Living Letters visit to Mozambique
23 to 28 July 2009 Read more about the visit
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Rev. José Alberto Moiane (first row, center), president of the Christian Council of Mozambique, holds a dove made of parts of firearms collected by the Transforming Guns into Hoes programme. A gift to the WCC Decade to Overcome Violence through the Living Letters team, the dove represents the commitment to peacemaking of Mozambican Christians.
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"Transforming Guns into Hoes is a programme focused on transformation", Rev. Dinis Matsolo, general secretary of the Christian Council of Mozambique explains to members of a WCC Living Letters team at the spot where an unexploded bomb from the civil war was discovered.
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According to one estimate, some 10 million firearms were put in the hands of Mozambicans during nearly three decades of war. After the signature of the 1992 peace agreement, many weapons were not handed over but rather buried and hidden.
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WCC Living Letters team leader Dr David Valente (right), the general secretary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal, watches a technician preparing a controlled explosion to destroy weapons.
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Rev. Dinis Matsolo, general secretary of the Christian Council of Mozambique, explains to journalists why Christians are involved in collecting and destroying weapons.
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Transforming Guns into Hoes (TAE) staff Luis Nicolau (left) talks with Living Letters team member Anja Michel (right), a theology student from the Reformed Churches of Bern-Jura-Solothurn, Switzerland. TAE collected some 18,000 guns and devices in 2008.
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Armando Chauque, a local community leader, told the Living Letters team the village was receiving construction materials to build badly needed classrooms for the local school.
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WCC Living Letters team member Marilia Schüller, adviser to the Ecumenical and Social Networks programme of Koinonia, a Brazilian ecumenical NGO, in conversation with Boaventura Zita, coordinator of the Transforming Guns into Hoes programme.
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The smoke of a controlled explosion to destroy weapons carried out by Transforming Guns into Hoes – and observed by the Living Letters team from a safe distance.
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The crater marks the place where the controlled explosion took place. The bomb, guns and ammunition are gone. The piece of land can now be farmed safely.
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Sometimes the weapons collected within the Transforming Guns into Hoes programme are not just destroyed, but become raw material for art works. This aspect of the programme has involved several artists over the past years.
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Mozambican artist Cristovao "Kester" Estevao is working on a peace monument located on the waterfront of Maputo Bay. It features a huge earth globe and a dove fully made of parts of firearms handed over within the Transforming Guns into Hoes programme.
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WCC Living Letters team with the outgoing and incoming general secretaries of the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM) and a Mozambican artist. From left to right: Anja Michel, a theology student from the Reformed Churches of Bern-Jura-Solothurn, Switzerland; Dr David Valente, the general secretary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Portugal; Rev. Dinis Matsolo, CCM general secretary; Marilia Schüller, adviser to the Ecumenical and Social Networks programme of Koinonia, a Brazilian ecumenical NGO; artist Cristovao "Kester" Estevao; and Rev. Marcos Makama, CCM general secretary-elect.
All photos © Juan Michel/WCC
These photos can be used free of charge to illustrate articles about the Living Letters visit or the ecumenical movement in general.
