April 2012

IN THIS ISSUE

Earth Sunday
National Day of Healing and Reconciliation
Truth and Reconciliation in Your Hometown
Federal Budget and the Fair Tax Summit
Connect with KAIROS
Eastertide Message from the Executive Director

FEATURE RESOURCE

Trading Rights

FEATURE PARTNER

Ivonne Yanez from Acción Ecológica

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22, 2012. For more than a generation, people all over the world have celebrated this day to raise awareness about sustainability and ecological justice. This year KAIROS offers a complete worship service in celebration of Earth Day. It is available for download on our website and has everything from introductory remarks to closing prayers. You are welcome to use the whole service, or simply use a few of our hymn suggestions or prayers. We make it easy for you to celebrate Earth Day in you community!

For more information on our work for ecological justice, please contact Sara Stratton, Acting Manager, Sustainability Team, sstratton@kairoscanada.org.

National Day of Healing and Reconciliation

May 26, 2012 is the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation. It starts a month-long journey toward the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission events in Saskatoon on June 21-24, 2012. We're asking you, your congregation, parish, or community to join our campaign by putting yourself in the picture for Indigenous rights on this day. There are lots of ways to do this!

Be part of a massive public witness for Indigenous rights. Take a photo of you and your group holding a bold sign saying, "Truth, Reconciliation & Equity: They Matter to Us!" and send it to photos@kairoscanada.org. We will present your photos as part of our participation in events in Saskatoon. We also display all your creative contributions on Facebook and Flickr. Deadline is June 1, 2012.

You can also celebrate your hope for an equitable Canada by focussing on Indigenous rights in your May 27 worship service. We have lots of resources that will make this easy for you! These include a bulletin insert with prayers, action items, and a brief explanation of our Indigenous rights campaign. KAIROS also has a complete Truth, Reconciliation & Equity workshop and worship service.

For more information on our Indigenous rights campaign, please contact Julie Graham, Education and Campaign Program Coordinator, jgraham@kairoscanada.org.

Truth and Reconciliation in Your Hometown

Between the 1840’s and the 1970’s, over 100,000 Aboriginal and Inuit children were taken from their homes and communities, often forcibly, and sent to boarding schools run by the federal government and five Canadian churches. The schools aimed to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity and bring an end to traditional languages, cultures, economies and governments, a process sometimes summed up as “killing the Indian in the child”. The effects were devastating and continue today.

In 2008, the federal government apologized for the abuses suffered at the schools and set up a healing foundation and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) whose work is now underway. You and your community are welcome and invited to make every effort to attend or support a hearing.

To find out more about the TRC, please visit our Truth and Reconciliation Commission webpage at www.kairoscanada.org/trc.

To find regional and national TRC events near you, please visit our KAIROS events page.

For more information on KAIROS participation in TRC events, please contact Julie Graham, Education and Campaign Program Coordinator, jgraham@kairoscanada.org.

Federal Budget and Fair Tax Summit

In response to the March 2012 federal budget, KAIROS offered a three point response focussing on the importance of equity for Indigenous peoples in Canada, ecological sustainability, and the future of Official Development Assistance (ODA). You may read the full text of our response here.

Canadians for Tax Fairness convened a conference on tax justice around the same time the budget was delivered. KAIROS was there, along with 24 other civil society organizations. During the lively two day gathering, participants heard hopeful keynotes, learned more about the connection between support for public programs and job creation, and continued to monitor growing support for Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). You can find more details about the conference here.

For more information on taxation and global finance, please contact John Dillon, Economic Justice Program Coordinator, jdillon@kairoscanada.org.

Connect with KAIROS

Social Media

We love hearing from friends and supporters online. Real, live humans are behind our social media accounts, so don't be shy to connect with us in cyberspace. You can follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, comment on our YouTube videos, or add us to your circles on Google+. It is a great way to stay connected with KAIROS events in your area, and to get the best, multimedia content related to ecological justice and human rights. We encourage discussion and interaction, and you're voice only makes it better! Of course, we'll be maintaining this newsletter, too. So if you know someone who would like to get a little more news from KAIROS, please forward this message along or this link to sign up for KAIROS Times delivered to your inbox. For more information on social media at KAIROS, contact Nik Beeson, New Media Program Coordinator, nbeeson@kairoscanada.org.

Companions & Communities We journey together as companions and build communities that seek to promote our shared vision of a more just and sustainable world. As a KAIROS Companion you will receive our monthly newsletter, opportunities to take action, invitations to KAIROS events in your region, and ways to engage our campaigns. KAIROS Communities can expect the same, plus a print package of resources. Anyone and any community can become a KAIROS companion or community. To find out more visit our Companions & Communities webpage. For more information on Companions and Communities, contact Caroline Foster, Young Adult and Networks Coordinator, cfoster@kairoscanada.org.

The KAIROS Trading Rights Project connects young Canadians' lives to issues of trade and human rights. This project provides tools for taking action to help Canada put human rights where they belong: at the centre of all ethical and legal relationships among Canadians and with others overseas.

The resource is made up of a set of 12 trading cards and a companion Guide for Educators. The cards tell human rights stories from around the world and show how our day-to-day lives are connected to human rights issues here and abroad. The resource shows in accessible ways how everything from french fries to cell phones to cultivated flowers are related the oppression of human rights all over the world.

The guide offers accessible background information, instructions for using the trading cards in your classroom, and further resources for exploring these issues in your community.

To order the trading cards and companion guide, please email orders@kairoscanada.org. You can also download the trading cards from our website .

Ivonne Yanez is an environmental activist from Ecuador. She is coordinator of Oilwatch South America and works with KAIROS partner Acción Ecológica. She has worked with Ecuadorian and international civil society to keep the oil in the ground in the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. Ecuador has launched a unique campaign to have the international community compensate the country in exchange for keeping the oil in the ground. Ivonne joined other KAIROS partners at the Durban COP17 as part of Oilwatch International within the Friends of the Earth International delegation. She along with Acción Ecológica, as part of the international Climate Justice Now! network, has severely critiqued how the UNFCCC’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) is not protecting Indigenous lands as it claims. She visited Alberta in 2008 as part of a planning trip for the eventual KAIROS church leaders delegation to the tar sands in 2009.

For more information on our partners in Latin America, please contact Rachel Warden, Latin America Partnerships Program Coordinator, Latin America Partnerships Program Coordinator, rwarden@kairoscanada.org.

Eastertide Message from the Executive Director

My home church - Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto - has a dramatic and compelling Easter tradition. We begin with a 20 ft cross stretched out on the floor in the centre of the church. It is a wooden cross, hard, bare and cold. In the middle of our Easter morning service, we come up and cover the cross with flowers. The flowers, recovered from those left behind at local funeral homes, transform the bare wood to a garden of colour: hydrangeas and lilies, roses and daisies, gladiolas and heather. A small procession takes the blooming cross from the floor to the wall where it stands in splendour.

I have seen it dozens of times, and yet it is difficult not to be inspired by the transformation. Visually compelling, it invokes so many thoughts—flowers for martyrs, ashes to garlands, death to new life. It is, as one of our hymn writers describes, “God’s love burst into bloom.” As we enter this Easter season, may we recognize the places where work for justice “flowers” the cross of indignity or despair. May our solidarity and community be fertile ground for transformation and hope. Happy Eastertide!

Jennifer Henry
Executive Director