AFRICA
REGIONAL
AIMES
Ghana, Mali and Tanzania
The African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) is a pan-African network inspired by the Third World Network-Africa (TWN-A). AIMES engages in on-going analysis and provides forums for its members for evaluating land use and national land use policies, building consensus, and sharing information and experiences. KAIROS partnership with AIMES focuses on the industrial impacts on food security in Africa and the development of own civil society alternatives for land use in Africa that address food security needs.
Analysis and engagement will be based on three pillars: human rights, environment and economic development.
AWEPON
Tanzania, Uganda
The African Women Economic Policy Network (AWEPON) is a membership organization registered in Uganda that focuses on the promotion of gender equity and economic justice. Its programs analyze economic policies of African countries to identify their negative impact on women and engage for positive changes. It also trains women in economic literacy to acquire skills for identifying and analyzing economic policies that negatively affect them. AWEPON advocates for changes to take gender concerns into account.
KAIROS' current partnership focuses on AWEPON's relatively new climate change program component, including the relation between climate change and food security. AWEPON proposes to work in Tanzania and Uganda on a program that includes training women, as food producers, in ecologically sensitive approaches.
All Africa Conference of Churches
DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia
The All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) was established in 1963 and consists of 134 churches and 35 National Councils of Churches representing 39 African countries. AACC's 9th General Assembly in December 2008 undertook consultation on several sub-themes including: (a) human rights in Africa, (b) political to economic development (c) spirituality and environmental conservation; and, d) women as agents of reconciliation and peace. Increasingly, AACC is mobilizing churches and evolving a common framework for ecumenical action on climate change, recognizing that Africans will be disproportionately affected by climate change with some 20 million people already displaced. AACC has published research and engagement materials such as Water, Environment and Climate Change: Where is the Church. In June 2008, AACC held a consultation with its sub-regional fellowships of churches resulting in an African Church Leaders' Statement on Climate Change. KAIROS works in partnership with AACC particularly in DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, Tazania and Zambia, and also laterally with sub-regional fellowships of churches (namely, the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa-FECCIWA, the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes Area and the Horn of Africa-FECCLAHA, and the Fellowship of Councils of Churches in Southern Africa Economic Justice Network-FOCCISA-EJN). The partnership focuses on addressing climate change and its impact on creating an environment for sustainable agricultural development. We also work with AACC's women as agents of peace program to further research on impacts and strategies to address gender based violence in conflict zones.
Oilwatch Africa
Ghana, Mali and Nigeria
Oilwatch Africa coordinates work across 15 countries in Africa and is hosted by Environmental Rights Action (ERA), in Nigeria. It has been building a strong, active network to monitor and respond to the impacts of fossil fuel activities on African peoples and their environment. The Oilwatch International network is dedicated to developing global strategies for communities affected by the oil operations and supporting their efforts to ensure ecological sustainability. In addition, Oilwatch Africa makes an effort to raise the environmental conscience at the global level, exposing industry impacts on tropical forests and local populations, as well as establishing the relationship between land use and consumption and the destruction of biodiversity, climate change, food security and violations of human rights.
KAIROS partnership with Oilwatch Africa focuses on fostering conditions for an enabling environment for sustainable agricultural development in Ghana, Mali and Nigeria.
World Student Christian Federation
DRC, Kenya and Sudan
The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), Africa Region program, promotes the union of 26 national Student Christian Movements (SCMs) and is an association of youth, students and members of academic communities throughout Africa. WSCF works for social-economic justice, peace, human rights and engagement for responsible and accountable leadership in their respective communities. KAIROS supported WSCF's HIV and AIDS Economic Justice Platform for Action which looks beyond symptoms of the pandemic to structural barriers to treatment. The Platform addresses the ways that debt, the inadequacy of the multilateral Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, the distortion of the multilateral Structural Adjustment Programs in their many forms (e.g., Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers), Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, and the lack of inexpensive, generic anti-retroviral drugs exacerbate the problems. WSCF presented a workshop at the Ecumenical Pre-Conference to the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.
KAIROS partnership with WSCF will focus on mobilizing and harnessing the enthusiasm of youth and student leaders in the area of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches to sustainable agricultural development and food security in DRC, Kenya and Sudan.
Sudan
Sudan Council of Churches (SCC)
DRC, Kenya and Sudan
Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) is a national fellowship of Catholic, Protestant and Coptic churches in northern and southern Sudan which advocates for peaceful resolution of conflicts, and reconciliation, human rights and justice in Sudan. It has sponsored civil society fora to promote dialogue, reconciliation and unity among Southern Sudanese political and military factions and coordinating civil society input to the Inter Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the Sudan peace process following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, ending over 20 years of north-south civil war. KAIROS has supported the SCC Round Table Program. Through the NSCC predecessor, KAIROS has supported the organizing people-to-people peace processes to facilitate conflict resolution, reconciliation and peaceful co-existence among ethnic groups in Southern Sudan, and inter-faith dialogue while promoting capacity building and empowerment of youth and women.
KAIROS partnership with SCC expects to support parts of SCC's Peace, Justice and Advocacy cluster of the SCC Roundtable Program and intends to orient its support to increased work on the connection between human rights and conflict and youth success. KAIROS will support SCC's effort to guarantee better futures for children and youth by contributing to the implementation of the CPA process in South Sudan.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Héritiers de la Justice
DRC, Kenya and Sudan
Héritiers de la Justice (HJ) is a human rights organization in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) KAIROS supports three programs related to the promotion of good governance. The first supports a legal clinic to combat the prevalence and impunity of gender based violence on girls and women by having perpetrators prosecuted, sentenced and incarcerated while restoring victims to their communities. The second involves creating spaces in which leaders are accountable to the governed on public services, permitting citizens to ask questions and participate in making decisions in the areas where they live. The third includes the development of human rights expertise in the public sector through training national, provincial and local government employees, especially as it relates to violence against women. KAIROS worked with Héritiers de la Justice to monitor the last national elections.
HJ's former Executive Secretary, Pascal Kabangulu, was assassinated in his home, in front of his family (now refugees in Canada), for his knowledge of illicit trade activities and persistent defense of human rights. In advocating for legal proceedings in the DRC on this situation, KAIROS views this case as a portal though which to help Congolese civil society combat the pervasive culture of impunity entrenched in the DRC and monitor progress in the areas of justice and good governance.
KAIROS partnership with Héritiers de la Justice increasingly addresses the safety of children and youth, related to peacebuilding and human rights, as well as the legal prevention and recourse for young women and girl victims of gender-based violence.
ASIA/PACIFIC
REGIONAL
The Pacific Council of Churches
Kiribati, Tahiti, Tuval
Pacific Conference of Churches [PCC] is a regional ecumenical organization founded in 1961 which currently has a membership of 34 Pacific churches and nine National Councils of Churches. PCC was founded to promote ecumenism among its members, unity of the Church and the option for the poor, engage in issues of justice, peace and integrity of creation. One of its key focus areas is promoting human rights and ecological justice, focusing on climate change and its visible impact in the Pacific. Adaptation is an urgent issue facing the Pacific people as some Pacific islands are on the verge of sinking, requiring relocation of whole communities with accompanying issues of food security, health and safety, and securing a livelihood. PCC also addresses governance issues particularly as they relate to poor communities affected by mismanagement and destructive use of land for industrial purposes.
PCC-KAIROS partnership focuses specifically on Kiribati, Tuvalu and Tahiti, working with their member churches in those countries.
RIMM/Innabuyog,
Indonesia and Northern Philippines
RIMM: International Women and Mining Network/Red Internacional de Mujeres y Mineria is an informal global collective of communities, people's movements, NGOs and human rights organizations promoting sustainable agricultural development for food security and working on the concerns of women and children in poor and marginalized communities affected by big agribusiness and extractive industry. The network is aimed at promoting the rights of women to land tenure as they face loss of access to resources and land as larger areas are being claimed for use for big agribusiness and extractive operations. Innabuyog is an alliance of indigenous women's organizations in the Cordilleras in Northern Philippines and is committed to promoting indigenous women's rights, including the right to land, access and control of their land to promote sustainable agricultural development and food security. Innabuyog functions as the secretariat for RIMM in Asia.
Indonesia
JATAM
Indonesia and Northern Philippines
JATAM is a network of 26 NGOs and community-based groups in Indonesia working, since 1985, directly with communities and Indigenous peoples on human rights, gender and the environment. JATAM is a response to environmental, displacement and food security challenges that occur due to the unsustainable land use. It conducts research in and with affected communities regarding the impact of resource extraction, educates communities on their rights and responsibilities, engages in productive dialogues with industry and government, and proposes legislation and policy initiatives to mitigate human rights violations and ecological harm. Their long-term objectives include improving sustainable agricultural development for food security of poor and impacted communities. KAIROS partnership with JATAM was established in 2002.
KONTRAS
KONTRAS was formed in March 1998 by the coalition of 12 pro-democracy NGOs in response to the Indonesian government's silence on forced disappearances.
KONTRAS is highly respected human rights organization in Indonesia both nationally and internationally. It has received local and international awards in recognition of its work to uphold human rights and strengthen democracy in the country. It is committed to documenting human rights violations, exposing military and paramilitary abuses and educating the people in general to end impunity in Indonesia. KONTRAS is a lead member of AFAD (Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances), a regional federation of groups working on forced/involuntary disappearances. KONTRAS plays a lead role in pushing the Indonesian government to investigate past military abuses, particularly those involving youth and students as victims, demanding convictions for those proven guilty and compensation for victims (and the families of victims) of human rights violations and military atrocities. KONTRAS is working for the development of human rights courts across Indonesia so that victims and their families can file charges specific to cases of human rights violations.
KONTRAS has been a KAIROS partner since 2002. The current partnership focuses on monitoring, documentation and advocacy related to the human rights impacts of conflict on young women and men. KONTRAS has started a Human Rights School to educate and train youth on various national and international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It will be actively engaged in developing policies and legislation that improve human rights adherence by agencies of the state in order to improve the safety and security of children and youth at the national level, particularly in areas of conflicts.
The Philippines
Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines (EcuVoice)
The Ecumenical Consortium for JustPeace (ECJP) in the Philippines, established in 2001, is now called the Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines. EcuVoice has been a KAIROS partner since its inception. They work to build secure and sustainable communities, particularly in areas experiencing military conflicts or environmental harm. EcuVoice works to help the poor marginalized communities articulate policy options to counter economic and political strategies that currently increase their marginalization. In 2007, an international delegation of church leaders, human rights defenders and victims made representations to the governments of Canada, the U.S., and the European Union on the state of political killings in the Philippines targeting community leaders, including youth and student leaders.
KAIROS partnership with EcuVoice, focusing on addressing human rights violations and strengthening good governance to improve national protection frameworks that promote and protect the safety and security of children and youth, particularly of young women in areas of conflict.
LATIN AMERICA
REGIONAL
Latin America Council of Churches (CLAI)
Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia
The Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) is an organization of over 150 churches and Christian networks from 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, founded in 1982. CLAI has nine program areas including education and communication, theological reflection and witness, ecological justice, economic justice, women and gender justice, citizenship and ecology, youth, health, economy and society and Indigenous peoples, each with a program staff.
In recent years, CLAI has been exploring programs on sustainability and climate change at a regional level and developing a program in the area of human rights and military conflict. In Colombia, CLAI was instrumental in the formation of an ecumenical network involving 12 church organizations which seeks to define joint action and policy work on human rights. In 2008, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and CLAI led an ecumenical delegation designed to strengthen the solidarity and response of the churches in Latin America for the human rights situation in Colombia.
KAIROS' partnership with CLAI's regional program focuses on building sustainable agricultural development for food security including mitigating the impacts of climate change. CLAI will focus its KAIROS work on the Andean and Central American countries working closely with its member churches in those sub-regions.
Note: We will also work with CLAI and its national partner the Red Ecumenica (Ecumenical Network in Colombia) to support our children's human rights work in Colombia.
Colombia
Popular Feminist Organization (OFP)
Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia
The Popular Feminist Organization (OFP) is a grassroots women's organization in Magdalena Medio, Colombia, founded in 1972 as a program of the Diocese of Barrancabermeja. The OFP now has a membership of 5,000 women in the region of Magdalena Medio and runs 22 women's centers, offering programs which include integrated community development, human rights of women, education and advocacy. They have particular expertise in outreach to youth, which they will draw on in this program to train young people in a culture of non-violence. The OFP is also a leader for human rights and peace at a regional and national level, forming part of national and international networks of women against the war. In the last five years, KAIROS has supported the OFP in building a regional and national network of women against the war, based on its work with grassroots women.
KAIROS has been supporting the work of the OFP financially since 2001, but ecumenically the churches have a longer history of supporting the advocacy work of OFP and other human rights organizations in Barrancabermeja, a region that has experienced some of the worst human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Colombia. KAIROS' current partnership with the OFP focuses on the rights of women, children and youth in the context of military conflict and includes their work at a local level as well as their leadership within networks and coalitions of women's groups and civil society organizations.
Ecuador
Acción Ecológica
Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia
Acción Ecológica, founded in 1986, works as part of the Institute for Ecological Studies and is recognized as one of the lead environmental groups in Ecuador for its work with Indigenous and peasant communities as well as its policy development at a national and international level. Acción Ecológica works on environmental issues ranging from local transportation and recycling to mining, petroleum, biodiversity and agro fuels. It works on local, national and international levels and has successfully combined policy and education. It has a strong relationship with the Indigenous peoples in Ecuador based on mutual support, respect and common agenda. Acción Ecológica works with local communities (mostly Indigenous and campesino) throughout Ecuador to strengthen the capacity of poor and vulnerable communities in building sustainable agricultural development for food security and ensure the experiences of local communities inform local and national development policies. KAIROS' partnership with Acción Ecológica was established in 2001. Currently the partnership focuses on sustainability issues including the impacts of land use and climate change on food security.
Mexico
Tepeyac Human Rights Centre, Mexico
Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia
The Tepeyac Human Rights Centre (Tepeyac) has monitored and documented human rights violations of the Indigenous peoples in the region since its foundation in 1992. Tepeyac was formed as a program of the Diocese of Tehuantepec. KAIROS has supported the work of Tepeyac in the following areas: human rights, sustainable community development, education, documentation, and community accompaniment. In a region with great bio diversity, they are seeing new levels of hunger and malnutrition related to the impacts of climate change and unsustainable industrial practices that lead to ecological degradation.
Tepeyac is an important partner in understanding the impacts of climate change and land insecurity on the food security and livelihoods of Indigenous communities. They are committed to promoting useful and ecologically sound technologies to mitigate climate change, and to training community members in sustainable practices.
CIEPAC
CIEPAC (the Center for Economic and Political Research for Community Action), founded in 1998, defines itself as a civil organization that accompanies the social movements in Chiapas, Mexico and Meso-America in a search for a more democratic world, with justice and dignity for all. CIEPAC´s principal activities are research, information-dissemination, education, training and analysis. The main goal is placing research within reach of social, civil, faith-based and grassroots groups, particularly Indigenous communities. Language capacity is a key aspect to this, with a commitment to publish materials in Indigenous languages. Their program focuses on human rights and capacity building of poor and vulnerable communities, particularly women and Indigenous communities.
KAIROS has been supporting the work of CIEPAC since 2002. Currently the focus of the partnership is to strengthen the enabling environment for sustainable agricultural development through research on the impacts of climate change and other forms of ecological degradation, human rights and land rights training, policy development on sustainable practices and participation in relevant national and international networks.
Guatemala
CEIBA
Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia
CEIBA (Association for Community Development and Promotion) was founded in 1992 and currently works with communities in four departments and 17 municipalities in Guatemala. CEIBA supports initiatives that come from communities to strengthen their capacity to bring about social change and propose alternatives. It works for the restoration of the social fabric and re-integration of communities. Since its inception, CEIBA has provided human rights support and integral community development to communities in the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Increasingly, the communities it works with have been impacted by land insecurity, unsustainable land use practices by extractive industries or industrial agriculture, as well as by climate change. CEIBA accompanies communities in their efforts to build sustainable alternatives. Since 2007, KAIROS has supported CEIBA in its accompaniment of community leaders and traditional authorities in the development of public policy related to natural resources and land use. Currently, the partnership focuses on supporting CEIBA's work building the capacity of vulnerable Indigenous communities to promote sustainable livelihoods and food security, its program on climate change, and its participation in networks including the movement of victims of climate change and the Friends of the Earth Network.
MIDDLE EAST
Palestine/Israel
Jerusalem Centre for Women
The Jerusalem Center for Women (JCW) is a Palestinian women's center located in East Jerusalem. Established in 1994, the JCW is a registered NGO at the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Ramallah. It seeks to empower Palestinian women in the process of democracy and in all aspects of Palestinian civil society development. Its structure includes a board of directors made up of 12 members, a staff of seven and a pool of activists and volunteers.
Much of this works takes the form of human rights workshops that strive to enable Palestinian women to recognize and act on their human rights, in the contexts of Palestinian society and of the Occupation. Much of its day-to-day work focuses on the impacts on women of Israeli policies such as house demolitions, exposure to military violence, and the continued construction of the Separation Wall in the Jerusalem area.
Former joint project: KAIROS had been supporting the joint Bat Shalom-JCW work of the Jerusalem Link since 2000, the first time that Palestinian and Israeli organizations worked together closely for the advancement of women's human rights in the region and to facilitate dialogue and trust between Israeli and Palestinian women. KAIROS supported the joint Palestinian-Israeli initiatives of the Jerusalem Link for peace, impacts of human rights violation on Palestinian and Israeli women as well as local and international advocacy initiatives related to conflict and peace issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Link ceased to function in 2008, during the Israeli assault on Gaza.
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre
Sabeel is an ecumenical centre for Palestinian Liberation Theology established in 1990 and registered as an NGO at the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Ramallah.
KAIROS has been supporting the work of Sabeel since 2000 as it strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. Sabeel also works to promote a more accurate international awareness regarding the identity, presence and witness of Palestinian Christians.
KAIROS will support research on the impacts of human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza as well as training programs for youth and women on human rights. Support will also be given to their local and international advocacy initiatives related to conflict and peace issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees
The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR) is a department of the Middle East Council of Churches with a mandate to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. Most of this assistance is in the form of social services and emergency assistance. The Canadian churches have supported vocational training and health care programs in Gaza, and land reclamation and water projects in the West Bank. DSPR also advocates for the refugees' right of return and for an end to the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories.
