The plan is focused on the work that the church, through the SACC, will do directly as its public witness against corruption in general and COVID19 corruption in particular. This work is built on the theme: Anchoring Democracy in the SACC Civil Society Manifesto. At the core of what we do is the elevation of values that we stand for as the church, which we believe are shared by the
majority of South Africans. These values, which are to be a building block of a value driven society, are undermines by the ever deepening scourge of corruption. COVID19 corruption has revealed to us in stark terms the reality that corruption is eating away at the soul and character of this nation. We refuse to pass on to the next generation the heritage of corruption. We ARE
NOT CORRUPTION as this nation. The majority of our people are not corrupt.
We refuse to be defined by corruption.
1. National Ecumenical Prayer of Lament and Protest Against
Corruption.
This is to be a service where we call on the nation to a moment of deep reflection and lament on the presence and depth of corruption in our country. The service is to be held in a Zoom setting where member churches will be invited to attend, especially church leaders. We have a Zoom capacity of 500 seated people that we can use to get all our Leaders and guest to
attend in the Zoom room. We then live stream the service on Face Book through the SACC FB and get commitments from member churches that they will also connect to the live stream through their own social media platforms to reach our people as far as possible. Encouraging those who can host watch parties to do so. This is to use our own reach as churches to reach our people with this important message. We can then invite the media to partner with us even to broadcast the event but we will not depend on their own restrictions. Perhaps they can also livestream it in their own platforms. The service is to be ecumenical in character and expression. The diversity of our member churches is to be reflected in the way the service is structured. The service will have the traditional elements of a liturgical service with the sermon to be delivered as the key message. We suggest that the sermon be amplified by calls made by other church leaders, for example make a call for Honest Leaving, make a Call for Transparency in public institutions, Make a call for accountability in all our institutions, call for probity on those who will be entrusted with public life, make a call for courage in these difficult times, etc. we can even end with something like the 10 commitments we can develop to fight corruption, making use of the biblical metaphor of ten commandments, that we can use for our people, churches and society.
The service can be surrounded by a period of reflection and prayer. This can be done starting on Monday 24 August leading up to Sunday 30 August. If this works well, we can do it for the rest of September. This can be done by asking Church Leaders to record a two-minute video that will be sent to the SACC for Face Book posting in our Face Book page. We request that in the video the leader in the first minute share a brief reflection on the issue of COVID19 corruption and then spend the second minute in prayer. These would be used as a build up to the service and continued after pending its effectiveness. We propose a production of a three-minute max video clip that carries the key message on COVID19 corruption. The clip can be anchored on Lizali’Idinga Lakho, and perhaps have two church Leaders recorded on video raising the voice and concerns of the church on the matter. This will be accompanied by visual images on the cost of corruption and perhaps end the clip with the calls that we make to Society. This clip can be launched during the service and through that made available on FB for downloads and sharing beyond the service.
The service will launch the work we do as the SACC on the Anti COVID19 corruption campaign.
The Service to be held on Sunday 30 August. At 12:00-14:00
2. Silent Protest Campaign by Church Leaders
Church Leaders are called to participate in a national day of silent protest in key places of accountability in the country. The church leaders will be asked to take an hour to protest silently in these spaces. Church Leaders 10-20 in number, wearing black have an hour of national protests with Mask, (If possible written Corruption is not our Inheritance etc).
Each region where our church leaders exist to identify the place and arrange for the protest by recruiting and identifying church leaders in the area for the protest. We know amongst the church Leaders who is the coordinator for each region/place.
The protest be on 15 September between 12:00 and 13:00.
A Zoom link platform is to be organized so that the protests can be Zoomed in and be live streamed into our Face Book live stream. Encouraging people to put their protest messages against COVID19 corruption in the FB. Also sharing our calls that we wish to make during this protest. If we had a nice sponsor for some T-shirts would have been nice. Encourage churches to use their own FB and other social media platforms to carry the message to our people.
This protest to be done only by Church leaders under the strict observation of COVID19 regulations and health challenges.
3. Webinar engagements for mobilization
To further engage the church and society on the anti-Covid19 we have two Webinars one directed to the church and one to society at large.
The First Webinar to be held on 9 September focusing on the Church and Public witness. What is the emerging theology of public witness for our time? what is the theology we can offer in times of deep systematic corruption? What are the practical things that the church can do to contribute in the fight against corruption?
This webinar to be linked with our Face Book page for live streaming with the encouragement to member churches to use their FB to live stream the Webinar.
The Second Webinar to be held on Wednesday 23 or Tuesday 22 September. This to include experts on the subject matter to lead the conversation as to what are the patterns of Corruptions as we see it? what are the places where corruption finds itself more evidently? what are the institutions that are in society that we can use to fight Corruption? how can they be strengthened? how can they be held accountable? What are the activities that can be done at individual and community level to push back against COVID19 corruption?