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Japan Earthquake: Two Years Later

Guji Yamamoto of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine conducts a memorial ceremony at the site of a Tsubaki member's demolished home.
Guji Yamamoto of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine conducts a memorial ceremony at the site of a Tsubaki member’s demolished home. June 2011.

Today is the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011.

The massive destruction and loss of human life was compounded by the threat of radiation from four damaged nuclear reactors. Two years later, reconstruction is still uncertain in many areas hit by the disaster because of the dangerous radiation levels. Unitarian Universalists gave very generously to a joint UUA-UUSC emergency relief account, eventually donating over $560,000, of which the UUA granted half to historic faith partners in Japan carrying out relief and UUSC granted to Japanese social organization focusing with women and immigrant workers. (more…)

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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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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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The Proverbial Fire Hose of Experience

The following post was written by Rev. Jay Leach, senior minister of the UU Church of Charlotte. He is currently taking part in a service-learning trip to explore justice for rural India with the UU Holdeen India Program.

Since disembarking from our plane in the Mumbai airport last Saturday evening, it feels as if I have been trying to drink from the proverbial fire hose of experience. The flow of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, and thoughts is at a rate that is completely impossible to imagine, must less take in.

UUCSJ program co-leader Mahesh Upadhyaya receives a blessing.

From the seaside of one of the world’s immense cities, we came here, to the modest, bustling campus of Vidhayak Sansad, the center of such astounding activity in this area of such astounding need and opportunity. We were greeted at the gates by a procession of over 200 tribal schoolgirls clad in navy blue and white, and they enthusiastically paraded us in a pulsing procession to this remarkable place.

We’ve been learning from local tribal activists — union leaders — who have unpacked accounts of their decades of work. The depth of their clarity, conviction, and commitment easily transcends the barrier of language, which often requires translation from Marati, the state language, into Hindi, the national tongue, before making its way into English. Their accounts are of creative, powerful, often clever, and always strategic efforts to lift themselves and their people out of a complex web of oppression and exploitation.

Yesterday included a visit to a nearby small village where a centuries-old Hindu temple rises like a fortress above the swarm of the street. We were there not just to see that spectacle but to hear from other union activists about their work in organizing the temple staff to demand fair wages. Their actions included a hunger strike staged on the steep steps leading up to the temple. They also chose not to discard (as was their responsibility) the mounds of marigolds offered in homage to the deity but to fill the offices of the trust officials who employed them with the wilting blooms until the trustees agreed to negotiate.

The needs of the so-called adivasi — the “first people,” whose legal rights to these lands have been so abused — are as foreign as so much we’re encountering and as familiar as all struggles for justice and equity in which the members of our delegation are engaged. Our learning — and my learning — is taking place at the intersection of this way of strategizing for change and our individual and congregational efforts to work with immigrants, the economically deprived, the homeless, the incarcerated, and all those deprived of full equality and adequate opportunity.

Our learning continues, today with more activists, tomorrow in excursions into outlying villages to observe and document what we experience and understand about the work of these courageous agents of creative change. I’m profoundly grateful to be having this experience and look forward to unpacking it and exploring aspects of it with my congregation in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.

Cross-posted from the UU College of Social Justice blog.

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The Power of Collective Action

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

On Tuesday we traveled from Mumbai to Usgaon, the village where partner organization Vidhayak Sansad is based and where it has organized a school for 254 tribal girls from 5 to 18 years old. We received an unforgettable welcome from the children, who had gathered at the gates to meet us. They offered each of us a traditional blessing, anointing our brows with yellow and red powder and greeting us with the words that mean, “I greet the light of the god within you.” Accompanied by drums, the girls then danced up the pathway and led us to the main center, where we learned about the power of collective action in rural India.

UUCSJ delegation at Vidhayak Sansad.

Vidhayak Sansad is a key partner of the UU Holdeen India program. We were privileged to meet throughout the afternoon with nearly a dozen women and men who are major leaders of the union associated with Vidhayak Sansad. Nearly all of them are adivasi, or tribal people, who still have to struggle and often risk grave violence in order to secure their most basic rights. Some of the leaders we met were among those who had been bonded laborers before the birth of the union in 1983.

Though it seems unthinkable in this modern era, the entrenched systems of power and privilege in rural India have made it frighteningly easy for the equivalent of slavery to persist.  In so many areas, the laws that were meant to protect the adivasi people and their rights to land and water have been ignored; more powerful farmers from higher castes simply took the land and began planting it, hiring back the former owners for well below minimum wages.

The adivasis have undertaken recent efforts to recover land and water that has been stolen from them and, in some cases, to insist on minimum wage. Women play a key role in these struggles, and gender equality is one of the union’s principles.

Vidyulata Pandit, who founded the union with her husband, Vivek, and a group of former bonded laborers, lifted up a vivid example for us of the way women’s empowerment is linked to the entire struggle for justice. A meeting had been called to convince the workers that they had the right under the law to stand up and demand the landlord pay them the minimum wage (at the time the men were being paid 4 rupees a day and women just 3, but they were all legally entitled to 7). Both women and men attended the meeting but, as has been traditional, the women kept silent and only the men spoke. The men were unwilling to act, saying that nothing really could be done.

The meeting ran late into the night with no progress made, and then just as it was breaking up one woman finally stood and found her voice. Turning to the men of the village, she said, “You’re always saying that the men are the brave ones that have to go out there in the world and the women must keep silent and stay home. We have just heard of the way to find our freedom. If you men are afraid to do it, then take these bangles from my wrists, wear them yourselves, and go home!” Other women then stood with her, and the women walked out of the meeting and led a march — joined finally by the men — around the landlord’s home demanding fair pay. The next day a spontaneous strike began. The landlord buckled after two weeks and agreed to pay all farm workers the minimum wage.

This is just one of the dozen moving stories we have heard from people whose lives have been so changed by the power of collective action. We are deeply inspired by what we’ve heard and are so privileged to be among them.

Cross-posted from the UU College of Social Justice blog.

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Exploring Faith-Based Social Justice in Burundi

The following post was written by Rev. Eric Cherry, director of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s International Office. Cherry was one of the leaders of the UUSC-UUA Supporter Journey to Tanzania and Burundi. 

Service-Learning trips through the UUSCJ are a terrific way for UUs to get to know the social justice strategies and methods of partners around the world.  Many of the partners that UUCSJ interacts with through S-L trips are secular in their approach.  But, some of them are faith-based – and even Unitarian/Universalist.  In those cases, the experience for trip participants offers a unique opportunity to connect spiritual practice and faith with outreach ministries.   And, introducing the team of UUCSJ service-learners in East Africa to the leaders and members of the Unitarian Church of Burundi was a great example of that connection..    Together we explored the ways that Unitarianism is pursuing social justice work in Burundi.

The Unitarian Church in Burundi was established by Rev. Fulgence Ndagijimana in 2002 as a liberal religious alternative to the dominant Roman Catholic presence in Burundi.  Rev. Fulgence is, in fact, a former Dominican novitiate who discovered Unitarianism while studying in seminary.  After leaving seminary and pursuing a correspondence with a Unitarian minister in the UK he was inspired to start the church in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura.

Since then the congregation has grown in strength, numbers, and outreach ministries.  In 2011 the congregation dedicated the first Unitarian church building constructed in an African country in decades.  And it serves as a home for their church services, as well as a meeting place for activists.

The outreach work of the church has taken many forms including:

  • Capacity Building and Advocacy work with Burundi’s Batwa community
  • Domestic Violence prevention through workshops and other intervention
  • Supporting Micro-finance initiatives
  • Partnering with a local School
  • Establishing scholarship programs for University students
  • Leading a coalition of Unitarian churches in development in Francophone African Countries

All of the congregation’s work is done in the context of the slow recovery – and the struggle for truth and reconciliation – taking place in Burundi following its Civil War.  Burundi needs liberal religious leaders, and the Unitarian Church in Bujumbura is serving that role.

During the visit we were inspired by meetings with a former combatant who now operates a small restaurant, and a team of women who are operating a vegetable stall at the women’s market in the city – all beneficiaries of the church’s micro-finance initiative.

We also visited the local school that the church is partnering with.  Here, nearly 2000 primary school students have found a secure place to begin their educational journeys.  Through assistance from its partners, the Unitarian Church has helped the school bring electricity to its classrooms – and will now attempt to set up a water system for the school.

Participants in the University scholarship program also met with us.  They explained how nearly all of them were the first people in their family to attend University, and that completing a degree is the fastest way to escape poverty in Burundi.  We were inspired by the path they have chosen.

And, on Sunday, we gathered for church with 60-70 Burundian Unitarians.  The singing was fantastic, the prayers were social-justice centered, and the sermon by Rev. Fulgence was prophetic.  He took a text from Jeremiah which advised those surrounded by devastation to build up their cities, and display show signs of hope.  The members of the Unitarian church clearly appreciated and embrace his message.  We visiting friends are challenged to do the same as we return to our homes.

Cross-posted from the UU College of Social Justice blog.

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Love, Dedication, and the Constitution of Tanzania

The following post was written by Patricia Jones, manager of UUSC’s Environmental Justice Program. She is currently coleading the UUSC-UUA Supporter Journey to Tanzania and Burundi.

The Tanzania Gender Networking Program (TGNP) is hosting a UUSC-UUA delegation of supporters in Dar es Salaam this week. Participants will join TGNP in their work on the constitutional process in the country. Tanzania’s political parties passed a very controversial law in 2012 that sounded the starting bell for the country to adopt a new constitution by the end of 2014. You may think three years is enough time. TGNP and civil society do not.

Yesterday we met with the founding members of TGNP and learned about their groundbreaking programs to raise awareness, mobilize grassroots constituents to demand their rights, and change law and policy to make the rights of women and men more real. The current constitution was adopted in 1977 and amended during the years since, but it contradicts itself, especially concerning the equality of men and women. In Tanzania, women may not inherit property, and marriage age for girls is 14 and for boys is 18 — but the constitution provides that all Tanzanian children have the right to education to the fullest of their potential. These “gaps,” as the Tanzanians call them, are just some of the issues TGNP is working to change. They want to see the human rights of the people — including the right to water, to health, and to education — more clearly expressed.

But they first had to reform the law that guides the process. In Tanzania, the constitution, all the laws, and the court decisions are in English. English is taught in secondary school, so Tanzanians who complete primary school only (to age 14) do not learn English. TGNP and their coalition partners at the Civil Society Constitutional Forum (CSCF) worked to require that the constitutional process be conducted in Swahili, the language the vast majority of Tanzanians use in daily life.

TGNP and CSCF are conducting civic education on the constitutional process. However, that is another “gap,” as they point out. The law passed by both ruling and opposition parties limits and regulates civic education. TGNP and CSCF must apply to conduct civic education on the constitution, disclose their funding for the program, and have the content authorized by the Constitutional Review Commission. If they violate this process, they could be fined 5 million Tanzanian shillings or be jailed for 3 years. This while the political parties are openly passing out talking points during the “open forums,” the first step in the constitutional process.

During our delegation visit, we saw boxes of the current constitution in Swahili at the  CSCF offices we visited. They had printed them and are now distributing them. TGNP and CSCF want the time table changed; they want to slow the process down so people can learn about their constitution and what is at stake, and then be able to form their own opinions. The parties want to have the constitution wrapped before the 2015 elections.

Who knows what other surprises are waiting in the wings. Possibly land reform that would give away large parts of Tanzania to major foreign farming firms? That would privatize water rights? Diana, the director of CSCF, assured us they will include the human right to water. She had been without water in her home for the past week.

The delegation was inspired by the dedication, insightful analysis, persistence, and what cofounding member Subari termed the “love” that they express through their work. I agree, Subari, it is one of the highest expressions of love to dedicate your time and heart to changing the highest law of the land, the constitution.

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See “The Minister’s War” at UUA General Assembly

In 1939, Waitstill and Martha Sharp left behind the safety of their home in Wellesley, Massachusetts and flew to war-torn Europe. In Nazi-occupied Prague and Paris, in the grim detention camps of Vichy France and on hidden trails through the Pyreenees, they risked their lives to help feed, shelter, and rescue thousands of refugees, including anti-Nazi dissidents and Jews.

Why did this Unitarian minister and his social worker wife undertake such a demanding mission? How did they help those in need, and what are their legacies today?

Director Artemis Joukowsky, the grandson of Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp, will be hosting screenings of “The Minister’s War” during General Assembly on June 22, 23 and 24, 2012 on The Kax Stage at the Herberger Theater Center (next door to the Phoenix Convention Center) at 6pm, 8pm and 10pm.

All are encouraged to see this inspiring, informative film  on how these Unitarian leaders risked their lives for the sake of refugees during WWII. Don’t miss it!

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All of Us Together on the Path to Justice

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28-May 5, 2012. In the post below, UUSC Haiti Emergency Response Manager Wendy Flick shared mid-trip snapshots of the experiences of working and connecting with members of the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP). The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

Just a quick note to say everything is going great here, one of the best trips yet. We’ve had some wonderful rain in the late afternoon or evening most days, sometimes heavy, but because of the late-day timing it hasn’t changed anything in the program significantly and has actually helped keep the nights a little cooler for sleeping. It brings out the frogs, and it’s nice to fall asleep to their singing.

We have had some amazing experiences and serendipities during this trip. Last night we had finished our evening reflection circle, and some of us remained on the porch to sing a bit more. Our singing attracted some Haitians who were passing by on the path, who stopped to listen, and whom we then invited onto the porch. Gradually we were joined by more and more passersby, and we began to exchange songs: we would sing a UU hymn or other song and then they would sing a song in Haitian Creole.

Together we were able to sing a couple of the Haitian Creole songs that our Haitian consultant Nanouche had taught us — songs about solidarity and about working together to bring about a brighter future for Haiti. It was completely unplanned, with people we didn’t know at all, but in the end it turned out to be the same group we were to meet with today, who are here at the MPP Training Center for a five day course in chicken farming. Tonight they returned just as our evening reflection was ending, bringing with them even more friends until our porch was crowded with about 50 people. They also brought with them their pastor, who gave a short speech about how it was to sing “Makonnen Fos Nou” together with us. These types of exchanges are creating some profound experiences and memories that I think the participants will never forget; I know I won’t. They were perfect endings to some amazing days.

A couple of snapshots from the past 24 hours were particularly moving to me. Tonight on the porch of our guesthouse when we sang “Amazing Grace” together. Our Haitian friends sang a verse in Haitian Creole, and we followed it with the same verse in English, with the backdrop of some boys playing soccer in the muddy path under the street lamp just beyond the porch and flashes of quiet lightning in the faraway sky.

Another came this morning as participants of this trip entered the original eco-village for the first time. On this journey, we have been toiling away in the sun to build the foundations for homes in the second and third eco-villages, so for most of the group this was the first peek at the original village and at a vision of what their labors on the foundations will evolve into within the next few months. As we crested the ridge above the village, chills ran along my spine and my eyes moistened. Eleven short months ago there was nothing in this valley but a few trees, and now it is a tapestry of colors — homes with bright pink and lavender flowers, dozens of tire gardens overflowing with everything from bok choy to tomatoes. It really looks like a kind of Eden. I thought to myself that if there exists something that is “the answer” to Haiti’s challenges, it is right here in this place and in these people.

I know that the toughest moment is approaching, which is when, at the airport, I will have to say goodbye for now to these precious souls that I have so enjoyed sharing this experience with. Every soul on its perfect and unique path, all of us together on the path to justice. It’s a beautiful thing.

EcoVillage community center. Photo on the left is from the December 2011 trip; on the right, the completed center.

 

 

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Hope in Haiti: Hard to Imagine, Easy to Find

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) on a joint volunteer trip to Haiti, April 28–May 5, 2012. In the post below, trip participant Jocelyn Furbush writes about the hope and inspiration she experienced with the Papaye Peasant Movement, a UUSC partner in Haiti. The UUSC-UUA Haiti Volunteer Program is made possible through the contributions of UUA and UUSC donors and a generous grant from the Veatch Program of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, in Manhasset, N.Y.

In the United States, we mostly hear bad news about Haiti. I suspect that in the outpouring of support after the earthquake, many donors like me gave with the thought of temporarily alleviating suffering. We didn’t expect to permanently lift anyone out of poverty, let alone transform the country. It’s hard to imagine changing deeply rooted systems of power and oppression. It’s hard to imagine restoring a depleted environment to the point where it could provide a decent life to millions of people, ensuring that the inherent worth and dignity of each is respected. Nonetheless, I came here in search of hope that both those things were possible — and that’s exactly what I’ve found.

One example of this living hope is the home garden of Moccene, an MPP youth leader. His inspiring success in improving soil productivity (and thus family income and well-being) through creative and organic methods represents more than a single story of someone making a positive change. Because this change grew from and continues through a mature and sophisticated system of community organizing and because this young farmer connects his personal actions to the larger political struggle for food sovereignty, I truly believe it represents a movement.

Another example of hope stirring in Haiti is seen in the MPP’s cooperatives, not just for agricultural production but for value-added processing from what’s grown. These co-ops craft jams, peanut butter, honey, and I’m sure more to come. The twin pines logo on the jars connect the system of equal shared investment and reward that created these products to cooperatives of all kinds around the world. In 2012, the International Year of Cooperatives, I’m especially honored to learn from Haitians who are building the kind of cooperative economy I’d like to see in my corner of the world.

Just one more beacon from my short time here has been the joy and human connection I’ve found with my fellow UU travelers and the Haitians we’ve worked and eaten beside. I’ve discovered the power of spontaneous song and dance to cross language barriers. I’ve seen incredible resilience, generosity, humor, love, and faith. As I reconnect with my own UU faith and the space it creates in my life for balancing social-justice action with reflection, I’m blessed to be witnessing the community bonds here. They are strong enough to mobilize members to action and flexible enough to welcome newcomers. MPP calls their organizers “animators,” which brings to mind waking the community up to its own potential and sparking it with new life. In returning home, I hope to be more of an “animatrice” than an activist, waking people like me to the hope Haiti has for itself and to offer to the rest of us.

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