West Broadway Community Ministries in Free Press

Today's Winnipeg Free Press has two articles featuring West Broadway Community Ministries.  

 

'No room at the inn in Manitoba' for needy

Christmas Eve trek stresses need for affordable housing

Winnipeg Free Press, December 26, 2013, pages A8, A9

Photo by John Woods, Winnipeg Free Press

"There's no place to go for the Holy Child. Is there no room in Winnipeg?"

So asked 21 members of three West Broadway-area churches who united to pound the pavement on Christmas Eve, knocking on doors on Langside Street in pursuit of affordable housing for Jesus.
In a stunt found more commonly in Mexico, the group performed a version of La Posada, which translates to "the inn." It tells the story of Mary's and Joseph's search for an inn where baby Jesus would be born -- but with a twist.

Community minister Lynda Trono of West Broadway's Community Ministry organized the roaming play and wrote its script, which talked about the lack of affordable housing for those in need in Winnipeg.

"It's a symbolic door-knocking that has to do with there being no room at the inn and right now there's no room at the inn in Manitoba," Trono said.

Trono wants to raise awareness about the meagre amount of money given to Manitobans living on social assistance and trying to afford rent.

Read the whole article by clicking here.

IMAGE COMPARISON:  Today's Free Press print copy followed the above story with a report on the crowds that typically line up for Boxing Day specials.  The accompanying photo is an interesting contrast to the image of the West Broadway action above:

Photo source: David Lipnowski, Free Press Archives

Community feels the love

Yule lunch brings fellowship to multi-faith people in need

Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 26, 2013, page B2

People of all faiths packed into the West Broadway Community Ministry Wednesday afternoon to enjoy a Christmas lunch and each other's company.

Roughly 100 people attended the ministry's annual Christmas lunch put on by volunteers from the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue and the ministry.

Volunteer Larry Flynn helps serve during the Christmas lunch at the West Broadway Community Ministry.                   

(Photo source: Winnipeg Free Press)

The lunch of a chicken pot pie, potato salad and coleslaw began with the lighting of a multi-faith candle.

Volunteers and participants alike said the lunch is all about bringing the community together.
"I think it's so important during this season to be able to feel the love of a community," said Riva McWilliam, a longtime volunteer at the Christmas lunch.

McWilliam and her husband have been helping out with the annual meal for eight years, and it's become a Christmas tradition for them.

They do not celebrate Christmas, so they think it's a perfect opportunity to give back to people in need.

You can read the whole article by clicking here.

- Submitted by Gareth

The high price of cheap gas

This article has been reposted from Treehugger.com.  You can read a related article in the Atlantic.

A new study by Lucas Davis shows a wide variance in gas prices, depending on taxation or subsidies.

(Copyright: Lucas Davis - Reposted from Treehugger.com)

The figure reveals an enormous amount of variation in gasoline prices. Gasoline prices average $5.26 per gallon, but range from $.09 per gallon in Venezuela to above $9.00 in Turkey and Norway. ... This wide variation in prices is somewhat surprising because crude oil and refi ned products are widely traded internationally, so the opportunity cost of fuels is similar everywhere. Although there are diff erences in transportation, refi ning, and distribution costs, they can explain only a small part of the observed variation in prices. Instead, the more important explanation for the wide variation in fuel prices is that taxes and subsidies diff er widely. Among OECD countries, gasoline taxes per gallon range from an average of $0.49 in the United States, to above $4.00 in Germany and the Netherlands.

Here it is shown another way, from a different study, where the relation of price to consumption is even more stark.

The federal gas tax in the United States has not been raised since 1993. It is supposed to provide the money for the Highway Trust Fund that maintains roads and bridges, but doesn't raise enough. So Congress funds $ 50 billion from general revenue to make up for the shortfall, essentially a giant subsidy that keeps the price of gas low.

- Submitted by Gareth

The campaign to fight action on climate change is backed by $1 billion a year in covert donations

Monday, Dec 23, 2013- Salon.com


Climate deniers may be a minority, but they’re organized — and they have a massive donor base backing them up.

Photo Source: Hot Photo Pie/Shutterstock

That’s the conclusion reached by a report published Friday in the journal Climactic Change, which The Guardian calls the “first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.” It found that the campaign to discredit climate change runs upward of $1 billion a year, largely funded by conservative billionaires who work through secretive funding networks:

"They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found.

…The vast majority of the 91 groups on [Drexel University sociologist Robert] Brulle’s list – 79% – were registered as charitable organisations and enjoyed considerable tax breaks. Those 91 groups included trade organisations, think tanks and campaign groups. The groups collectively received more than $7bn over the eight years of Brulle’s study – or about $900m a year from 2003 to 2010. Conservative think tanks and advocacy groups occupied the core of that effort."

You can  read the whole article by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth

 

Open Letter to Winnipeg Re: NEECHI COMMONS

December 13, 2013

Dear friends,

Open Letter to Winnipeg Re: NEECHI COMMONS

This letter is being circulated by the Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation on behalf of the signatories listed below.  These individuals are active in a cross section of co-operative and community economic development organizations as well as in universities.

The letter is intended to let you know about a remarkable sister Co-operative that is blazing a trail in empowerment for its members and social justice in the community. A Co-op doing such principled work that it elevates the name of co-operative enterprise and by reflection enhances all of our reputations. We are talking about Neechi Foods Co-operative in Winnipeg (865 Main Street, at Euclid).  This Co-op needs your patronage and support.

Louise Champagne, the president of the Co-op and long-time leader of the enterprise, shepherding it through more than 23 years of operations and meeting all challenges, recently accepted the 2013 Excellence in Aboriginal Business Leadership Award from the Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, on behalf of the Co-op. In her acceptance speech Louise made the following comments:

“Neechi Foods Co-op Ltd. is a worker cooperative. This is a form of economic democracy that encourages staff to develop a sense of business ownership. Neechi means “friend”, “sister” or “brother” in Cree and Ojibwa.

On March 19 this year (2013) we held the Grand Opening of Neechi Commons, our beautiful, 30,000 square foot, community business complex at 865 Main Street, for which we received a Green Globes award for high environmental standards. Previously we operated a nearby, small corner grocery and Aboriginal specialty store for 23 years.

In Neechi’s early days we drew up a list of community economic development principles:

•       creation of goods & services that are used locally

•       purchases of locally produced goods

•       local reinvestment of surpluses (profits)

•       employment and training of local people

•       community-oriented business ownership

•       community health and

•       human dignity

We were the first grocery operation in Manitoba to not sell cigarettes – ahead of the pharmacies! At our old store we have always had a children’s fruit basket, subsidized by the staff, where the previous owner sold cigarettes, war toys and Barbie dolls. We also have run various diabetes prevention programs and played a key role in neighbourhood efforts to push back street prostitution and other gang activities that became rampant in the mid 1990s.

All along we have understood that economic healing is needed to sustain personal and social healing. This is the context in which Neechi Commons was born. We have taken what we did at our old store to a much higher level, including a strong focus on regionally harvested and processed foods, a lovely art store and gallery, a restaurant and catering service backed up by an impressive commercial kitchen, a well equipped bakery, and a neighbourhood supermarket with a fruit and vegetable courtyard, freshwater fish and full meat service.”

Neechi Commons needs your help to achieve its goals. It hopes to become the cornerstone for the revitalization of commerce in a Winnipeg neighbourhood that has faced long-term economic hardship. The Co-op has created over 50 new employment opportunities for aboriginal youth and other neighbourhood residents.

Neechi Co-op has not chosen an easy path focused only on commercial viability. It has chosen to blaze a trail to be a transformative venture in the same spirit as other Co-operative pioneers. Its success will not only be a beacon of light in its local neighbourhood but also a shining example of the inherent power of the Co-operative form of enterprise to change lives for the better.

The most obvious and simple way that you can support Neechi is by purchasing products at the Commons.  Another way that you can help is by signing up for Neechi’s weekly e-mail promotion and updates, at neechifoods@shaw.ca.

Your support can help to ensure the success of this Co-operative enterprise. In the words of Louise Champagne:  “We will remain heavily focused on achieving the commercial profitability needed for long-term business and community success. Neechi Commons symbolizes how Aboriginal People can regain control of land and economic decision-making within a modern community context.”

Sincerely yours,

• Cindy Coker, Executive Director, SEED Winnipeg

• Hazel Corcoran, CWCF Executive Director, Calgary

• David Kerr, Co-op Consultant, Winnipeg

• Richard LeMoing, Director, Manitoba Co-operative Association, Minnedosa, MB

• Marty Donkervoort, Social Enterprise Consultant and Instructor, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg

• Shaun Loney, Executive Director, BUILD (Building Urban Industries for Local Development)

• Greg O’Neill, Co-operative Developer, Calgary

• Dr. Claudia Sanchez-Bajo, Chair of Co-operative Enterprises, University of Winnipeg

• Lucas Stewart, General Manager, Manitoba Green Retrofit Inc., Winnipeg

• Dr. Wanda Wuttunee, Professor, Native Studies & Director, Aboriginal Business Education Partners, University of Manitoba 

PS To learn more about Neechi Commons, see: www.neechi.ca.   The link to this letter on the CWCF web site is : http://canadianworker.coop/news/neechi .

- Submitted by Bev

Joint Review Panel recommendation to support Northern Gateway pipeline ignores strong opposition of First Nations and citizens

Photo credit: Marco Guada via flickr.

 

Please send a message of support to the 130 First Nations that stand against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.  The Joint Review Panel has recommended approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline.  But this is far from over.  You can take action now to support First Nations, protect our coast, and move toward a carbon free future.

Let them know you stand with them in solidarity as part of an unbroken wall of opposition.

This message will also be sent to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet who now have the choice to side with Canadians or with Enbridge. The decision is in their hands. To move forward, they need First Nations cooperation and support from British Columbians, and they have neither.

The David Suzuki Foundation signed the Solidarity Accord for the Save the Fraser Declaration, agreeing with the Yinka Dene Alliance that we need to uphold indigenous laws and protect the health of British Columbia’s Fraser River watershed, including its headwaters.

And the vast majority agree. At community hearings across BC, the Joint Review Panel heard from 1,159 people who spoke against the pipeline. Only two spoke for it.
Remember, this isn’t the end of the discussion. Make your voice heard now.

You can link to the David Suzuki Foundation website to send a letter.

-submitted by Karla

Homeless Jesus on Park Bench - artist's website

photo source:  Toronto Sun

Bob located the website of Timothy Schmalz, the artist who created the sculpture of the homeless Jesus lying on a bench (see previous posts:  Dec 8, 2013).  You will find information about the artist, and a youtube video of the process of creating the homeless Jesus.

You can find Schmalz's website here.

-submitted by Bob

USAS Year-End Report: ‘Tis the Season of Solidarity

 

On the eve of the six month anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse, which claimed the lives of 1,134 Bangladeshi garment workers, we launched a new movement on college campuses across the country to demand an end to deathtrap factories. In the last eight years alone, over 1,800 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in building collapses and factory fires while earning just $37 per month on the job. On our campuses we are calling on our universities to require brands producing college-logo apparel to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a legally-binding contract — a Contract to End Deathtraps — between unions and brands that will transform the Bangladesh garment industry from deathtraps to safe workplaces — if enough brands sign it. Already, we’ve won impressive victories, with Temple, Duke, UPenn and NYU announcing that they will require their licensees to sign the Accord, and we won’t stop until every university in the country does the same! In response to this pressure, Adidas, Knights Apparel, Top of the World, and Fruit of the Loom just recently signed the Accord!

Campaign for a Contract to End Deathtraps

Campus Worker Justice

On dozens of campuses across the country, USAS locals are campaigning alongside campus workers and their unions to halt corporate outsourcing, raise wages, and negotiate fair contracts. Students in Boston, LA and DC are standing with adjuncts in their fight for a union voice. All across Tennessee, USASers are supporting the United Campus Workers in their fight for a living wage, and recently won a dollar raise for the lowest-paid campus workers in the UT system. In California, USASers walked the picket lines with AFSCME 3299 and UAW 2865 in the largest strike ever in the University of California system. At the University of Texas at Austin, USAS and the Texas State Employees Union successfully halted plans to outsource food service workers, and continue to campaign against the administration’s efforts to privatize other parts of the campus.

You can find the USAS website here.

-Submitted by Kathleen

Protect Costa Rica's rainforests from Infinito Gold

This is from the website:  sumofus.org
 Infinito Gold, a Canadian mining company, just slapped Costa Rica with a $1 billion lawsuit because the nation decided to protect its rainforests rather than host an open-pit gold mine.
Costa Rica’s rainforest is lauded as one of the most beautiful in the world, and is home to many endangered species, including the green macaw. Officials considered approving the gold mine, but the use of toxic chemicals such as cyanide -- which often leaks into and pollutes nearby lakes and rivers -- was far too great a risk to allow the project to move forward.

Image Source:  sumofus.org

A subsidiary of Infinito Gold has announced that a massive lawsuit against Costa Rica is “imminent”, so we need to act now. If thousands of us stand together against this toxic mine, we can show Infinito that Costa Rica and other countries that are defending their natural resources will not be silently bullied by corporate power.

Tell Infinito Gold to drop its $1 billion lawsuit against Costa Rica.

Open-pit gold mining in Costa Rica would destroy 190 hectares of pristine forest. The rainforest houses 5% of the world’s species and has seen tremendous growth in the ecotourism industry. Over 75% of Costa Ricans oppose mining and have decided that they cannot take the risk to move forward with gold-mining in the country.

And Costa Rica is not the first to be sued by Infinito Gold. In 2001, Infinito Gold locked Venezuela into a ten-year legal battle over a rejected mine. Fortunately, Infinito lost. We can make sure Infinito Gold loses again by standing up to its greedy tactics and shameful behavior. Corporate profits cannot take precedence over the health of the people and the environment.

Stand up for Costa Rica’s rainforests -- tell Infinito Gold to drop the $1 billion lawsuit now.


You can sign a petition to pressure Calgary-based Infinito Gold to drop its lawsuit by going to the sumofus website.

**********
More information:
All That Glitters. Corporate Knights, 3 Oct 2013.
Calgary-based mining company suing Costa Rica for more that $1 Billion. Global News, 4 Oct 2013.

- Submitted by Nancy P.

We really are at peak car

From Treehugger, Dec. 10, 2013
By Lloyd Alter

Excerpts from the article:

The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) provides even more proof that Americans have fallen out of love with their cars. They summarize it in their new study, Transportation in Transition:

From 2006 to 2011, the average number of miles driven per resident fell in almost three-quarters of America’s largest urbanized areas for which up-to-date and accurate data are available. Most urbanized areas have also seen increases in public transit use and bicycle commuting and decreases in the share of households owning a car. 
.....

Photo Source: Phil Hossack, Winnipeg Free Press

Kaid Benfied at NRDC Switchboard concludes that we have to reallocate resources to reflect the trends.

Especially because the new report is consistent with a multitude of information showing changes in living patterns and lifestyle preferences, we should shift more public resources into transit, to keep up with and strengthen the trends toward more sustainable modes of transportation.... We need to evolve our communities so that they become more suited to alternative modes, including walking and bicycling as well as transit, so that more [people] have more choices. And, where options do exist, we need to support and maintain them better in order to reduce carbon emissions, other forms of pollution, and automobile-dependent land uses.

.....
The PIRG study concludes with much the same thing, suggesting that our governments should:

• Revisit transportation plans
• Reallocate resources
• Remove barriers to non-driving transportation options.

You can read the entire article, including interesting data supporting the report, by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth

Why cars keep getting heavier and roads more dangerous

From Treehugger, Dec. 3, 2013
by Lloyd Alter

Photo Source:  Treehugger

Excerpts from the article:
 
Sales of big pickup trucks are up 15% since last year. Sales of the big Dodge, as much of a relic of the last century as Ron Burgundy, are up 58.5%. According to the Detroit Free Press, they are not for construction trades anymore. " Trucks are now luxury vehicles, with every automaker pushing their largest, most heavily equipped crew cab trucks.
.....
A small vehicle that gets a 5-star rating for frontal crashes only means the car is much safer than other cars of the same size. When that small car gets smashed by a larger, heavier car, let’s just say the 5-star rating isn’t going to cut it. (You can watch a video of a Ford F150 smashing into a Honda Civic.)
.....
Weight is a central determinant in the number of collision fatalities and where they occur. “A 1,000-pound increase in striking vehicle weight raises the probability of a fatality in the struck vehicle by 47%."

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth 

The myth of the perfect gift

From Treehugger, Dec 9, 2013
by David Friedlander

Are you looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? Look no further. It doesn’t exist. As we reported the other day, Americans spend between 3-4% of their annual income on Christmas season gifts. The objective of this considerable allocation of funds, we might assume, is to give things to the people we love and like that will enrich their lives–things they will appreciate, use and enjoy.
The reality is something quite different. A Psychology Today article reports sobering information about the psychology of gift giving and receiving. Authors Ben C Fletcher and D Phil Oxon cite Professor Karen Pine’s research about festive gifts, which found that:

• 89% of women and 79% of men pretended to like a gift they hated.
• Half of all people had received at least one gift they hated the previous Christmas.
• Half of all people have lied to a loved one about a gift, pretending to like it.
• Gift receivers reported avoiding eye contact with the giver for fear of revealing how they really felt.
• Gift receivers reported producing fake smiles using only the mouth (not the eye) muscles when pretending to like a gift.

This was reposted in Treehugger from Life Edited.  You can read the entire article by clicking here. 

- submitted by Gareth

 

How to take control of consumerism during the holiday shopping season

From Treehugger, Dec. 6, 2013
Tom Szaky, Guest Writer

Let's start with a simple fact: Humans are proven to prefer consumerism.

Any economist will agree that consumerism is essential for the culture of capitalism to survive. Not only must consumers buy, they must buy more every year, and still more the year after that. Without perpetual and growing consumption, many economies would either decline or collapse. The sign of a healthy national economy, after all, is measured by the Gross National Product (GNP), and the GNP is a measure of the quantity of goods and services people consume.

So are we all in the service of consumerism? I would argue yes.

If you look at it most jobs in the world are in the service and facilitation of consumerism. Everything from the common factory worker in China to the sales associate at your Macy’s to most lawyers, accountants, real estate agents etc. Without consumption we probably couldn’t support the 7 billion people that live on our planet.

But we don’t have to be indentured servants to consumerism. We are servicing consumerism voluntarily. No one is making us buy anything. We are choosing to do so – be it for ease or comfort or simple malaise.

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth

The park bench: Your front-row view of life’s passing parade

Note: After reading the Toronto Star article on the sculpture of the homeless Jesus on a bench (see previous post), and  the controversy it generated, I found this Globe and Mail column to be a fitting companion piece.  Can we find Jesus incarnated there, not only in the homeless person sleeping on a bench, but in all those with whom we share space on these universally accessible places of rest and reflection?  - submitted by Gareth

Immortalized in everything from film to sculpture, the humble public perch (even under a blanket of snow) is a powerful civic tool - part item of furniture, part gentle reminder that, in the democratic realm, everyone gets a seat.

by Sarah Hampson, Globe and Mail, Saturday, December 7, 2013

Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) with Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton) in "Manhattan", a United Artists release. The two are silhouetted in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge in New York as they chat on a Sutton Place bench.
(United Artists)

It is where conversations can happen (or not), an invitation to stillness in a fast world, a place for romance and a promise of inclusion.

Had you not thought very much about the bench as public furniture? I hadn’t either until recently, when, on a visit to the park, I suddenly realized that I was in the living room of a grand palace, with grass as carpet, banks of trees as walls and the sky as ceiling. And there were all these people, a diverse crowd, sitting in the huge reception room on benches. There we all were, thrown together, part of a revolving mix of solitary participants at a gathering we didn’t know we had been invited to.

And then I thought – because thinking, after all, is what you do a fair amount of on a public bench – about how this piece of furniture functions as a powerful metaphor and civic tool. In this, the season of holiday conviviality, the bench – even if under a thick blanket of snow – is perhaps a gentle reminder that the world can and should be a generous and democratic place, where everyone has a place to sit and witness life’s passing parade.

You can read the entire column by CLICKING HERE.

Sculpture of Jesus the Homeless rejected by two prominent churches

Ontario sculptor struggled to find a home for his haunting sculpture of Jesus sleeping on a bench.

Sculptor Timothy Schmalz has created a bronze sculpture called Jesus the Homeless outside Regis College, the Jesuit college at U of T.  (Image Source:  Toronto Star)

Jesus has been depicted in art as triumphant, gentle or suffering. Now, in a controversial new sculpture in downtown Toronto, he is shown as homeless — an outcast sleeping on a bench.

It takes a moment to see that the slight figure shrouded by a blanket, hauntingly similar to the real homeless who lie on grates and in doorways, is Jesus. It’s the gaping wounds in the feet that reveal the subject, whose face is draped and barely visible, as Jesus the Homeless.

Despite message of the sculpture — Jesus identifying with the poorest among us — it was rejected by two prominent Catholic churches, St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

“Homeless Jesus had no home,” says the artist, Timothy Schmalz, who specializes in religious sculpture. “How ironic.”

Rectors of both cathedrals were enthusiastic about the bronze piece and showed Schmalz possible locations, but higher-ups in the New York and Toronto archdiocese turned it down, he says.

“It was very upsetting because the rectors liked it, but when it got to the administration, people thought it might be too controversial or vague,” he says. He was told “it was not an appropriate image.”

The Toronto archdiocese tried to help him find an alternative location, including St. Augustine’s Seminary in Scarborough. But Schmalz, who describes his work as a visual prayer, wanted to reach a wider, secular audience. “I wanted not only the converted to see it, but also the marginalized. I almost gave up trying to find a place.”

Now the sculpture stands near Wellesley St. W., outside Regis College at the University of Toronto. It’s a Jesuit school of theology, where priests and lay people are trained, with an emphasis on social justice.

To some who have seen it, it speaks the message of the Gospels. When theologian Thomas Reynolds came upon it he felt “the shock of recognition.” He quoted the biblical passage: “ … the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  “I’m so used to seeing images of Jesus that are palatable,” says Reynolds.

But recent depictions of Jesus in political and social contexts have spurred controversy.  At Emmanuel College, the educational arm of the United Church where Reynolds teaches, there is a graceful sculpture showing Jesus’ suffering in a crucified woman. Schmaltz says he intended that his Jesus the Homeless can be interpreted as either male or female.

Though the slender figure occupies most of the two-metre bench, Schmalz purposely left space at the end for someone to sit close to the slumbering figure, “as uncomfortably as possible.”

Please read the entire article by CLICKING HERE.

-submitted by Gareth