Oxfam America Invites you to the Fair Trade Futures Conference

New Event/Action:

From Oxfam America:

This fall, hundreds of activists from across North America will
gather in Chicago to talk about how supporting fair trade can
make a difference in the lives of poor people around the globe.

If you've ever rallied for the rights of small-scale coffee
farmers or purchased Fair Trade Certified coffee, here's your
chance to learn more and exchange ideas with others like you.

Oxfam America invites you to the Fair Trade Futures Conference,
September 30-October 2, 2005 in Chicago, IL.

Learn from the leaders and hear stories from producers,
including representatives from Oxfam America partners in the US
and abroad. Get inspired by best practices from around the world
and take home practical tools to help you get started or build
the momentum in your community.

For a list of workshops, detailed information about the
conference, and to register online, go to
http://ga0.org/ct/EdqrJns1HmyK/ or call 202-234-6797.

Can't attend the Fair Trade Futures conference, but interested
in supporting the cause?

Oxfam America is calling on consumers to put pressure on their
local supermarkets to guarantee that they stock Fair Trade
Certified products, display them on prominent shelves, and
market them to their shoppers.

Fair Trade Certified products such as coffee, tea, chocolate,
bananas, rice, and sugar guarantee that the producers receive a
fair price for their crop.

Click below to find your local supermarket chain and send a
message to its parent company encouraging them to carry and
actively promote fair trade products.
http://ga0.org/ct/mpqrJns1HmyJ/

Thank you for your support of Oxfam America and small-scale
farmers around the world!

Elisa Arond
Interim Coffee Organizer

Food Crisis in Africa

New Initiative:

From Episcopal Relief and Development:

I want to give you a quick update on the crisis in Niger.

At least 3.6 million people, including 800,000 children, are at risk of starvation. Millions of children and families need our help!

Episcopal Relief and Development is already responding to the crisis in Niger and other African nations affected by food shortages. Through our ecumenical and Anglican partners, we are providing emergency food supplies such as milk powder and grain.

But thousands more families are still hungry.

Please send a gift today. Your gift will help children and families in Niger and the most vulnerable people in countries including Zimbabwe, Ghana and Zambia who are suffering from drought and poor harvests. You'll also provide long-term assistance like seeds, drought-resistant crops and tools for better farming.

Please pray for families who are hungry. Your gift today can rush life-saving aid to those in need.

Tell President Bush you will pray and fast to fight global poverty

New Action:

From Sojourners:

Every day 30,000 children die a preventable death due to extreme poverty. Yet we have the power to prevent this silent tsunami. What is missing is the moral and political will to do so.

We are calling on more than 30,000 people to declare to President Bush their intention to fast and pray during the World Summit at the United Nations, September 14-16. A fast can be as simple as sacrificing one meal during the course of the Summit, which can serve as a spiritual and personal act of solidarity with the billions of people across the world who go without food and basic necessities every day. Even this relatively small sacrifice will strengthen our call for real and specific policies to fight global poverty.

+ Learn how you can send a strong message to the White House by fasting to fight global poverty

Weekly News Update (Excerpts)

New News/Action Items:

From Save Darfur Coalition:

Live For Darfur

Oscar-nominated actor and “Crash” star Don Cheadle announced on August 9th the launch of Live For Darfur, a series of dedications around the world aimed at encouraging aid for the war-torn region of the Sudan. Co-chaired by Cheadle and fellow Oscar-nominee Djimon Hounsou for the Washington, DC- based Save Darfur Coalition, Live For Darfur involves celebrities and non-celebrities making ‘live’ dedications for their performances or appearances to the people of Darfur. Coldplay, Carlos Santana, Destiny’s Child, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Goo Goo Dolls, Queen Latifah, Savion Glover, and Saul Williams have all answered Cheadle’s call for song dedications at their concerts around the world.

Fasting For Darfur

On August 5, 2005 Jay McGinley of Philadelphia began what will be his second hunger strike for Darfur this summer. McGinley intends to fast for approximately 30 days, health permitting. Shortly before his arrival in Washington on August 9, McGinley explained his decision to resume the fast by saying that he, “[remains] convinced that the only hope for Darfur, the only hope for a U.S. worth existing, is for a few of us to exercise our humanity with great boldness and vigor. In doing so, we have the chance, the only chance, of stimulating, activating, exercising the Humanity in our fellow human beings. There is no other way. Let’s get on with it.” McGinley will be fasting in front of the White House, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Washington Post. If you are interested in helping Mr. McGinley, or participating in any way with the Fast, please contact: JyMcGinley@cs.com, or Jay at 484-356-6243.

Darfur Fast

On October 6th, dozens of diverse organizations and millions of individuals worldwide, will be participating in Darfur Fast. Darfur Fast will reach individuals and communities around the globe in order to send a direct message that we, the international community, recognize our responsibility to protect the world's populations from humanitarian crises. Multiple events will be organized around the Fast, including rallies and vigils. News of the events will be broadcast into Eastern Chad and Darfur via radio, to show the people of Darfur that they have not been forgotten. Register to participate in the fast today at www.darfurfast.org.

TAKE ACTION

Please Sign Petition Demanding U.S. Action

The Darfur genocide petition calls on President Bush to assert U.S. leadership by taking every step necessary through the United Nations to:
- Establish a mandate for an international force to protect civilians
- Deploy such a force in support of existing African Union efforts in Darfur
The United States has a unique capacity and clear obligation to take immediate action. Unless there is an urgent international intervention in Darfur, up to a million people may be dead by the end of this year. We are hoping not only that you will sign the petition, but also actively help secure signatures from your friends, families, colleagues and strangers by referring them to this online petition. Each signature will hasten the end of the genocide. Government officials who remained silent during the Rwandan genocide regularly claim that if Americans had clamored for more government action, the U.S. would have been forced to work with the UN to intervene, and could have saved thousands of lives. You can sign the petition online by clicking on the petition button in the lower right hand corner of the savedarfur.org home page. You can sign the petition online by clicking on the petition button in the lower right hand corner of the savedarfur.org home page.

Help Us Build The First Hunger-Free Generation

New Initiative:

From Share Our Strength:

The Road to Riches is Called K Street, according to the headline of a recent Washington Post front-page story. The article described that the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled to 34,750 since the year 2000, that starting salaries have risen to $300,000 a year, and that there's a "wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits."

The Post story is really about those having power having a voice that is heard. Of the many great divides that challenge our nation: economic, racial, digital – one of the most far reaching is the divide between those whose voices are heard and those whose voices are not. If America's most successful corporations need professional lobbyists to "secure their share of federal benefits" imagine what America's hungriest children need. If America has a greater shame than children and families who are penniless, it is citizens who are voiceless.

I'm writing you today to ask you to make a donation to help us reach those with the least voice of all -- America's hungry children -- and to inform you that eradicating chronic childhood hunger is finally within our reach.

According to the Department of Agriculture, over the course of the year, some 260,000 households have a hungry child. This is a large, but manageable number. It represents a finish line we can reach and cross. We at Share Our Strength, and thousands of our volunteers across the country, believe that when it comes to several hundred thousand children suffering from hunger on a chronic basis, we can find them, we can feed them, we can support them, and we cannot quit until we do.

To mark our 20 th anniversary and to set the agenda for our next 20 years, we've traveled to countless communities to find out why hungry children are not receiving the nutritious food they need to learn, grow, and thrive, why kids are not enrolled in school breakfast and summer feeding programs, and why inadequate nutrition and obesity are reaching epidemic proportions. As a result, we are partnering with the most effective advocates in Ohio, Massachusetts, Florida, California and other communities to advance Share Our Strength's finely targeted, community-by-community strategy to end childhood hunger by eliminating barriers to the public-private partnerships that have proven to be successful.

Ending chronic childhood hunger in the United States is a goal that is finally within our grasp. Not today, tomorrow, or even next year. But within the next 5-10 years, if we are strategic and if our strategy is well funded, we will achieve this lasting legacy. But we need your help.

I am writing you because you are one of the few who has always been willing to use your voice on behalf of those who have yet to be heard. Please do so again by making a contribution to Share Our Strength so we can extend our childhood hunger strategy to every community that needs it.

Thanks to you, America's hungry children will have been heard. Thanks to you, we can achieve the first hunger free generation in American history.

Sincerely,

Bill Shore
Executive Director
Share Our Strength