’s League

“In this 70^th Anniversary, ALWS is celebrating our Lutheran Church’s tradition of being “focused outward” to the needs of others, something which has actually been our DNA from our beginnings in Australia.

I thank God for the people of ALWS who work to keep our eyes “focused outward”. ALWS helps us see more clearly our neighbours in faraway places who need us to share with them some of the abundance that the Lord has given us.”

Bishop Paul Smith
LCA Queensland