A Kenyan woman's story -- by Geeta Jyothi McGahey

Susan Lentare in Samburu clothes, her own beadwork

Geeta describes herself as a "slightly over the hill American Quaker physician volunteering in Kenya". This story is cross-posted with her permission from her blog Change Insights. Write her with any offers of help for Susan Lentare's work with Samburu women in Kenya.

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I met Susan when we went to tryouts for the Kenyan participants to the British Queen’s jubilee.  She was wearing typical Samburu dress and very self-possessed radiating a simple serene presence. My last trip to the bush, I went with her as she mobilized women for family planning.  Since we were walking distances, I had the chance to hear her story and her aspirations.

At age 12, Susan was first circumcised, removing her clitoris and labia and sewing her closed except for a hole from which to urinate, married the same day, and sent off to live with her husband’s family.  She had just finished primary school, best in her class, and was supported by her teachers to go to secondary school.  Her husband, who was 40 years old, had promised her parents that he would send her.  It never happened.  The bride price to her parents was eight cows and one camel.

She had five children, the first at age 14.  The youngest 7 years later.  She said enough children.  

She said, "enough children".  

She knew in her heart that she didn’t want them to lead the life that she did. She wanted them to finish school. She began raising and selling chickens and making necklaces and beaded items to sell. With that money she was able to buy goats and start a small shop. From selling goats, she is able to pay for school fees and buy an occasional cow.

While working in her small shop, she met John Wreford Smith, father of the organizer of CHAT, who was on camel safari.  He came every day to buy a hen from her.  He was very impressed with this enterprising young women and recommended her to Shanni, his daughter and program director.  It took a year for Shanni to get her away from her shop to join CHAT as a community HIV/AIDs and Family Planning mobilizer.

She talked and he understood. "Whatever my wife wants, she can do it."

Her husband, now in his 60s, manages the shop, while she is gone and and looks after the livestock. What impressed Shanni and her dad was that she was already a village organizer.  She was part of a Women’s Group of 12 women who had a Merry-Go-Round.  Each month, each woman puts in 1000 KSH ( about $12.50) a month and every month a different woman gets the pot, about $125 to use as capital.  She also began educating family and neighbors about keeping their daughters healthy by avoiding both female genital mutilation and early marriage, which cut short her own childhood.  These are still very common practices in her area.  Her goal is to send out mobilizers all over her region to stop these practices.

As Susan continues her mission 
no girl will suffer mutilation 
and early marriage 

Her beautiful household, water is far, 

getting charcoal is not enough to support 7 children (2 sets of twins)

Call for US Interfaith Actions on Climate Change, 21-27 April 2012

Interfaith Actions on Climate Change endorsers include FCNL, various evangelical Protestants, Catholics, McKibben (a Methodist), Congregationalists, Unitarians, Baha'i, Hindus.

As people of faith and spirituality we are deeply concerned about the effects of climate change ravaging our planet, and we are compelled by our traditions and collective conscience to take action together on this deeply moral challenge.

Accordingly, we call for interfaith actions across the USA during the week of April 21-27 to awaken our nation’s elected officials, as well as all civic and business leaders and households, to the urgent need for immediate and effective action to address the climate emergency. (See specific action plans here).

As a first step, we call on our leaders to enact policies that dramatically reduce wasted energy and significantly shift our power supplies from oil, coal and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy sources. We must equitably phase-out all fossil fuel subsidies. We also call on our leaders to enact policies to help people here and abroad prepare for and withstand the terrible impacts of climate change that are already occurring and that will grow much worse in the years ahead.

We are compelled to heed Martin Luther King Jr’s call to appreciate the “fierce urgency of now” and his warning that “in this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late.”

Our call is to: Choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deut. 30:19). We must hold forth a brighter vision for our human future within the community of creation as we seek commitment to a set of clear, widely held moral principles.

First, it is morally wrong to unjustifiably cause human suffering and death. Human-induced climate change is correlated with storms, floods, droughts, crop failures, diseases, and water and food shortages, as well as associated breakdowns in political, economic, social and ecological systems. These breakdowns compromise human security and are already harming and killing people here and abroad. The greatest impacts are falling on low-income people, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, and others who have contributed little to climate change. We have a moral obligation to rapidly reduce our carbon pollution to minimize these disproportionate impacts

The second principle is to honor our moral obligation for equity and justice. The shift to a sustainable, energy efficient and renewable energy economy can create millions of good jobs and support healthy families and communities. We must ensure that this shift is a ‘just transition’ that protects the most vulnerable among us and prepares all of us for the impacts of a changing climate. It should spread the investments in solutions and the benefits of new approaches equitably, enable whole industries to make the changes needed, provide adequate resources for workers and communities adversely affected by the shift, and ensure that all Americans have a democratic voice in how those decisions are made.

The third guiding moral principle is to protect the Earth, which is the source of all life. Virtually all the world’s religious and spiritual traditions proclaim that we have a moral obligation to be good stewards of the Earth and all of its creatures and processes. To disrupt the climate that is the cornerstone of all life and to squander the extraordinary abundance of life, diversity, and beauty of the planet is a moral failure of the first order.

Our capacity for repentance and forgiveness inspires hope in a future where we can recover from the errors of our past, repair the damage we have done and share in the act of healing the Earth. May we rely on the guidance of our faith traditions and spiritual teachings to find the power to act with courage and conviction to create a brighter, more secure and sustainable future for all of us, our children and all future generations.

A bucketful of blessings -- Esther Tinco Mamani of Bolivia

Esther Tinco Mamani in a 6 min video by Geoff Garver
talks about her $50 a month Bolivian Quaker Education Fund scholarship and how it has enabled her to pursue her degree in agronomical engineering - a profession she was told she should avoid because it was a "man's job." She works with Aymara farmers helping them to avoid lethal pesticides, and enable traditional knowledge. Her work is "like God poured a bucketful of blessings on me."

Right Relationship: the new eco-economic model -- Peter Brown

In a 50 min video and powerpoint, Dr Peter G. Brown (McGill Environmental Studies) explains to Concordia business school students how the core Quaker principle of "right relationship"—respecting the integrity, resilience, and beauty of human and natural communities—can serve as the foundation for a new economic model. See the written article just published by Peter and others online: Kosoy N et al. "Pillars for a flourishing Earth: planetary boundaries, economic growth delusion and green economy".  In the book Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy, he and co-author Geoffrey Garver propose new economic policies that combine science and morality. They will both be involved in the 13-19 May 2012 international Degrowth conference in Montreal.

Don't Save the World - satire by Deek Jackson

Warning: Brit satirist guarantees to offend all rulers of the world. He uses vulgar language to describe crimes against humanity. Some well-meaning folk will urge that the language be censored. Mmmmf!

See also his homepage deekjackson.com/ and radio interview.
Thanks to Lucky Nelson in Paris for suggesting this item.

Jazz with the Baha'i

Dizzy Gillespie

The John Birks Gillespie Auditorium in the New York City Bahá'í Center is dedicated to the late jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, who was a Bahá'í. His former pianist and musical director, Mike Longo, presents weekly jazz concerts there every Tuesday evening with The New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble whose vocalist Hilary Gardner returns from her successful role as the lead singer in Twyla Tharp’s Broadway Tribute to Frank Sinatra “Come Fly Away”. Charlie Persip, Warren Chiasson, Chip White, Freddie Hendricks, Benny Powell, Annie Ross, Jimmy Owens, Daoud David Williams and others are featured. Subscribe to Jazz Night RSS feed for announcements.

Watch live streaming video from jazztuesdays at livestream.com

Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership and Action on Climate Change

At an historic meeting in Ottawa on October 23rd and 24th, thirty faith communities of Canada met on Parliament Hill to call for ecological justice in advance of Durban COP-17. Refusing to heed the call, the Canadian government is going in exactly the opposite direction.

Signatories included Quakers, Anglican Church of Canada, Association of Progressive Muslims of Canada, Canadian Council of Imams, Quakers, Ethiopian Orthodox Church of Canada, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Federation of Hindu Temples of Canada, Mennonite Church Canada, Bahá'ís, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Citizens for Public Justice, Faith and the Common Good, and KAIROS. Full text with endorsements here. I am unable to copy and paste it. Excerpts:

We, representatives of Canadian faith communities, are united in our conviction that the growing crisis of climate change needs to be met by solutions that draw upon the moral and spiritual resources of the world’s religious traditions.
We recognize that at its root the unprecedented human contribution to climate change is symptomatic of a spiritual deficit: excessive self-interest, destructive competition, and greed have given rise to unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Humanity’s relationship with the environment has become distorted by actions that compromise the welfare of future generations of life.

Our faith traditions and sacred texts call upon us all—individuals, civil society, businesses, industry, and governments—to consider the spiritual dimensions of the crisis of ocean and climate change; to take stock of our collective behaviour; to transform cultures of consumerism and waste into cultures of sustainability; and to respect the balance between economic activity and environmental stewardship.
The Nov. 29-Dec. 9 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 17) conference in South Africa has the potential to be a transition point—where we, as a global community, change how we think and act.

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The challenge of climate justice

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Climate change is a planetary crisis that knows no borders. Some countries are far more adversely affected by climate change than others. They are experiencing major changes in weather patterns. They know the impact of rising seas and erosion of lands, leading to drought or flooding. These countries are most often among the poorest and least equipped to respond.

Many countries are suffering from the long-term consequences of unrestrained carbon emissions that damage the atmosphere. We believe all nations need to adopt energy policies that result in actual emission reductions to a fair and safe global level. Organizations, businesses, and individuals have similar duties to reduce their emissions.

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For high-income nations such as Canada, justice demands that our governments shoulder a greater share of the economic burden of adaptation and mitigation—first and foremost, because of access to greater means, but also because of an historic role in contributing to its causes. We have a moral imperative to act.

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A call for leadership and action

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We call for leadership to put the long-term interest of humanity and the planet ahead of short-term economic and national concerns.
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The teachings of our faiths tell us that the best interests of one group or nation are served by pursuing the best interests of all people. There is one human family and one Earth that is our common homeland. Climate change is a global crisis and requires global solutions that put the well-being of all people first—especially the most vulnerable.

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Furthermore, our environment is the natural source of our wealth and the home of millions of species for which we are planetary stewards. How long can we barter this priceless inheritance for the promise of growing economic returns?

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In our neighbourhoods and communities, and in businesses and organizations, we need to change wasteful patterns of production and consumption. This calls for a cultural transformation that brings the values of sustainability to the forefront of public consciousness—and into more responsible practices. We cannot wait for others to act but instead must lead by example.
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Religious organizations, public institutions and businesses all have important roles to play in promoting ethical consumption and more sustainable lifestyles and practices in their everyday operations.

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We speak respectfully to our political leaders, who have been entrusted with authority by Canadians. We ask that you act with due regard for the values of both religion and science, looking objectively on the problems confronting our planet. Climate science points to a future of greater instability and unpredictability, problems that can be addressed by action today. We stand ready to work alongside you to promote a future of security, prosperity, and justice—for humankind, and the whole of creation.

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As you carry out your responsibilities at COP 17, we urge you to honour the values we have described and adopt the following policy goals:

- in the spirit of global solidarity, take collective action by signing and implementing a binding international agreement replacing the Kyoto Protocol that commits nations to reduce carbon emissions and set fair and clear targets that ensure global average temperatures stay below a 2 C increase from pre-industrial levels;
- demonstrate national responsibility by committing to national carbon emission targets and a national renewable energy policy designed to achieve sustainability;
- implement climate justice, by playing a constructive role in the design of the Green Climate Fund under United Nations governance, and by contributing public funds to assist the poorest and most affected countries to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.

We believe these to be practical and critical measures necessary to secure the well-being of the planet for future generations of life.