View Past Gatherings:
Saturday, Apr 16, 2016, 1:45 pm
Co-Sponsored by the Eco-Justice and Latin American/Caribbean Workshop Areas
This workshop will help connect the dots between U.S. imports of bio-fuels, GMOs, the drug war, hunger, and migration.
Speakers:
Saturday, Apr 16, 2016, 1:45 pm
As the government of the Dominican Republic promotes increasingly anti-immigrant policies, Haitian immigrants and Dominican citizens of Haitian decent are being stripped of their citizenship, and the many basic rights that come with it. Panelists will discuss the evolution of various discriminatory policies in recent years, the impacts and threats they’ve had in people’s everyday lives. For example, what does it mean for the next generation when children are denied access to school because they have not been issued a birth certificate or identity card? They will discuss actions to be taken on a local and international level.
Speakers:
Saturday, Apr 16, 2016, 3:30 pm
Migration to the United States from Central America and Mexico in recent years has increasingly included people fleeing spiraling violence and poverty with serious protection needs. As the U.S. has done with the War on Drugs, it is now exporting a model of militarized immigration and border enforcement to the region. Speakers will discuss the harmful effects in the region and how civil society and faith leaders can help protect the human rights of vulnerable migrants and refugees.
Speakers:
Sponsors: Caravan for Peace, Life and Justice; Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Saturday, Apr 16, 2016, 3:30 pm
The Alliance for Prosperity Plan for the Northern Triangle of Central America is being marketed as the solution to the development needs and the recent surge of migration from the region. But we should ask, the solution for whom? The plan includes large-scale development projects that exclude the poor and indigenous population and threaten to leave them more marginalized and vulnerable. This workshop will discuss how instead of using its foreign aid to fund such projects, the United States can work to support human-centered, sustainable, long-term development that addresses the concerns of local civil society organizations.
Speakers:
Sponsors: Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice
Sunday, Apr 17, 2016, 2:00 pm
Co-sponsored by the Latin America & the Caribbean and Peace and Global Security Workshop Areas
This year Colombia stands on the brink of reaching peace accords to end a fifty-year war that has left 220,000 dead. Yet for peace to truly be lasting and sustainable, Colombia’s leaders and the international community accompanying the process must recognize and listen to the voices of all victims of the conflict, particularly Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities that have suffered disproportionately from abuses, violence, and forced displacement. While Plan Colombia is touted as a huge success in the United States, for these communities it is synonymous with war, extrajudicial killings, and human and land rights violations. Speakers will discuss the particular concerns of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities and how the international faith and civil society community can support the way forward toward lasting peace.
Speakers:
Sponsors: CONPA, Washington Office on Latin America, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America