• 320 participants of all ages from around the country
• We held more than 140 appointments with MPs and Senators
• 67 Politicians signed the Giant 40 metre scroll, including then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott who also addressed us at the Signature Event
• A motion in support of the MDGs was moved and unanimously passed in the Senate, and multiple speeches have been made in support of the campaign since Voices for Justice – see the attachment.
• We had more media coverage than ever before including 17 radio interviews, plus your articles are starting to show up in local papers: http://bit.ly/98etNl
• Our photographers took some great photos which can be viewed on our facebook page. Click here:http://bit.ly/9Hgh5O

HOLD AN ELECTORATE FORUM!

The election may be looming closer than we think – analysts say the election could be as early as August! Give your community the chance to find out where your MP and sitting candidates in your electorate stand on international aid issues and climate change by running or taking part in an electorate forum.
Visit: http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/electorate_forums to download a guide on how to run a forum and register your forum on the online map.

10.10.10 – SAVE THE DATE!

Get your church to take part in 10.10.10 with Micah Challenge International and churches all around the world.
Click here for more information and to register your church: http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/micah2010

A NEW PM

Who would have guessed that so soon after Voices, we would have a new Prime Minister. We were not able to engage directly with the new PM at Voices for Justice, so we’ve still got work to do! An electorate forum is in the pipeline for Lalor Electorate. We’ll also be in touch in coming weeks encouraging you to write to the new PM, and with an updated OFFERING OF LETTERS GUIDE you might want to use to let Ms Gillard know that the MDGs are important to the Christian vote.

God bless you as you continue to work for justice!

- From all at Micah Challenge.

Micah Challenge Australia
Ph: (02) 9356 8500
Mezzanine Level, 134 William St, Potts Point NSW 2011
www.micahchallenge.org.au

Michael Wood-Lewis and his wife, Valerie, moved to the south end of Burlington, Vt. in 2000. He recalls, “We’d landed in what we thought was our dream neighborhood. It was walkable, near the lake, full of trees. But we were having trouble getting to know the neighbors. One night, my wife and I were sitting around the dinner table talking about it. It hit us that in the Midwest, where we’re from, people brought cookies to their neighbors. We’ve been here a year–where were our cookies?”

Hence plan A. They baked up a batch of Tollhouse specials and delivered them to the neighbors. “We used china plates, because I figured that way they’d have to return them and we’d get another conversation,” says Wood-Lewis. “We never did get them back. I was kind of dumbfounded. But I don’t think it was because people were rude. I think it’s because people are living in a different culture than they were 50 years ago.”

A culture busier and more distracted than before–busy enough that even in Vermont something had changed. So Wood-Lewis cooked up plan B, which just may turn out to be one of the most innovative (and deceptively obvious) uses of the Internet so far. In his hand, the Net has become a way to meet people not half a world but half a block away.

“I invested 15 dollars at the copy shop and printed up 400 flyers and put one on every door in our neighborhood. It pretty much just said, ‘Share messages about lost cats and block parties.’ ” So was born the Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum, which he ran as a volunteer effort for six years. “It took about five minutes a day, and I was already on the computer anyway.” Every evening he’d compile the five or six messages that had arrived at his inbox during the day, and send them out in a single e-mail bulletin–that was it. Someone would write in: “Neighbors, fyi: late last night I observed a large possum ambling across my front yard. Not as bad as a skunk, but I understand that possums can damage gardens and dig up lawns.” Twenty-four hours later, another neighbor would have responded: “They have very soft feet that are not good for digging, and are not likely to cause lawn damage–and they are very clean animals and spend much of their rest time grooming themselves.” Meanwhile, someone else has pruned their apple trees and wants to share the news that they have kindling piled up on the back porch free for the taking. Down the street someone’s car has been broken into; the only thing taken was a gym bag filled with “my shoes, some sweaty clothes and a couple of issues of the New Yorker. If anyone finds it dumped in their shrubbery, let me know.”

Networking locally

Forget the World Wide Web–this one barely stretches four blocks. And no video, no rating systems, no celebrities, no hyperlinks, just the daily rhythm of neighborhood life. “It grew steadily, from 10 or 20 percent of the neighborhood to the point where by 2006 we had 90 percent of the neighborhood signed up,” says Wood-Lewis. That’s when Cottage Livingmagazine included the area in its list of the 10 best neighborhoods in the country. “And the reporter called me and he said, ‘Everywhere else in the country people would have dozens of different reasons why their place worked. But here, almost everyone put the e-mail thing on the list.’ That’s what gave me the confidence.”

The confidence to quit his job and start offering the service across all of Chittenden County, Vermont’s largest. Within two years, FrontPorchForum.com reached 13,000 households, participating in more than 100 neighborhood forums, some of them in inner-city neighborhoods where the main topics were how to fight graffiti and drive away drug dealers; some in rural towns where you get messages like: “We have four Indian Runner drakes who we expected to be females and lay beautiful round eggs. Instead we have these guys who really need some girls!!!”

This sounds like the stuff you’d see in the letter-to-the-editor column or on the bulletin board at the supermarket–and it is. But now it comes in an easy-to-use daily update that somehow breaks down barriers.

“My sense was that this skill of neighborliness had eroded,” says Wood-Lewis, citing data like the Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s famous book Bowling Alone. “If you could increase social capital in a neighborhood–that is, your network of who you know and how well you know them–then your involvement increases. If you’re among strangers, you’re not going to volunteer for the Girl Scouts.”

Sound theoretical? Not long after he’d launched his first forum, one of Wood-Lewis’ neighbors was moving from an apartment to a house across the street. “They figured they could do it by themselves,” he says, “but at the last minute decided they had a couple of big items they’d need some help with. So they put a note on the forum saying ‘come Sunday at 2:00′–and 36 people showed up. People didn’t just move the chest of drawers and the bed; they organized into teams and boxed up the entire contents of the house, moved it across the street, and unpacked it, all in 90 minutes. I mean, someone pulled the picture hooks out of the wall in the old place and spackled over the holes. All the cardboard boxes were broken down and ready for recycling.”

Front Porch Forum may already be the most important source of information for many Vermonters, who have watched their newspapers lay off reporters and shrink coverage.

“One afternoon last year the state closed our main bridge as unsafe,” says Erik Filkorn. “As a member of the town government I sent an extra to Michael Wood-Lewis, and he got the word right out. I think more people got the news that they’d have to change their morning commutes from him than from the traditional media.” But it only works in emergencies because people use it every day; the steady stream of lost cats and people looking for summer jobs for their teenagers creates the community that people then rely on at more crucial moments.

This same phenomenon is under way across the United States, as our declining economy has led to what sociologists call “an uptick of neighboring.” At the University of Pennsylvania, Keith Hampton runs a website for community groups with over 50,000 members, and the volume of messages grew 25 percent between 2008 and 2009. “I don’t think people will create silos and hide in houses to shield themselves from hard times,” he says. “They’re going to look for people to help solve these problems. Those tend to be your neighbors.”

“There was a mother near us, with a teenage daughter who was having a birthday,” Wood-Lewis recalls. “The girl wanted to go canoeing with her friends for her birthday, but when her mother checked out the price of renting canoes, it was too high. Her daughter said, ‘I see lots of canoes in backyards around here,’ but her mother said, ‘You can’t just ask people you don’t know for their boats.’ Still, she put a one-line notice on the forum, saying they needed six canoes. Before the day was out, people were coming by. I mean, there were canoes just piling up in their front yard. She wrote me a note afterward: ‘What a great feeling. What a great reminder of how to be a community. Why didn’t I get to know these people 10 years ago?’ ”

This essay was adapted from Bill McKibben’s latest book, EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (Times Books, April) © 2010 by Bill McKibben. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Bill McKibben is the author of more than ten books, including, most recently, EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org. He lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter.

The central idea is to provide prayer requests form the frontline so that people can ‘present their requests to God’. We understand that prayer is about more than just a list of things that we bring to God. However, we believe that as part of our relationship with God we should pray specifically and appropriately about the needs of His people, the world and His mission.

The idea is for a simple website that is organized by easy to search topics to enable anyone to pray for a particular issue, or region and to allow for a prayer network to respond to urgent prayer requests.

We hope to launch this new website in June 2010 and we would love you to join with us and be part of this prayer network.

This is a free service and only requires the time it takes to share your prayer needs

So here’s how you can be involved:

• Join with us by becoming a prayer partner whereby either you share your prayer needs with others through a simple process or permit us to feature your prayer items.
• Join with us in this prayer initiative and help us spread the news about this new prayer initiative by putting a link to prayingforchange.com on your website.

Here’s how you can respond:

1. Yes definitely count us in! Send us more details about how our prayer materials can be used to inspire prayer.
2. Maybe at a later stage. Please keep us updated with how things are going.
3. No thanks. God bless you in your work.

For those who respond with yes or maybe the next steps will be to work out how this can technically fit together.

Please do email sara.kandiah@tearfund.org with the contact details of the right person to contact for more prayer information.

We would value hearing back from each of you by Tuesday 18th May 2010 as this gives us time to co-ordinate the prayer news before our launch in June.

We look forward to hearing from you.

David Westlake and Sara Kandiah
Tearfund UK.

www.prayingforchange.com

Some t-shirts try to convince others of your ideas, but bshirts remind you of who you want to be.

Each shirt promotes an idea or value, and the wearer aims to live that value in their own day to day lives.

We hope to develop a huge community of people who want to be the change they want to see in the world.

We aim to make clothing that reminds them to be who they want to be.

Its not a new idea that the world is changed when people live out their values and convictions. Gandhi is supposed to have said “Be the change that you want to see in the world” although he probably was not the first.

I know Michael Jackson said it well when he penned “If you wanna make the world a better place, better look at yourself and make a (oowww) CHANGE!”

bshirts were inspired by these truths. I just figured that having some physical reminders around us during our days might help to remind us to make choices that reflect our deep values. I thought about a lot of things from tattoos to jewellery and decided to start with ….shirts. bshirts.

Each shirt will represent a value or attitude that the wearer is reminded to embody …

The design may in fact be quite subtle. Maybe the wearer is the only one who gets it … and thats fine. That is the difference between a bshirt and a regular t-shirt. The message is for the wearer … not the public.

We are open to ideas, partnerships and more. We value community, creativity and involvement.

Overall … its about change from the inside out.

The very first bshirt design will appear in this space within weeks. Very exciting …. stay tuned! bshirts.org

Turning a crisis for the banks into an opportunity for the world!

Jubilee Australia is delighted to be coordinating a broad alliance of development organisations, green groups, think tanks, unions, faith communities, to bring the Robin Hood Tax down under.

A global phenomenon, the Robin Hood Tax, is a suggested “tiny tax” on financial transactions that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year to go toward charitable causes. Globally, it is supported by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, billionaire Warren Buffett, economist Jeffrey Sachs, along with actors Bill Nighy, Sienna Miller and Emma Thompson, among  many, many others.

The magic of the Robin Hood Tax is that it is just a tiny tax on financial transactions. It would not affect high street customers at an everyday level. It would not require everyday Australians to donate money. It would only affect the bottom line of financial institutions – and only an infinitesimal part of that bottom line.

The most recent financial crisis has opened up opportunities for long term change, like this proposal to implement a tax on financial transactions. Jubilee believes the time for transformational change has come. 

Hit the target to link to the website and sign up to be part of the world’s biggest bank job!

ROBIN HOOD (FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS) TAX
Background: Since the mid-1990s, talk of a tax on financial transactions has waxed and waned among international economists and policymakers. The concept dates back almost forty years, when the noted economist James Tobin recommended a tax of foreign exchange transactions. The idea has renewed impetus as a result of the desire to find a way to make financial sectors help pay for the large bail-outs and stimulus packages.

In its most recent form, Tobin’s idea has been expanded to include not just currency transactions, but also other kinds such as shares, bonds, securities and derivatives.

Long-term, the Financial transactions Tax (FTT) will not only be a new and innovative source of revenue, but, if set up properly, also be an important part of the strategy to reduce instability in the global financial system.

Given its long history and the renewed relevance, it is no surprise that governments and public alike have shown enthusiastic support for the idea in recent times. Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkosy and Angela Merkel all expressed support for the concept ahead of the last G20 Finance Minister’s Conference in St Andrews. Other high-profile supporters include George Soros, Warren Buffet and Paul Krugman.

Civil society campaigners have been raising the issue of the tax for years, and the recent support of European leaders owes much to this work. While the recent successes have buoyed European campaigners to redouble their efforts, even more encouraging is the momentum that is gathering in the US around the issue. A coalition of development, environmental and union groups have coalesced in support of this tax, and significant progress has been made in gaining the support of high-profile supporters in Congress like Nancy Pelosi. Thus far, the Obama Administration has proved more resistant, although Barack Obama himself spoke in support of the idea during the campaign primaries in 2008.

Why now? The tax will not be implemented without the support of the major G20 countries, and thus it is expected that gaining endorsement at the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting and the G20 Leaders’ Summit will be necessary for the tax to become a reality.

What needs to be done? The ultimate goal is to gain endorsement for the FTT at the G20 Leaders Summit in Toronto (June). Therefore, the strategy hinges on building support for the tax among Finance Ministers and Treasury Departments of all major G20 countries, including Australia.

What is Jubilee doing? Australia will play an important role, yet to date we are well behind North America and Europe in terms of political support for the tax. Australian Treasurer, Wayne Swan, was one of the people who spoke against the idea at the G20 Finance Meeting in St Andrews last November.

Since the start of the financial crisis late 2008 Jubilee has been working with a global network of civil society campaigners discussing issues of financial system and global governance reform.

In June 2009 Jubilee formed a working group with a number of Australia’s leading academic Professors to raise issues of financial reform with the Australian Government. Together we determined that FTT should be a focus of the groups work in 2010. The recent increase of support for the tax in North America and Europe affirm this decision.

Jubilee is coordinating the campaign to win support for the Financial Transactions Tax in Australia.

Further Reading:

Frequently Asked Questions

At Davos, Sarkozy Calls for Global Finance Rules, NY Times – Jan 28, 2010

What’s not to like? International support is growing for a low but effective tax on financial transactions. John Langmore looks at an idea whose time has come, Inside Story - Jan 6, 2010

Cure for a financial sickness. Ross Buckley, SMH – Dec 18, 2009

The Charter for Compassion is the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize wish and made possible by the generous support of the Fetzer Institute. It will be unveiled to the world on November 12, 2009.  

Why a Charter for Compassion?

The Golden Rule requires that we use empathy — moral imagination — to put ourselves in others’ shoes. We should act toward them as we would want them to act toward us. We should refuse, under any circumstance, to carry out actions which would cause them harm.

The Charter, crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-fath, maulti-national council of thinkers and leaders, is a cry for a return to this central principle which is so often overlooked in our world. It reminds the faithful that in the past leading sages of all the major traditions insisted that the Golden Rule was the essence of religion, that everything else was “commentary,” and that it should be practised “all day and every day.” They insisted that any interpretation of scripture that led to hatred or disdain was illegitimate and that exegesis must issue in practical charity. Like the Charter of Human Rights, this Charter for Compassion is a yardstick against which the laity as well as religious and secular leaders can measure their behaviour; it can empower congregations to demand a more compassionate teaching from pastors and preachers; it can mobilise youth, who have seen at a formative age what happens when bigotry becomes rife in a society; it can make interfaith understanding a priority; inspire exegetes, scholars, educators and the media to explore the role compassion has played in the traditions, and ensure that it compassion is a focal point in the curricula of schools, colleges and seminaries.

The Charter seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ has failed the test of our time.

We need everybody to participate ~ atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims ~ everybody! Our polarized world needs to see compassion practically implicated ~ politically, socially and economically ~ and show that in our divided world, which so often stresses difference, compassion is something on which we can all agree.

About Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong is one of the most provocative, original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world. Armstrong is a former Roman Catholic nun who left a British convent to pursue a degree in modern literature at Oxford.  She has written more than 20 books around the ideas of what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common, and around their effect on world events, including the magisterial A History of God and Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World. Her latest book is The Case for God. Her meditations on personal faith and religion (she calls herself a freelance monotheist) spark discussion — especially her take on fundamentalism, which she sees in a historical context, as an outgrowth of modern culture.

In February 2008, Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize and wished for help in creating, launching and propagating the Charter for Compassion.

http://charterforcompassion.org/the-charter

In the Beatitudes, Jesus blesses all those who work for change by practising the Be-Attitudes that embody the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. If we look at the Beatitudes in both Matthew and Luke, we will see that the ‘Kingdom of God’ (Luke 6:20) is the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (Matthew 5:3,10). And the Kingdom of Heaven is a place of blessing. A place where the meek will inherit the earth, where those who give mercy will receive it. It is a place where the hungry will be filled, and those who hunger and thirst for justice will be fulfilled. Those who mourn will be comforted, and those who weep now will laugh once more. Peacemakers will walk proudly as sons and daughters of God, and all who are pure in heart will see God. No doubt the Kingdom of God which Jesus describes here is the kind of place that I imagine most people who are a part of TEAR would hope that one day we would see…

Check out the latest Target on the Tear website that features resources for the Beatitude Revolution

www.tear.org.au

Sabeel also works to promote a more accurate international awareness regarding the identity, presence and witness of Palestinian Christians as well as their contemporary concerns. It encourages individuals and groups from around the world to work for a just, comprehensive and enduring peace informed by truth and empowered by prayer and action.

Palestinian Liberation Theology

Palestinian Liberation Theology is an ecumenical grassroots movement, rooted in Christian Biblical interpretation and nourished by the hopes, dreams and struggles of the Palestinian people. Originating in the land where Christ lived, this theology seeks to provide a holistic vision of God‘s redeeming activity in the midst of the current reality. In a situation where justice has been long neglected, Palestinian Liberation Theology opens new horizons of understanding for the pursuit of a just peace and for the reconciliation proclaimed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

By learning from Jesus – his life under occupation and his response to injustice – this theology hopes to connect the true meaning of Christian faith with the daily lives of all those who suffer under occupation, violence, discrimination, and human rights violations. Additionally, this blossoming theological effort promotes a more accurate international awareness of the current political situation and encourages Christians from around the world to work for justice and to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

History of Sabeel

In 1989 an ad hoc committee was formed to implement, on a practical level, a Palestinian Liberation Theology. On a pastoral level, some of the Palestinian clergy were listening to the cries of the people at the grassroots. They felt the need to respond not only to their physical sufferings, but also to the way these sufferings were being aggravated by the religious argument in the political conflict. People where asking “Where is God in all of this oppression and injustice?” We needed to work out a Palestinian theology of liberation as a pastoral response to such questions. Many of the Palestinian Christians also wanted to abandon the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, which was being used to justify their suffering. As Christians, however, the Bible is essential to our faith, so it was necessary to find in the Bible the God of justice, the God who is concerned with the oppressed.

The Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek convened a committee of ten clergy and lay people to explore ways in which this theology could be developed and shared with fellow Palestinian Christians. They decided to host an international conference that would put Palestinian Liberation Theology in the context of other Liberation Theologies from around the world. Several local workshops were held to formulate ideas and prepare people for full participation in the conference.

In March 1990 the conference took place at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute. Local and international theologians developed the themes of the conference: Palestinian Reality; Palestinian Christian Identity; Power, Justice, and the Bible; Women, Faith, and the Intifada; and International Responses to the Quest for Palestinian Theology. The proceedings were published in a book entitled Faith and the Intifada (Orbis Books 1992), edited by Palestinian Liberation Theologian Naim Stifan Ateek, Jewish American Theologian Marc Ellis and American Theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. The conference led to the founding of Sabeel as a liberation theology movement.

The Sabeel Center is located in Jerusalem, serving Bethlehem, Ramallah and the surrounding areas, with a branch office in Nazareth to serve the Galilee.

In recent years, International Friends of Sabeel chapters have been founded in Australia, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. International Friends of Sabeel Chapters provide support for Sabeel‘s work in advocacy, education, and nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Vision

Sabeel affirms its commitment to make the gospel relevant ecumenically and spiritually in the lives of the local indigenous Church. Our faith teaches that following in the footsteps of Christ means standing for the oppressed, working for justice, and seeking peace-building opportunities, and it challenges us to empower local Christians. Since a strong civil society and a healthy community are the best supports for a vulnerable population, Sabeel strives to empower the Palestinian community as a whole and to develop the internal strengths needed for participation in building a better world for all

Only by working for a just and durable peace can we provide a sense of security and create ample opportunities for growth and prosperity in an atmosphere void of violence and strife. Although remaining political and organizational obstacles hinder the full implementation of programs, Sabeel continues to develop creative means to surmount these challenges. We seek both to be a refuge for dialogue and to pursue ways of finding answers to ongoing theological questions about the sanctity of life, justice, and peace.

http://www.sabeel.org

http://irenesplacecommunity.blogspot.com/