We Are Called

Millennium Development Goals CampaignEpiphany Episcopal Church

Plymouth, MN

Spring 2009

The MDG Goal: End poverty by 2015.

This is the historic promise 190 world leaders made at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 when they

created the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight quantifiable targets designed to cut poverty in half

by the year 2015. The MDGs envision rich and poor nations working together in partnership to combat poverty.

Church of the Epiphany and the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota are participating in the

MDG campaign.

Four ambassadors from Epiphany were trained at an MDG leadership team training. The focus of the

training was to learn how to engage the skills of community organizing, the goal of which is to

transform the Episcopal Church into a powerful effective force for the elimination of global

poverty by 2012.

As its 2009 MDG project, Church of the Epiphany has chosen to support the Miguel Angel Asturias

Academy in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

The Miguel Angel Asturias Academy was founded in 1994 and serves 300 K-12 students, with an

emphasis on children from the most vulnerable sectors of society.

Guatemala has one of the worst education systems in Latin America (UNESCO, 2004).

Of every ten children, only eight will ever set foot in elementary school, and all but

three will drop out before sixth grade (UNDP2003).

What government-run schools exist are under-funded and overcrowded. Private schools, the

supposed alternative, are in reality too expensive for the vast majority of the population, 75% of

which live below the poverty line.

The net result is that education past basic literacy is beyond the reach of all but a

fraction of the Guatemalan people.

The goal of Epiphany’s Lenten campaign is for 50% of its members to pledge 0.7% of their incomes to

the MDG project.

Epiphany MDG representatives worked with the Christian Foundation leaders, home fellowship

groups and the youth group to support the MDGs.

The net results of the campaign will be reported following Easter.