Lift Every Voice: Racism, Class, and Power
April 15 - 18, 2016 in Washington, DC
Compassion Peace and Justice Training Day - April 15
Ecumenical Advocacy Days - April 15 - 18
Click here to register!
Ecumenical Advocacy Days' Friday Night Keynote Speaker Announced!
Rev. Dr. William Barber
President, North Carolina NAACP;
Convener, Forward Together Moral Movement
Click here for more information and to register for Ecumenical Advoacy Days!
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Don't miss the opportunity to attend these amazing workshops on the struggles of our times at Compassion Peace and Justice Training Day on April 15!
Click here to register!
Join Root Cause Struggles to Tackle –Isms, Inequality, and Injustice
Racism, classism and greed have sucked wealth, dignity, and hope out of many urban and rural communities in the United States. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the popularity of anti-establishment politicians demonstrate growing unrest. People of color especially are fed up with being the target of food and healthcare apartheid, school punishment, incarceration, and violence, as well as receiving the brunt of growing economic inequality. In this workshop we’ll look at injustices our Church is called on to address, the limitations we are up against, and opportunities to join in struggles led by frontline communities to get at the root causes and build a “beloved community.” Through stories and power analysis, presenters will explain the -isms underlying poverty and oppression in the U.S., and together we’ll explore how best to support the struggles.
Led by: Doreen Hicks, Worker and United Workers Leadership Council Member; and Andrew Kang Bartlett, Associate for National Hunger Concerns at the Presbyterian Hunger Program
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Beyond: Corporate Exploitation and Global Trade
Twenty years after the U.S. negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. is pushing forward its largest trade partnership yet that will incorporate at least twelve countries on four continents and represents about 40 percent of the global economy. Will this partnership create more jobs for women, rural communities, and industrial workers and go further to protect the environment, as the partnership promises? Or will the agreement protect corporate profit over the rights of workers, God’s Earth, and people? Join leaders from the Peru Joining Hands against Hunger network, the Hunger Program, and the Office of Public Witness who will share just what the Trans-Pacific Partnership has to offer and suggestions for action in your community.
Led by: Valery Nodem, Associate for International Hunger Concerns with the Presbyterian Hunger Program; Conrado Oliviera, Executive Director of the Peru Joining Hands Network; and Catherine Gordon, Associate for International Issues with the Office of Public Witness
Unrigging US Elections: Voting for Citizens, Not SuperPACs
This workshop will test the update to the 2008 General Assembly resolution, Lift Every Voice: Voting Rights and Electoral Reform, which will be going to the 2016 General Assembly. Participants will engage in a mock Session meeting, during which the Mission Committee proposes that the church host a candidate forum with voter registration and calls for the Session to endorse electoral reform and ending voter suppression and corruption by big money. Participants will be asked to play either the role of organizers/educators or of opponents of the church’s involvement. We will wrestle with issues related to church/state boundaries, coalition-building with secular partners, free speech, corporate power, and how the Church can faithfully engage in matters characterized by political polarization. Additional arguments will look at systemic tilts in the structure of national campaigns and disenfranchisement of the District of Columbia and US territories.
Led by: Chris Iosso, Coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and Floretta Watkins, Pastor of the Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC
