Baroness Cox Merry Christmas to all her readers and a Journey of Compassion

Baroness Cox says a big thank you and Merry Christmas to all her readers of her website and all those who have left wonderful comments over the past year and shared links on social media.

Also a thank you to all those who have volunteered for HART (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust) and for the financial support from our generous donors.

HART is a small charity that enables a large impact as its supports oppressed and persecuted communities hidden from international view. HART  has many donors who regularly support us monthly and some do so with just £2 a month and every penny is welcomed and Lady Cox wants to say a very Big thank-you to those donors as this goes a long way in places like Sudan.

Baroness Cox & Moses Deng Bol

There is a big difference with HART as a charity because HART works with local partners on the ground and Lady Cox travels there to ensure your donations are having the maximum effect and as founder and CEO she provides advocacy based on the real facts found on the ground and seen with her own eyes and those of her dedicated team.

The picture here is of Baroness Cox on her visit to the HART partner, Archbishop Moses Deng Bol, and community members as they welcome Baroness Cox to Nyieth School in South Sudan. HART has been helping finance a new classroom build there as well as other much needed support through advocacy.

This year your donations has helped -

• 1 newly constructed dam and sustainable development planting scheme in Burma
• 140 day trips and summer holidays for the disabled children in Nagorno - Karabakh
• 550 food hampers and emergency supplies for families returning home to Syria this winter
• 950 emergency support packs for displaced people in South Sudan 

Should you decide to help and support HART you can do so here on the donate button or visit the donation page on HART's website. 

HART USA 

Lady Cox was thrilled by the expansion of HART to the USA this year due to the kind generosity and support of Rob and Pippa Gerhard and Jonathan Spencer and the help of Lucy Clements who helped set up HART USA and enabling Lady Cox to reach out to the supporters in the United States. 

On the very first HART USA trip Lady Cox appeared on the Eric Metaxas Show and reached over 9000 views. Then later in the year the HART USA team managed to bring Lady Cox back again to talk at Bethel Church Redding where she received a wonderful welcome and also got to take part in a radio show and meet other great contacts. 

It has been an amazing start and foundation for HART USA and this would never have happened without the kind , dedicated support and effort of Rob, Pippa, Jonathan and Lucy. 

If you are reading from the USA you can donate to HART USA via the link here. You can also donate here. This is a huge thank you for all the hard work and support of the HART USA team. Lady Cox is looking forward to working with the HART USA team in the new year and hopefully meeting many of her readers there in the coming year. (Written by Andrew Haigh.)

 Sharing with you now is a wonderful blog post from one of our volunteers - 

 A Journey of Compassion
This is a blog post written by Ivan Corea, HART supporter and Volunteer who wrote about the HART Christmas Carol Concert

The HART Christmas Carol Concert was held on the 10th of December, at St.Cyprian’s Church, in London, attended by a huge gathering of well wishers and supporters of the charity. The event was a powerful reflection of a journey through life. 

Baroness Cox attends International Conference On Christian Persecution

Baroness Caroline Cox attended an International Conference On Christian Persecution, which was hosted in Budapest Hungary.

The mission remains: to find answers and solutions to the most neglected humanitarian and civilizational crisis of our time. Beyond raising international awareness, the primary aim of the conference is to foster closer cooperation between governments, governmental and non-governmental organisations and other actors concerned. Only through the coordination of resources and efforts and through joint endeavour is it possible to defend beleagured Christian communities living in crisis regions from the ever wider phenomenon of religious persecution and to support their return to their homelands.

Budapest, Hungary, Nov 26, 2019 / 03:00 pm- Patriarchs, cardinals, politicians, and Christians from across the globe are in Budapest this week for the International Conference on Christian Persecution.

“We have 245 million reasons to be here. This is how many people are persecuted daily because of their Christian belief,” Hungarian State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians Tristan Azbej said Nov. 26 as he opened the conference. you can read more about the conference here

Here are just some of the Twitter tweets about her ladyship at the event -

Baroness Cox says, Britain must stop ignoring Christian persecution in Nigeria,

Mai Adiko Reconciliation Project in Jos, bringing
Muslims and Christians together.

Britain must stop ignoring Christian persecution in Nigeria,

says Baroness Caroline Cox

IT HAS been five years since Nigeria’s Islamist Fulani herdsmen insurgency began. Thousands of civilians have been killed. Hundreds of Christian churches have been burned to rubble. Entire communities have been forced to abandon their homes and farmland.

Across northern and central-belt states, militant herdsmen continue to engage in an aggressive and strategic land-grabbing policy. They seek to replace diversity and difference with an Islamist ideology (similar to Boko Haram’s) which is imposed with violence on those who refuse to comply. It is – according to the Nigerian House of Representatives – genocide.

Baroness Cox - Unsung Social Crusaders Awarded Mother Teresa Memorial Awards

Unsung Social Crusaders Awarded Mother Teresa Memorial Awards
These noble reformists were honoured at the Mother Teresa Memorial Award ceremony held on Sunday, November 3, 2019, at the Taj Lands End, Mumbai. 

Great article By Cheshta Bakshi -November 4, 2019

Lady Cox was delighted to be part of this great occasion. -

Mumbai, Maharashtra, 4th November 2019 –

The following articulate and dauntlessly courageous social crusaders were honoured with the Mother Teresa Memorial Awards for Social Justice in the field of Contemporary Forms of Slavery:

HART Aid and Advocacy Appeal for Syria

Over six million Syrians are internally displaced, and a third of the population is going hungry. As a bitter winter approaches, HART is seeking your support to help provide food and warmth for families returning to the mountainous village of Maaloula, near Damascus.

Working with our partner the St. Ephrem Patriarchial Development Committee (EPDC), we aim to supply 550 families with two large blankets and a hamper including foods such as oil, tomato paste, dried corn and a nourishing mixture of grain and yoghurt.

Please support. www.hart-uk.org Thank-you.

Baroness Cox's charity HART provides funds to change life for students at Loi Tai Leng school Myanmar

Whilst Baroness Cox carry's out her work giving a voice to the voiceless in Parliament and not just for those people in this country (England) but also in many others around the world, she is often reported on in the newspapers a lot but not enough for her charity work in my opinion. (Andrew Haigh)

HART (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust) a charity she founded back in 2004 works mostly in areas of conflict, here Lady Cox often looks for ways to bring sustainability to those courageous organisations HART works with on the ground. Here is a latest great example of life changing innovation Caroline's organisation has recently funded, which is an amazing example of community work.

Baroness Cox a voice for the voiceless

This is a short film about the work of Baroness Cox with her charity HART. HART has now opened a HART-US which is a registered in Texas in the United States.

Baroness Cox A Christian Legacy

Watch this interview of Caroline about her christian legacy in the House of Lords

Baroness Cox receives another award!

HART Founder and CEO, Baroness Cox was honoured as a Global Leader on Friday and invited into the Power Brands Hall of Fame. Baroness Cox was recognised for her commitment to being a voice for the voiceless.

The event was called ‘Power Brands Global- London International Forum for Equality 2019’ and was on 24th May 2019 at Hilton Kensington. In attendance were 10 global leaders from various walks of life who have built a brand of faith and hope through their conviction and actions while remaining committed to spreading equality. You can find out more about this here on their website is www.powerbrandsglobal.com

Baroness Cox - Fighting for freedom of Religion and belief in the House of Lords

Whilst Caroline is away and before she goes, shoe often ensures that written questions to the Government on important issues are provided. This is a recent question on Christianity and Asylum. It is a good example of the advocacy impact of Baroness Cox. *

Asylum: Christianity:Written question - HL14728
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that the Home Office refused asylum applications because of (1) quotations used by applicants from the Bible which “are inconsistent with your [the applicant’s] claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion...”; and (2) a candidate “affirmed in your Asylum Interview Record that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted”.

Lady Cox visit to Canada

Caroline had a great visit to Canada, I can not help being moved by the very supportive comments about her trip. Particularity moved by the very kind words of encouragement from a great future leader in transformation Garnett Genuis who is Member of Parliament for the Alberta riding of Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan and the Deputy Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Official Opposition. He previously served as Deputy Critic of Human Rights and Religious Freedom.

Caroline's Oral Question on grooming gangs in the UK 24th January 2019

Saving Nigeria's Christians

Saving Nigeria's Christians

By Tamara Winter - - Wednesday, January 16, 2019 The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Last month, Amnesty International released a new report that outlined the costs of a dangerous and often deadly cycle of violence occurring in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region between Christian farmers and Muslim herders — 3,600 people have been killed in the past 3 years, with 2018 being the worst year on record so far.

The Amnesty report is the latest warning that the situation in the Middle Belt is worsening. These concerns have been echoed by others from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the U.K.’s Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, chaired by Baroness Caroline Cox, and local Nigerian religious organizations such as the Saint Raphael’s Society of Nigeria. Ahead of Nigerian elections in February, which have the potential to cause further divisions, the Trump administration has now begun to acknowledge the scale of the problem.

The administration recently designated Boko Haram an Entity of Particular Concern, a designation for non-state entities engaging in severe religious freedom abuses. This is a necessary, but not enough to end sectarian violence in Nigeria’s troubled regions.

The Nigerian government has undoubtedly made progress, quelling Boko Haram’s ambitions for territorial expansion by limiting the group’s active presence to small villages across the countryside. However, in November the government suffered a major setback when members of one Boko Haram faction overran a military base, killing over 100 Nigerian soldiers and leaving an untold number of additional troops missing.

The focus on Boko Haram — both in Washington D.C. and in Abuja — risks leaving the wider religious conflict in Nigeria unaddressed. The reality on the ground is Christians in the Middle Belt face persecution, violence, intimidation and, increasingly, death.

As the U.K. aid group, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), has documented, “the asymmetry and escalation of attacks by well-armed Fulani upon predominately Christian communities is stark and must be acknowledged.”

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has also weighed in, urging the U.S. State Department to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, as recently as this December.

Yet, the Trump administration did not do so, and instead selected countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan for the designation. Nigeria’s Christians deserve a similar level of attention.

The need to act was highlighted in a recent congressional hearing in which Rep. Chris Smith noted the “apparent inability, perhaps even reluctance, of the Nigerian Federal Government under President Buhari to stop the violence, or to condemn the attacks”

Rep. Ron Estes further exposed the gravity of the situation on the ground, lamenting that “Sadly, Christians in Nigeria are under fire in what many are calling a genocide.”

The Economist magazine similarly concludes that the slaughter of Christians can be defined as the early signs of genocide: “Fighting in the Central African Republic was seen as the “early signs of genocide” by the UN in 2017. The term has also been applied to the bloodbath in South Sudan, the depredations of Bashar Assad in Syria and Islamist attacks on Christians in Nigeria’s middle belt.” This is the scale of the crisis.

As President Trump adopts a more muscular strategy for Africa, the warning from Reps. Estes and Smith, and others around the world, cannot be ignored. It is time for the U.S. government, and Secretary Pompeo, to classify Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.

Yet, a designation from America alone will not be enough. Nigerian Christians need action from President Buhari, who has the power, using the strength of the Nigerian military to end their suffering. Pressure from Washington D.C. is an essential step to accomplish this.

• Tamara Winter was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but now lives in Arlington, Va. She serves as the operations lead at the Center for Innovative Governance Research.

Here is the link and original source of the article which appeared in The Washington Times -

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/16/saving-nigerias-christians/

Caroline Cox ‘A Voice for the Voiceless’

Caroline Cox 

Caroline Cox qualified as a nurse, graduated as a social scientist and was created a Life Peer in 1982 to the House of Lords in recognition of her battles for academic freedom. She uses her Parliamentary position to be ‘A Voice for the Voiceless’, for victims of oppression off the radar screen of international media in countries such as Sudan, Burma, northern Nigeria and Nagorno Karabakh. She also speaks for Muslim women suffering gender discrimination from the application of Sharia Law in the UK.

Baroness (Caroline) Cox has served as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005. She was also a Baroness-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. Lady Cox now sits in the Lords as a crossbencher and is a frequent contributor to Lords debates on Sudan, India, Nigeria, Uganda, and Burma.

Lady Cox is also Founder and President of a charity called HART (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust) and her ladyship works tirelessly and her humanitarian aid work has taken her on many missions to conflict zones, allowing her to obtain first hand evidence of the human rights violations and humanitarian needs. Areas traveled include the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh; Sudan; Nigeria; Uganda; the Karen; Karenni; Shan and Chin peoples in the jungles of Burma; and communities suffering from conflict in Indonesia. She has also visited North Korea helping to promote Parliamentary initiatives and medical programmes. Additionally Caroline has been instrumental in helping to change the former Soviet Union policies for orphaned and abandoned children from institutional to foster family care.