Examples of other issues we work on include anti-racism, the response to HIV/AIDS, and human trafficking, among others.
Important international food aid programs governed by the farm bill – such as Food for Peace (PL 480), which was first signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, and which reached over 53 million people last year – are at risk of devastating cuts.
The following article was written by Jennifer Svetlik, who worked with the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns (MOGC) for several months this spring.
Join this year’s Economic and Ecological Way of the Cross as it moves through Washington, D.C. on Good Friday, April 3.
Join in an act of global solidarity with the suffering people of Syria.
In early January a number of faith communities and allied organizations that work to support individuals and societies striving to meet basic human needs wrote to President Obama to congratulate him on his election to a second term, and to raise a number of concerns as his administration continues to develop policies and programs that address global hunger and rural poverty. The following edited version of that letter outlines the course of action needed to address the right to food and to protect our planet from further ecological destruction.
In recent years industrial agricultural corporations and financial actors have taken control over many aspects of the global food industry including land, production processes, and even the pricing. At the same time governments and multilateral organizations increasingly are embracing and promoting private sector solutions in the struggle against hunger and malnutrition without adequate public regulation of existing conflicts of interest. As all of this unfolds, concerns escalate that the people suffering from hunger and malnutrition will have even less access to food and to the resources to grow food for themselves. Moreover, these very people may even lose their voice in the political decision making process around food policy. The following article in the November-December 2012 NewsNotes looks at recent attempts to identify and address these concerns as hunger around the world only increases.
Maryknoll and other faith groups will sponsor the 11th annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days, April 2013, focused on food justice.
The following is taken from a press release from the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch Consortium.
This discussion paper highlights the principles outlined by faith groups and allied organizations that give public-private partnerships the best chance of success, while detailing the historical trends that led to the New Alliance announcement in May 2012.
Fr. Ken Thesing spent many years as a missioner in East Africa, and now works in Rome. “Our scriptures often use contrasts – like the theme of darkness and light, or as we see in the readings for today’s liturgy, the theme of ‘blindness’ and ‘sight’ to show that process of growth in understanding for the disciples or for anyone who wants to follow Jesus … These are the people God brings back and restores – not just the strong, the gifted, and those who can pay for assistance but the frail and vulnerable – no one is left out.”
October 16 is World Food Day – an opportunity for Christians all over the world to act and speak out together on food justice issues.
The following article was published in the September-October 2012 NewsNotes.
The September-October 2012 issue of NewsNotes includes a report of a recent toxic spill at a mining town in Peru; a small shift in policy by the U.S. toward Honduras; a report on new concerns in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; a more expansive explanation of the necessity for a Financial Transaction Tax; and much more. Read the entire issue in PDF format (link at the bottom of page.)
As humanity faces the reality of exhausting a number of key natural resources, we realize that our economy, which is fundamentally built on the concept of never-ending exponential growth, must drastically change if we are going to live within the confines of a finite planet, Earth. This series of six articles, written by Dave Kane, looks at ecological economics and the idea of a steady state economy that will provide livelihoods while fitting within the footprint of Earth. The series was published in NewsNotes in 2009 and was updated in 2012.
The following piece was written by Brennan Baker and printed in the May-June 2012 issue of NewsNotes.
Celebrating 100 years of Maryknoll sisters … plus an update on the students’ protest in Chile, post-referendum news from Sudan-South Sudan, news about the June 2012 Earth Summit, and principles for public-private partnerships for food security.
