Posts Tagged: poverty

April 7, 2014

Bright Futures?

Posted 2:56pm

My name is Andrew Kang Bartlett and I am grateful to have been able to serve as associate for national hunger for the past 13 years ever since Gary Cook (sitting in the pews) hired me on for a 6-month interim position. I hope you know the ‘minute’ in Minute for Mission is a euphemism. No one has ever done it in a minute, and I’ll be speaking for about 4 minutes. Also in the name of transparency – a principle seekers of justice promote – my salary is provided through One Great Hour of Sharing, and my job is to ask you to give generously to OGHS. A clear conflict of interest.

But I believe you should give generously in any case. Actually, all you need to do is read the story of Huerto de la Familia in the bulletin and you’ll be convinced. So I’ll just tell you a story.

Fans of Farm Workers and NFWM

Posted 3:51pm

“WE CELEBRATE the 40 years of ministry of the National Farm Worker Ministry!”

Dominique holding 35 pound bucket of tomatoes

I am Dominique Aulisio. Through volunteering with NFWM and starting a Youth and Young Adult Network chapter in Orlando, I have had the opportunity to get to know farm workers and work hand in hand with them to fight the injustice they face.

YAYAs learn about hope, share in each others’ cultures, and learn the organizing skills we need to impact our world. As a young person, working with NFWM as an ally to farm workers has given me confidence in our power to change the systems that oppress farm workers and keep our communities divided. NFWM/YAYA is unique and vital to the farm worker movement and to the broader fight for social justice. I am grateful to have the continued opportunity to work alongside NFWM in the farm worker movement.

Olga speaking at a public rally I am Olgha Sierra Sandman. I came from Mexico to enter a college for women in training for missionary work hoping to be sent to Africa. That changed when I had the opportunity to work for two summers for the National Migrant Ministry. After my marriage to Rev. Bob Sandman, we continued in Migrant Ministry.

In May 1971, I attended the first meeting of the National Farm Worker Ministry Board in La Paz, CA. I was fortunate to be a part of the evolving of the Migrant Ministry into the National Farm Worker Ministry. NFWM opened the door widely and I entered. The farm workers also opened their arms and embraced me, both giving me many opportunities to work side by side.

Forty years later, I reflect in gratitude and praise God, for giving me this life-time opportunity to be part of a movement of justice, for learning from the farm workers about self-determination and sacrifice, about fighting for dignity, and respect and for bringing to our tables the food that sustains life.

Written in my heart are Cesar Chavez’s words of wisdom: “When you work for justice, you can’t afford being a sprinter, you must be a long distance runner.” As I approach the finishing line, I’m ready to pass the baton on to all future runners for justice who will, as I have, stay the course and support the National Farm Worker Ministry and its courageous stand to be faithful to the struggle of the farm workers.

Maria in a field of grapes I am Maria Vidal. Years ago, I worked in the fields picking apricots and peaches near Stockton, California. When I learned that 15 farm workers had died from heat stress in California’s fields since 2005, I was motivated to act.

Now I am a volunteer with the National Farm Worker Ministry’s Support Group, LIVE – Luces y Voces de Esperanza. I and my fellow supporters seek ways that our people can be valued for their work. Above all, we bring farm workers hope that their dignity as persons will be respected. We let them know that they are not alone. It is a privilege to give my time and be in solidarity with the National Farm Worker Ministry, because NFWM works to see to it that farm workers have a voice.

And you can celebrate and contribute to the work of NFWM

July 21, 2011

90 Years of Solidarity, 40 Years of the National Farm Worker Ministry

Posted 3:30pm

The National Farm Worker Ministry — which Presbyterians and the Hunger Program have been engaged with for decades — celebrates 40 years of solidarity and accompaniment with farm workers. Board chair Felix Garza and director Virginia Nesmith give some background and an invitation to support this work. Tomorrow, we’ll hear from Olga, Dominique and Maria about why they love NFWM.

***********

More than 90 years ago, state migrant ministries began providing services to farm workers. Decades later, those ministry leaders were ready when farm workers began organizing in the fields and called on religious groups to accompany them. In 1971, they founded NFWM as a national organization to mobilize faith community members in the farm worker struggle for justice.

NFWM Marches at Reynolds Tobacco

For 40 years, we have been privileged, along with you, to accompany farm workers in the fields and in the supermarkets, in labor camps and corporate offices, on the streets and in the halls of Congress.

You have helped farm workers win better wages and working conditions and the right to enforce those through union representation; the recognition from many food service companies that we all share in the responsibility to improve the conditions of those who pick our produce; and new laws such as those requiring mattresses in labor camps.

Yet we grieve for the many workers who continue to be exploited by our broken system, risking their health and their lives to put food on our table. With you, we remain steadfast to transforming the agriculture industry so that:

– No farm worker has to sleep 12 people to a trailer that has no ventilation.
– No farm worker dies from working in 100 degree heat without water or shade breaks.
– No farm worker suffers the horrible effects of being sprayed with toxic pesticides.
– No farm worker is cheated, paid for 48 sacks of oranges when they picked 53.
– No farm worker has to be silent in the face of abuse or risk being fired or deported.

We commit to saying “Yes” when farm workers ask for our help. We commit to engaging a new generation in this struggle. We commit to providing you with education and action opportunities so that together, we reach the day when each meal we sit down to is a meal we can eat with a clear conscience.

In celebration of 40 years of national work, our goal is to raise $40,000 in additional income. We recently learned about an exciting opportunity to have $5,000 of this appeal matched dollor-for-dollar by a new granting source. That means your anniversary gift is doubled – your $50 gift becomes $100 or your $100 gift becomes $200. Each donor to our anniversary campaign will receive an NFWM magnet in appreciation!

Click here to contribute online using our new secure donation system!

In Solidarity,
Felix Garza, President
Virgnia Nesmith, Executive Director

April 2, 2011

Farm workers inspire (and feed) the world

Posted 2:40pm

On Thursday, a special group of folks from around the world joined in a spirited protest with farm workers from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), students and people of faith from various churches in the area. The protest took place in front of a Publix supermarket in Naples, Florida. The CIW has been asking Publix to work with them to end poverty wages and abuses in the fields. Pictured is Dr. Aruna Gnanadason from India, who is one of 30 people gathered for a Justice Reading consultation with the World Council of Reformed Churches here in Fort Myers. We spent the first day together with the farm workers in Immokalee to ground our consultation in current justice issues of worker exploitation, mistreatment of immigrants and modern-day slavery. (See the press release from the WCRC on the protest) * Here are photos and story from Naples Daily News – “Farmworkers target Publix in protest over wages and working conditions” * Here are photos and videos from the Coalition’s recent “Do the right thing tour!” * Find out how to act in support in the farm workers’ Campaign for Fair Food During our “immersion” day with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, we heard the history of the CIW and the farm workers’ struggle and amazing organizing to claim their rights and dignity. We walked through the town seeing the ridiculously-expensive RVs that many of the farm workers rent on a weekly basis. And we saw the solidarity and service center Mision Peniel.

September 23, 2010

Would you believe it? Corporate lobbying is blocking food reforms

Posted 3:19pm

“…powerful lobby groups were able to delay decisions, sometimes for many years, and “water down” proposed improvements. Their job was made easier because the FAO works by consensus, so persuading as few as two or three national governments to oppose an idea was enough to block it. Then this direct quote — “I have now been 20 years in a multilateral organisation which tries to develop guidance and codes for good agricultural practice, but the real, true issues are not being addressed by the political process because of the influence of lobbyists, of the true powerful entities.” Joyce d’Silva, a director with Compassion in World Farming, confirmed this position adding that it was “horrifying” that — “the narrow interests of certain commercial sectors can have more influence than organisations which represent the values and aspirations of millions of citizens.”

September 9, 2010

Celebrate the launch of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance!

Posted 3:56pm

Celebrate the Launch of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance! Emerging out of the US Working Group on the Food Crisis, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance will be the first of its kind in the United States. To celebrate its launch, we encourage people fighting for food justice and sovereignty to take actions during the week of October 10-17. In solidarity with people all over the world, we call on food justice groups to hold community events that educate, celebrate, and create affordable access to safe, healthy, culturally appropriate food while turning our food systems into engines for local economic development. We call for actions to build food sovereignty in the US. October 10: Global Work Party to Tackle Climate Change October 12: Day of Indigenous Resistance to Conquest October 15: World Rural Women’s Day October 16: World Food Day October 17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

August 30, 2010

Ha-Joon Chang uncovers what’s worked in agricultural policy

Posted 3:03pm

Ha-Joon’s analysis in “Kicking Away the Ladder” helped me to understand that the United States has been trying to push on developing countries a path of development based on myth, not on the actual history of how the U.S. and European countries developed. The very trade rules we are pushing into international policy via Free Trade Agreements and the WTO would likely have thwarted our development as a country. Now Ha-Joon has done a similar analysis on our agricultural system. This summary shows how countries have successfully taken alternative approaches to the conventional ideologies pushed by U.S. institutions: ‘In the earlier stages of development, today’s rich countries had to grapple with the very problems that dog the agricultural sector of today’s developing countries – land tenure, land degradation, fragmentation of holdings, agricultural research, extension services, rural credit, irrigation, transport, fertilizers, seeds, price and income stabilities, trade shocks, agro-processing, marketing, and so on. Many successful policy interventions have gone well beyond (or even against) the scope recommended by the New Conventional Wisdom (NCW), which has ruled agricultural (as well as other) policies in the last quarter of a century: · Japan and other East Asian countries had a very successful comprehensive land reform that included strict land ownership ceilings. · Virtually all of today’s rich countries used state-backed specialized rural banks and credit subsidies, state-subsidized agricultural insurance, public provision or subsidization of warehousing facilities, and input (e.g. fertilizers) quality control · Denmark and some other European countries benefited from effective export marketing boards · The USA and Japan successfully used price stabilization measures ‘History frees our “policy imagination” by showing that the range of policies and institutions that have produced positive outcomes for agricultural development has been much wider than any particular ideological position – be it the pre-1980s statist one or the pro-market NCW – would admit.’

August 20, 2010

Pay your library fine with food

Posted 12:09pm

waiting patiently for a meteorite shower to commence, I spy the single light on top of the mountain in front of me