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Australia—The Salvation Army is producing a one-hour DVD that celebrates Australian country life and aims to help fight depression in the bush.
The DVD is a documentary profiling rural Australians who tell of overcoming depression while living in remote areas. It will be distributed to around one million households nationally to help others seek help and be inspired that life does go on.
The DVD has been produced by the The Salvation Army Oasis Dream Films. Disadvantaged young people are assisting with the project and learning film production skills at the same time.
– From The Salvation Army Australia’s “On the Scene” newsletter, Autumn 2008
United Kingdom—After the announcement late last month that the government is abandoning its plans for the UK’s first Las Vegas-style supercasinos, The Salvation Army issued a statement in favor of the decision, stating, “We hope this will lead ultimately to creative thinking around community regeneration. Hard gambling is not the answer.
We remain concerned about a normalization of gambling in our society, which could negatively affect many vulnerable people and draw them into serious debt. Problem gambling already has a negative impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country and as a society we should be doing all we can to reduce not increase that number.”
– From www.salvationarmy.org.uk
Canada— To help bring attention to the environmental cause, The Salvation Army’s territorial headquarters participated in Earth Hour, the “lights out campaign” on Saturday, March 29, 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Earth Hour was launched last year in Sydney, Australia. For 60 minutes much of that city’s skyline went dark as homes and businesses deliberately turned out their lights. As a result, the demand for electricity dropped significantly, showing the power of individuals to battle climate change.
This year Earth Hour will be an international demonstration of organizations, businesses and populations around the world. While Earth Hour alone will not solve all the problems with the environment, it’s an opportunity to express concern and do something practical about them.
In 1995, The Salvation Army’s Ethics Centre developed a Positional Statement on the Responsibility for the Environment. More recently, the Ethics Centre has studied The Salvation Army’s environmental policies and practices. “It is timely that our positional statement be put into practice as we become involved in Earth-keeping, which, for us, is a moral and theological imperative,” notes Major Pearce Samson, property secretary, The Salvation Army territorial headquarters.
By supporting Earth Hour, territorial headquarters hopes to create wider awareness on environmental issues. “By sensitizing the territorial offices to these issues,” says Major Samson, “we hope to encourage others to be a part of the solution.”
– From www.salvationarmy.ca