CLWR News & Events

Since 2016, Deo Lutheran Church in BC has joined together with other churches, community groups and individuals to sponsor 70 Syrian refugees to Canada.

Masha fled with her parents and sisters from Kharkiv when the bombing began, using the touring bus from their father’s theatre company. After a long and arduous trip across the country, they reached Mukachevo in western Ukraine, where your gifts have been at work, making a difference for thousands of families like Masha’s, providing food, shelter and comfort in their time of need.

This International Women’s Day, we are celebrating women who #BreakTheBias, like 33-year-old mother-of-four Ola Ali Sabbah Breijieh, who is smashing age-old traditions in the West Bank by taking courses in carpentry through CLWR’s GRIT project.

In places like the West Bank, where Hala lives, lack of access to education and training severely limits employment and livelihood opportunities for women, especially those with disabilities. In the coming years, engaging women in non-traditional fields through vocational education will play an increasingly vital role in building a more sustainable, inclusive and peaceful future.

Even during a global pandemic, Lutheran churches across Canada haven’t stopped providing refugees with a new home and caring community through our refugee sponsorship program.

Index-based climate insurance is helping keep vulnerable small-scale farmers in El Salvador afloat during challenging periods.

CLWR partners on the ground were able to deliver life-saving relief and medical assistance to those affected by the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, and provide immediate shelter, basic necessities and unconditional cash grants to displaced families as well as rehabilitate affected homes.

The GRIT project supports women living with disabilities to overcome challenges to training and employment. Join CLWR in celebrating IDPWD and recognizing the contributions of all persons with disabilities living around the world.

Emergency cash assistance helps reopen women-led business after Beirut blast.

Canada’s commitment to education welcome – but investment fails to reflect growing global need

Syrian and Jordanian youth create solutions for everyday problems, awarded for inventions

India COVID Crisis: Donate now to save lives

Veteran journalist John Longhurst talks to Rudy Knippelberg’s widow Ruth about how his experience as a WWII refugee inspired their family to help others in need.

CLWR is joining the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, The Anglican Church of Canada, and the Primate’s World Relief and Developent Fund in speaking to Canadian Senators in support of Bill S-216, the Modern Slavery Act.

“The most important thing is to know what you want and to have the drive and self-confidence to achieve it. As long as I know I have the power within me, I can challenge anything — any difficulty, no matter what it is.”

In February, CLWR and its fellow members of the ACT Alliance Canada Forum petitioned the Government of Canada to act with urgency on the situation in Tigray, Ethiopia.

In February, CLWR joined mission partner ELCIC in a letter addressed to the Prime Minister of Canada, appeal for just and equitable global vaccine access.

This summer, you responded quickly and generously to help thousands of people in need following the devastating explosion in Beirut, including a mother and daughter who suffered an unimaginable loss.

In a year of travel bans, social distancing and delayed processing, Lutheran churches still managed to provide a new start in Canada for dozens of refugees in 2020. 

2020 brought big changes to our beloved shipment program, We Care. We began to wind down international shipments in response to the challenges of COVID-19 and in pursuit of the values you’ve challenged us to uphold — responsible stewardship, humility and efficiency.

With funding from the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada, Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR), in partnership with Lutheran World Federation Jerusalem (LWF), has begun a $10 million program to improve education, training and employment for Palestinian women in non-traditional fields.
 

It has been a difficult year for many of us — but you have inspired us deeply. As Canada is facing its battle with COVID-19, you have not forgotten those around the world who are in need of nutritious food, clean water and their basic rights. Thank you for your incredible generosity — it has been life-saving this year. 

Canadian Lutheran World Relief is committed to meeting the challenges of this moment with humility and courage. We are steadfast in our responsibility to ensure CLWR can respond with integrity, efficiency and kindness in a time of soaring global need, and to make sure Lutherans in Canada can continue a tradition of working toward justice and peace for all people. Based on those commitments, this weekend we made the difficult decision to begin phasing out We Care, CLWR’s long-standing and beloved commodity shipment program, with the intent that the program will be fully closed by the end of 2021.

COVID-19 has quickly changed our world, and while in Canada we’ve had some success at flattening the curve, in other regions around the world the coronavirus is threatening not just sickness, but a food crisis not seen in many decades.