Monthly Archives: May 2012

Pause for Peace 2012 – Will you join with us from now until the end of June praying for the ‘Future We Want’ from the Rio Conference?

As you use this prayer share your reflection and your own prayer with us. This prayer is available in Spanish and English.   Pausa por la paz – 2012[1]     Pause for Peace 2012[1]

                                                                      

Good Shepherd Team for Rio Conference Update

We are happy to have a new member join the team – Erika Patricia Sanchez Valdez, from Our Lady of Charity in Mexico. She is the fifth member joining with Doris, Maria, Fernanda de Fatima and Marta Iris in Rio. Contact e-mail addresses are Doris: dorisrbp@yahoo.es, Maria:  marques.aurea@gmail.com, Fernanda de Fatima:  fernandinha_ff@yahoo.com.br and Marta:  milc29@gmail.com You can follow the preparations for Rio at http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/  This website is in English and Portuguese only. Our Team for Rio Update   See also the two posting of May 4, 2012.   The time, date and details of the Side Event that we are co-sponsoring with Franciscan International are published:   15:30 – 17:00    Sat 16 Jun 

Agro ecological farming can feed the world: in practice

 
Lead organizer:
Faith based organisations, by Franciscans International
 Room:   T-2
 Franciscans International (FI), Dominicans for Justice and Peace (DfJP), Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), Edmund Rice International (ERI), Good shepherd Sisters Association (GSSA) have extensive networks at the grassroots level and with farmers’ organizations throughout the world. Their activities include promoting people-centered development and human rights, and advocating for peace and justice, for just and sustainable production and consumption of food, and for environmental protection.
The proposed side event on “Agro ecological farming can feed the world: Ecologically and socially sustainable agriculture in practice” will demonstrate how agro ecological farming respects the limits of the planet’s ecosystem, integrates traditional knowledge from local communities, reduces waste, and can serve as a means to advance rural communities towards food and technological sovereignty.
 
 

‘It Does Exist – Human Trafficking’

A group of students from the University of New England School of Social Work who are committed to exposing and educating the public of the hidden injustice of human trafficking prepared this site –  Alethia Coles, Jessica Wicki, Nicole Dowden and Katherine Lamourt. Jessica has been a Good Shepherd Volunter in New York. This site is created and dedicated to aid in alleviating human trafficking by way of education and public awareness. You can watch the video by clicking on this link:  https://sites.google.com/a/une.edu/it-does-exist-trafficking/ The professional page featuring Direct Care and Research and Awareness comes from the direct experience and work of two dedicated ‘Good Shepherd Personnel’  Theresa Symons from Malaysia and Helene Hayse, New York.  See the video, read the sections, like it and use it for educational and awareness raising activities.
Congratualtions to you Jessica and your colleagues … Well done!

A Sustainable Development without Human Trafficking or Forced Labour

The Conference of Nations, gathering in Rio + 20  June 20 – 22, 2012, will call together most of the nations of the world that are looking for sustainable development, a green economy, and the reduction of poverty.  Negotiations on draft outcome document ‘The Future We Want’ are long and intense.  But a part of the future we want is A WORLD FREE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND FORCED LABOUR.   Good Shepherd have been active in the campaign to eradicate poverty through implementation of the Social Protection Floor Initiative.  The International Labour Conference in Geneva in June 2012 will seek to have a Recommendation on Social Protection and the International Trade Union Confederation at the Rio Conference is calling for implementation of the Social Protection Floor nationally by 2020.  Ensuring a basic income and services to all people will be one step in addressing a reason for human trafficking. 

Visit this site ‘Committee Against Human Trafficking Internet and International’  in  French only and learn more http://www.cathii.org/socle-protection-sociale.html

You can find the statement referred to in English and Spanish at Statement submitted by Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd and UNANIMA International, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, E/CN.5/2012/NGO/15: 
English | Français | Español | Русский | عربي | 汉语  

For the Conference in Rio in June  see the following language sites:

English: http://campagnecathii2012.weebly.com/english.html 

French: http://campagnecathii2012.weebly.com/

Spanish: http://campagnecathii2012.weebly.com/espanol.html

Portuguese:  http://campagnecathii2012.weebly.com/portuguese.html

10 Suggested actions that you can do over the next 47 days in the run up to the Rio Conference:  

1.  Find out if your King, Queen, President or Prime Minister is attending and who else from your government is attending with him or her? 

2. What is your Governments position on Sustainable Development?

3. Are there NGO’s from your country attending the Conference in Rio?  Do you have contact with them?  

4.  What are the issues they are presenting on?   

5.  What are the concerns of Good Shepherd in your country around sustainable development?  Does your Government share your concerns?   

6.  Have you looked at the document ‘ The Future We Want’  http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/mgzerodraft.html  

7. Use the Internet to express your ideas and those of your community and ministry.   “What do you dream of for your community? What would life look like if you could design it? We all have dreams and ideas to make the world better. We believe there is enormous power in the sharing of those ideas. The Future We Want is a global conversation to build the future through a positive vision for tomorrow”    http://futurewewant.org/   

8.  Communicate with our Good Shepherd team who will be present in Rio on behalf of us all – see the next blog entry for information.  

9.  Use your Facebook to create awareness. Invite your friends to become interested in the World Conference on Sustainable Development.  If you have a Twitter account tweet it!   Click  ‘Like this’

10.  Write a comments below