International Inspirations – On the way

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The Faith Without Borders program is re-launching as a new individual/congregational resource for UU’s interested or currently engaged in international work: uuinternational.org

Encompassing the diversity and scope of current international UU projects and opportunities, Faith Without Borders represents a streamlined and unified web presence for the collaborative work being done between: The UUA’s International Office, the UU Service Committee, the International Council of UU’s, the International Convocation of UU Women, the International Association for Religious Freedom, the UU Partner Church Council, the UU United Nations Office, and the UU Holdeen India Program.

As the site develops its collection of resources in the coming months, Faith Without Borders is pleased to share a new series of web-based resources called “Inspirations,” which tell the story of global Unitarian Universalism through our international partners and the work they are engaged in.

The first installment of these “Inspirations” is a brief video intro to the UU’s in Mexico. Inspirations will be released on a bi-monthly basis as each of the international UU organizations takes turns in sharing pithy, poignant stories from our partners and the world of UU international engagement.

 

 

 

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International Resources, Mexico

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Groundbreaking Event on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts: A Recap

The Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office organizes a groundbreaking discussion on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts!

Selling the Promise of Change: International Health and Policy Consequences of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE)
Jan 31st 1-3 @ United Nations Church Center

Conversion Therapy Flyer
Program Flyer

In the Unitarian Universalist (UU) tradition of spearheading, cutting edge advocacy and standing up for vulnerable populations, the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office (UU-UNO) organized one of the first ever panel on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) and its International Human Rights consequences. Collaborating with the United Nations Non Governmental Organization’s (NGO) Committee for Human Rights and the NGO Committee on HIV/AIDS, The UU-UNO put together a panel of experts to present on this controversial issue, so it could be rigorously examined from different frameworks. The topic was reviewed from a medical, political, international, legal, academic, personal and religious perspective. This multiple systems approach resulted in a jammed packed program with six world renowned speakers, the reading of heartfelt personal letter, and a preview of a relevant film on the subject. Attendance at the event was standing room only, with audience participants from United Nations missions and agencies, religious organizations, and advocacy NGO’s .The feedback so far has been unbelievable; our office has been flooded with emails from organizations thanking us for hosting this historic event and wanting more programming. The event was covered in the national media on the Huffington Post and will be published as a collection of papers in the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.

Check out the Huffington Post article here! (more…)

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LGBT, UU-UNO

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Burundi Unitarians Respond to Devastating Market Fire in Bujumbura

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On January 27th a devastating market fire razed thousands of businesses in Bujumbura, Burundi, effectively straining the country’s economy for weeks, if not months to come.  The minister of the Unitarian Church in Bujumbura, Rev. Fulgence Ndagijamana, shared the following information.  People’s Church in Kalamazoo, MI is coordinating contributions to the church to support its response to the devastation: Update: The International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU) is now coordinating contributions.  Contributions sent to the Kalamazoo church will be delivered to Burundi via ICUU.   Online you can donate with credit cards or from your bank account via PayPal to treasurer@icuu.net or checks may be sent to the ICUU Finance Department, att: Susan Greeberg, PO BOx 300, Hastings on Hudson, NY 10706 USA.   

Rev. Fulgence Ndagijamana in the Bujumbura Market, November 2012.
Rev. Fulgence Ndagijamana in the Bujumbura Market, November 2012.

It’s 7 Am on Sunday morning (January 27, 2013).  Many people are still sleeping and others are getting ready to go to different churches.  I get a text message from Nepo, one of our church members.  The text is very short “Pastor, the central market is burning”!   Under chock,  I made a few phone calls to check on the people I know who work in the market or who have relatives or parents working there. Some were not aware and others were already in town hoping against hope to save something!I kept working on the last details of my sermon and I left for church at 9am.  As I was driving outside the gate, I could see a huge black cloud and people say it was over 20 meters high.  I met neighbours who under chock were just watching the fire 6,5 kms away. (more…)

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Africa

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New Khasi Unitarian Hymnal Published

Great news from Rev. Khlur Mukhim!  May the music be a blessing.

Dear friends,

Being a member of the standing Hymnal Revision Committee (HRC), I feel lucky I could attend yesterday the special meeting of UUNEI officials and some other church members at Jowai.  Graced by the President and the General Secretary of the Union, the occasion was led by Mr R Pariat and Mr L.Laloo (the Chairman & the Secretary of the HRC respectively) in which Rev Carleywell Lyngdoh, Seniormost Minister of the Union released the newly edited Khasi Unitarian Hymnal.  I cannot think of any better time to have this much awaited edition completed and released now before we wind up our Quasquicentennial celebrations next month during our Annual General Conference.  This edition has come after a long time and only few old copies are available in most churches.  Our organizers should take note and be careful to avoid stampede in our hymnal counters when all our churches and fellowships meet at Jowai next month! (more…)

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India, International News

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Selling Sexual Orientation Change Therapy: Promise or Pressure?

Can people change their sexual orientation? How does the promise and pressure to change affect the lives and human rights of LGBT people worldwide?

The Unitarian Universalist Association -United Nation’s Office (UUA-UNO) in partnership with the UN NGO Committee on Human Rights & the NGO Committee on HIV/AIDS Present:
 
SELLING THE PROMISE OF CHANGE: International Health and Policy Consequences of Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE)
Thursday January 31st, 1-3pm, UN Church Center, 777 UN Plaza, New York City.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) rights have progressed into the UN framework of international human rights. The notion that people can or must change their orientation to conform with cultural or religious norms has risen to the forefront of the debate on this topic. Mental health, HIV/AIDS prevention, violence against women, religious and personal freedoms all play important roles in this analysis.

Join the UUA-UNO  for the groundbreaking discussion on the legalities, ethics and science behind the movement promoting sexual orientation change efforts and its relationship to international human rights. A panel of experts will review the literature, policy and personal narratives relating to this issue. Q & A to follow.

Current Panelists Include:

  • Toiko Kleppe - UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  • Dr Jack Drescher, MD - Author of the APA’s official position on sexual orientation conversion therapy.
  • Sam Wolfe, Esq – Southern Poverty Law Center
  • Chaim Levin – Survivor of ex-gay therapy and plaintiff in the landmark case against a conversion therapy organization
  • Rebecca Jordan-Young, Ph.D – Women’s, Gender and Sexual Studies, Columbia University
  • Pastor Jay Bakker – Revolution Church, Son of Televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
The event is predominantly about how the concept that Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) is changeable, affects how SOGI is seen vis-a-vis international human rights. We will explore the ex-gay movement’s involvement in anti-gay laws in Uganda, Nigeria and Eastern Europe. We also want to explore how the promise of change can affect violence against LGBT people, particularly forcing children into dangerous programs, mob violence against suspected gay people and corrective rape practices against lesbian and trans people. We will review this issue in western society and examine how it is exported to other nations.

We think the program will have a significant impact in framing SOGI issues with respect to human rights. With the recent Russian backed UN resolution to put the words “Traditional Values” as a qualifier for human rights, a values discussion about the rights of LGBT people is more necessary than ever. Discussing the concept of change efforts, religious pressures and psychological promises is an essential starting point to this conversation.

Funding in part by the NYU Social Justice and Diversity Grant

This event is free and open to everyone. Join us and spread the word! RSVP to UNintern@uua.org

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UU-UNO

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UUCP Learning Center Now Open

UU Church of the Philippines

The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines’s (UUCP’s) Learning Center was inaugurated on December 18th, 2012. Now completed, the facility will serve as an educational center for pre-school children in a remote village in Canlaon City. Construction of the building was made possible by a grant from the Fund for International Unitarian Universalism, as well as support from the UU Funding Program and individual donors.

In partnership with the UUCP, the Bayanihan Program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’s 11th Infantry Engineering Brigade constructed the school in approximately three months. During this time, the partnership has developed a peaceful relationship between the village residents, the UUCP, and the local military, fostering a spirit of love and trust in the area.

Military leaders, city, and village officials were invited to, and attended, the inauguration event, which featured a Christmas King & Queen Contest and a fundraising activity conducted by the school’s leaders. Approximately 10,000.00 ($250) was raised from this event which will be used towards finishing the school’s perimeter fencing.

The UUCP is thrilled to finally have a learning center that provides quality education to the pre-school children near Canlaon City. With the school facilities finally in operation, children that would normally be sent to work in village farms will instead be headed to the classroom.

Congratulations to the UUCP for this wonderful investment in child education and deep gratitude to those that supported the project’s successful completion!

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Philippines

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Stories of Strength and Self-Assurance

The following post was written by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, director of the UU College of Social Justice (UUCSJ). She just finished coleading a service-learning trip to explore justice for rural India with the UU Holdeen India Program.

Our delegation just traveled to India’s western state of Gujarat, where we spent the day on Friday with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a UU Holdeen India Program partner.

Though we had read about SEWA’s work empowering some of India’s most impoverished women, nothing could have prepared us for the morning we spent with the rag pickers. We met with these workers in the place they labor each day: the municipal garbage dump of Ahmedabad, where they pick through fresh mounds of trash to glean the scraps of plastic, paper, and cloth that can still be sold for recycling. Standing high atop the literal mountains of garbage that stretched out on every side, we listened to the women talk about their lives and the difference it has made to have a union that helps them fight for their rights.

We heard Jasiben describe the ways she and her coworkers had been preyed upon by people who buy their gleanings — and how that changed when SEWA opened a competing scrap-buying stall that caters only to women. This stall actually paid market rates for their collections and forced others to raise their prices as well. We learned of SEWA’s tireless efforts to press the government to provide an education to the children of the rag pickers so that the next generation can find alternative employment and an easier life. Epitomizing the end of this particular cycle of poverty, Jasiben’s face shone with pride as she told us that her own daughter has just entered her first year of university. (more…)

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Holdeen India Program, Service Learning, UU College of Social Justice

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Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organization meeting “The Impact of Climate Change on People Living in Poverty”

Flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy in Sea Bright, New Jersey.

Climate Change has a devastating impact on those living in poverty, but the effects are being felt worldwide. Most recently, 55 million people were affected by Hurricane Sandy, which stretched 900 miles and killed 113 people.

We must do our part to respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, by not only educating ourselves and others on the causes and effects of climate change, but also taking the proper steps to preserve the world in which we live.

Last week, the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office (UU-UNO) attended a climate change meeting hosted by the Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organization (DPI/NGO) at the United Nations. Fighting poverty remains one of the highest priorities not only of the UN development agenda, but also for the Climate Task Force at the UU-UNO. Climate change has become an apparent problem in the lives of many living in extreme poverty, interfering with and sometimes halting development. Guest speaker at the DPI/NGO meeting, Daniel Buckley, a member of the Climate Change Team for the Environment and Energy Group in the Bureau for Development Policy of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), emphasized that the failure to deal with climate change will affect 40% of the poorest populations. Combating climate change is imperative. It causes life-threatening problems such as poor water quality, resulting in increases in fever, diarrhea, and malaria as well as other diseases. Although most of the facts presented in this meeting were already familiar to the UU-UNO, I found it was important to hear guest speakers calling for action. According to Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN, Abdul Momen, more than five million people in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, were forced to leave their homes due to permanent flooding and are now part of the “floating population”, whom live in very harsh conditions, with a lack of sanitation and other civic amenities. Pakistani school districts have been regularly destroyed and their children cannot receive education on a consistent basis. Natural disasters cause greater inequality and social injustice.  (more…)

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Climate Change, UU-UNO

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The Familiar and the Foreign

The following post was written by Laney Ohmans, membership coordinator at the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis and member of Unity Church Unitarian in St. Paul. She is currently taking part in a service-learning trip to explore justice for rural India with the UU Holdeen India Program.

Of all the things I’d imagined would seem welcoming about my return trip to India, the smell of the Mumbai airport had not been one of them.  As soon I stepped out of the plane, though, there it was: a thick bank of turmeric and musk and damp. I felt a mix of recognition and surprise, of the familiar and the foreign, that would follow me through my time here.

Laney Ohmans at the Vidahayak Sansad school.

Four years ago I came to India on a similar quest from my home congregation, Unity Church, tovolunteer for two months as an English teacher in the school run by Vidhayak Sansad (VS), a Holdeen partner in rural India. This trip was a return to the familiar VS campus with a service-learning group of 10 Unitarian Universalists, all connected through the UU College of Social Justice. I had initially agreed to the trip — a gift from my minister, who realized at the last moment that she would be unable to go — with no hesitation. As the departure date ticked closer, though, I grew more and more uncomfortable.

I’d returned from my initial time in Usgaon overflowing with admiration for the work of our Holdeen partner, ready to offer, as Dag Hammarskjöld says, “the chalice of [my] being to receive, to carry, and to give back.” Four years had passed since that trip, however, and in the interim I felt that my chalice had slowly emptied. The realities of my life had seemed much more pressing and had demanded so much of my attention. I’d lost pieces of that passion in the struggle to find a job, find a new job, find another job, balance three jobs, finish my bachelor’s degree, move to a new city. I worried that the girl who had gone to Usgaon years ago had become a stranger to me, and that my life would seem completely foreign to her. (more…)

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Holdeen India Program, Service Learning, UU College of Social Justice

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Typhoon Pablo impacts UU Church of the Philippines

Yesterday evening the UUA received news that Typhoon Pablo had impacted the UU Church of the Philippines headquarters in Dumaguette City.  News from the UU congregations throughout Negros Island is still coming in, but so far most of the damage reported by them is to agricultural projects such as rice, corn and banana trees.  In Siapo and Upper Nato some houses lost their roofs, and at least one UU family’s house, in Dumaguete, was wrecked.

Describing the situation, UUCP President Rev. Rebecca Sienes wrote: “There is so much damage in the city of Dumaguete.  The pier was greatly damaged; storm surged occurred in the pier area; some of the pine trees by the boulevard were uprooted, the roof of some of the shops by the boulevard were blown away by the wind; the boulevard was filled by ocean water up to knee high. The wind was very strong.”

UUCP headquarters staff have already been hard at work clearing damaged trees, and they are making plans for necessary repairs.

UUA President Peter Morales offered words of support: “My caring thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has been impacted by Typhoon Pablo, especially the leaders and members of our UU congregations in the Philippines. The UUA will partner with the UUCP in all recovery efforts.”

Further news will be posted as it arrives.  Please hold our UU brothers and sisters, and everyone effected by Typhoon Pablo, in your thoughts and prayers.

The International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU) is currently collecting donations to support recovery efforts:

  • Online donations can be made by credit card/bank account via PayPal by sending to treasurer [at] icuu [dot] net
  • Checks may be sent to the ICUU Finance Office, attn: Susan Greenberg, P.O. Box 300, Hastings on Hudson, NY 10706 USA
  • Be sure to indicate that your donation is for UUCP Pablo Relief

Update: The following UU congregations have reported that they were gladly not impacted by the typhoon:  Doldol, Malingin, Calapayan, Aquino, Caican, Samaka, and Bicutan.  News is still awaited from approximately 12 congregations.

Update 2:  The UUA and the UU Partner Church Council have agreed to cover the costs of repair to the UUCP headquarters.

Update 3:  Congregational impact -

  • Kalomoyan congregation – All’s well
  • Cansauro congregation – Some damage to member’s houses and agriculture
  • Nagbinlod congregation – Lost electricity, but UU families are fine and no building damage.  The UU Mango farm has suffered.
  • Culipapa congregation: All’s well.
  • Samoyao congregation: Some damage to member’s houses, and agriculture damage.
  • Nataban, Bagong Silan, and Ulay congregations are doing fine.

Update 4: Banaybanay congregation - The congregation was hit severely. Seven (7) UU families evacuated to UU church to seek refuge. Their fruit trees were uprooted, banana plants were down, roofs & walls of several houses were blown away and GI sheets could not be retrieved.  One house is no longer habitable. The Barangay/Village gave financial assistance at 500.00 ($12.50) to each family affected. About 20 UU families were affected by Pablo  It was the strongest typhoon that they had experienced.

Photos from Dumaguete City and the UUCP headquarters:

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International News, Philippines

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