Plenary, 24 Jan 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Official Report 416KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Linda Todd, national director of the Leprosy Mission Scotland.

Many believe that leprosy has been eradicated. For the 300,000 who will be diagnosed during 2007, their reality is different. Today, more than 800 people will hear the words, "You have leprosy." Leprosy is not eradicated, only forgotten.

A man with leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees,

"If you are willing, you can make me clean."

Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

Jesus is still willing. The Leprosy Mission is willing. Our vision is for a "world without leprosy". The same compassionate care and healing are proffered to patients in our 244 projects across 29 countries in Africa and Asia. Since 1981, multidrug treatment has healed 14 million people. The battle today is against the stigma that permeates the centuries. As Burns wrote:

"Man's inhumanity to Man
Makes countless thousands mourn!"

Our theme for world leprosy day is, "Give Hope". Leprosy still stigmatises, which is so unnecessary. I recently visited Kuta leprosy village in Nigeria. They had known exclusion. Working in partnership with one another, the Leprosy Mission and local government health workers, they transformed their lives, working their way out of poverty. To cut a long story short, the village now boasts electricity, a borehole and a flourishing school and church. They are successfully growing crops, using an electric-powered grinding machine not only to ease their workload but to earn additional income by hiring it out to their neighbours. They are a successful, thriving community with three or four generations of families refusing to allow any circumstance or people to take away their hope. They are an excellent example of what people empowered can do for themselves. We just provided the resources.

Like this Parliament, the Leprosy Mission Scotland is in the business of giving hope. We raise funds for the provision of fully developed hospital care, increased activity in preventing disability, training health care workers, education and seeking long-term solutions, for example vocational training and socioeconomic interventions.

If we all choose, we can make poverty and exclusion history. We can achieve a world without leprosy. Make that choice.

To quote Burns:

"Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree, and a' that.
For a' that, and a' that
Its coming yet for a' that
That Man to Man, the warld o'er
Shall brothers be for a' that".