Create To Advocate: Melbourne - Sat 29

• Saturday 29 July, 10am - 4pm
• Northcote Uniting Church, 251 High St Northcote
• $5 to cover the cost of food and art supplies

Create To Advocate aims to bring together artists and provide information, stimulus and inspiration, for artists to create works for the “Create to Advocate” Art Exhibition, destined for Parliament House, Canberra.

There will be the opportunity for artists to find out more about the Make Poverty History campaign, to share and exhibit art works that explore related themes, to brainstorm, make connections, respond and do some art for justice with others. The workshop will feature performances by Water Carriers Dance Theatre, drama and music and art works. If you’re a visual artist, performer, poet, writer, dancer, musician, multi-media wonder-worker, then please be part of this exciting initiative.

If you are interested in coming give Jane McGeough a call at the Tear office 03 9877 7444 or email janemc@tear.org.au.

How long can this last?

So, I find it slightly amusing that nobody has managed to snap up these plates yet - what other GR8PL8’s can you make?  http://www.vplates.com.au
(I’m sure the creative ones out there can find a way to attach their images to their posts…)

- Russ G.

Migration & Micah Actions

Migration Changes

In response to the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to the Government’s proposed changes to the Migration Act, and the refusal of a number of Government backbenchers to support the legislation, it has not been brought on for debate, and will not be put before Parliament until at least August. The Prime Minister has indicated that several amendments will be incorporated, but there are still major problems with the legislation.

Thank you to everyone who has signed petitions, written letters and emails to Senators and MPs, visited their MP or even sent in a submission to the Senate Inquiry - your voice has played a significant part in helping the backbenchers stand firm in the face of strong internal party pressure.

It also needs to be recognized that most of the serious flaws in this legislation already affect asylum-seekers under current legislation - those who are intercepted at sea or arrive at one of Australia’s excised offshore places. Even if the current legislation does not go forward, we need to keep working for changes to the existing situation.

A new action guide - with resources to email, write to or visit MPs and Senators on this issue - is available at www.tear.org.au/advocacy/refugees/westpapua.php. Please take action to ensure that this legislation is not passed.

MP Letter Writing Guide

Please use the attached Micah Challenge Letter Writing Guide to write to your MP about the importance of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Although we have a budget surplus of over $10 billion and the White Paper on Aid identifies ways to focus more on health and education, Australia is still giving only 0.3% of our Gross National Income in aid - putting us 19th out of 22 rich aid-giving countries. The head of the UN Millennium Project, Salil Shetty, on a recent visit to Australia, described Australia’s aid performance as “punching below our weight.”

The letter writing guide is also available at the TEAR website.

Ben

finding hope in dark places

I was pondering about Age’s upper room post, thinking about those verse’s that really resonate with life. When I returned from About FACE, i was very depressed about a lack of justice in our society, particularly for Australia’s indigenous communities. It’s no secret that our federal politics depresses and frustrates me to utter dispair and anger. the fgolling verse helped (and still does)me see hope in the future.
I found Isaiah 32
1 See, a king will reign in righteousness
and rulers will rule with justice.

2 Each man will be like a shelter from the wind
and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

3 Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen.

4 The mind of the rash will know and understand,
and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

5 No longer will the fool be called noble
nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

6 For the fool speaks folly,
his mind is busy with evil:
He practices ungodliness
and spreads error concerning the LORD;
the hungry he leaves empty
and from the thirsty he withholds water.

7 The scoundrel’s methods are wicked,
he makes up evil schemes
to destroy the poor with lies,
even when the plea of the needy is just.

8 But the noble man makes noble plans,
and by noble deeds he stands.

This really settled me. I was positive that spoke of Australia, the imagery echoing the land and icons of this place. The era and folly of scoundrel’s such as Bush and Howard will end, and the nobility of justice and discipleship and humanity will be fulfilled.

I am by no means a ‘noble man’, but with faith I stand by a belief a better world, and things such as justice and peace. One day, I shall see rulers who rule with justice.

Rhax

Upper Room Pondering

Soon a few of us will be starting a gathering upstairs in the Shine Bar & Café currently to be known as ‘The Upper Room Project’. The upper room project will meet monthly to engage with spirituality and justice as struggled with and fought for by the Prophets and Jesus. It will run as café church / beer church with gallery space, discussion corners, opportunity for practical response and pondering space – Also food, wine and coffee ……Anyway I was writing up some propaganda for this project and came across this bible text for the upper room.

Jeremiah 22:13-16
13 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labour.

14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.’ So he makes large windows in it,
panels it with cedar and decorates it in red.

15 “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him.

16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD.

I thought it was a good one for our needs (particularly as Shine is decorated in red) and interesting in light of our government and the IR laws. What do you think?
Age

Being Heard

I thought I would see how podcasting worked.
This is a collage I made of voices talking about when they were last heard.

beingheard

SUBSCRIBE to the PodCast

Age

New ACOSS Action - Welfare to Work

Take Action
Email your local Member of Parliament to express your concern about changes to put more single parents and people with disabilities onto lower payments from 1 July 2006.

ACOSS: The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is the peak council of the community services and welfare sector. Established in 1956, ACOSS is the national voice for the needs of people affected by poverty and inequality.

Age

Week of Action - Work Rights

“Say No to Unfair Work Laws! Australia-wide Week of Action June 25 – July 1

Sacked by text message. Fired then rehired on a contract that pays $200 less a week. Pay docked for doing a whip around for the widow of a mate killed on the job. All around the nation Australians have felt first hand the real cost of the Howard Government’s new industrial relations laws.

June 25 – July 1: Take action all around Australia.

There will be rallies in almost all capital cities in Australia on Wednesday June 28. There will also be heaps of other activities including delegates’ meetings, community performances, and church services all over the country throughout the week. Stay tuned to the Rights at Work website for venue and time details!”

Subversive witness

CPT - Vignettes from Iraqi Kurdistan

One evening, Laith and his two children took Christian Peacemaker Team members to the top of a mountain just outside Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq to see a dramatic sunset. Under Saddam, no one could approach this mountain.
They were forbidden to pass a road ringing Sulaymaniyah. From a viewpoint midway up the mountain, Laith pointed out “Freedom Park,” a former military base that housed a prison. “Many people were tortured and killed there. Now we are liberated, and we turned that base into a park.”

A woman named Hero described her work with an NGO (Non-governmental Organization) that fosters community development in Kurdish villages. They help villages develop representative forums that include concerns of wealthy people and poor people, and take responsibility for their projects.For instance, if they want to improve their school, they can improvise by finding a small building, rehabilitating it, and asking the government to send them teachers. This NGO asks the people to contribute to the cost of the projects so that they will gain essential experience in developing themselves.

As a single woman living with her family, Hero said that she had to work hard to gain the independence she has, but she insists that she can generally go where she wants, meet with friends, travel outside the city and country. She said that the war is bad but not as bad as things were under Saddam.

The center of Sulaymaniyah is full of lively shops, and the oldest section of town contains sturdy mud homes and narrow, curving unpaved roads. The government promises that this summer they will have electricity at least fifteen hours per day, perhaps twenty. But at the moment the electricity is off daily between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

One cannot rely on traffic lights since the electricity is intermittent. The police seem to have good control over every main intersection. Traffic is congested, but not awful.

Jalal told us about his trip to Fallujah, in December of 2004, when an international NGO asked him to arrange a ten-truck convoy to bring relief supplies to Fallujah. Jalal said it was the most dangerous trip he had ever taken. He was separated from the others by border control officials and accused of driving a stolen car, even though he had documents proving ownership. The officials wanted the equivalent of $8000 U.S.. He managed to bring the demand down to $100 U.S..

In 1991, after the dissolution of Iraqi military control in Kurdistan, eight Iraqi soldiers, who had not yet learned that Iraq’s government had left Kurdistan, came down from a border control post on the Iran Iraq border. They came to Jalal’s village and he went to talk with them. He took them to his home and gave them a full meal. His wife heated water for all of them to shower. Then he called taxis for them, even offering to pay the drivers, so that they could safely leave Kurdistan.

by Kathy Kelly (from CPT email updates)
post by Age

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