Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Paddle to Nisqually is coming up!
Check out the Blanket Project and we need volunteers to help with Paddle to Nisqually!
Friday, April 15, 2016
Video of Freda Huson and Dini Ze Toghestiy speak out at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship BUF
For those of you who missed the opportunity to hear the Unist'ot'en story from Freda Huson and Dini Ze Toghestiy, here's a video that Reese Semanko took and offered to the public.
For more info on the camp and to register to help at the camp, go to: http://unistotensolidarity.com/
Financial Donations towards the materials costs can be made to https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/d11tq5
Friday, April 1, 2016
Sunday, March 6, 2016
BUF and Lummi at the Canadian Unitarian Council General Conference in May 2016
Bolder Ways of Being
May 20-22, Vancouver, British Columbia will be hosting the Canadian Unitarian Council General Conference and registration is now open. Early bird registration fees are available for those who register by March 31st.
Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, Lummi and Tsleil-Waututh will be putting on a workshop entitled "No Borders: Climate Justice and First Nations." We're trying to encourage as many UUs from the U.S. to attend so we can start collaborating on erasing the border when it comes to justice issues. The presence of U.S. UUs would greatly be appreciated. This will be a great opportunity to meet up with UUs across the border to get to know each other and work together on projects like the upcoming Totem Pole Journey.
There are also workshops on the Truth and Reconciliation movement in Canada (First Nations issue and one that we will want to be exploring here in the U.S.), climate justice and action organization, criminal justice reform and restorative justice, Israel-Palestine situation, music and storytelling, and much more.
If we could get a few of our members to attend the "Building Bridges Through Understanding the Village: Truth, Healing and Reconciliation" workshop that would be really great. It's one of those ideas that we've been discussing and talking about creating a similar movement here on the U.S. side. It would be great to have someone take notes. Two UU ministers are on the CUC task force and at some point I'd like to get them down here to make a presentation on the work they're doing up there. The description is as follows:
During this experiential workshop Kathi Camilleri will take participants through an exploration of our personal role in supporting the revival of the values that worked so beautifully in Indigenous villages for thousands of years. We will also explore in‐depth the effects of Residential Schools and Canada’s Policy of Assimilation. This workshop is geared to solutions and is done from a non‐blame and non‐shame perspective, inviting all participants to become a part of the healing that IS already happening. Please be aware that Residential School effects and other issues may trigger unresolved grief and loss issues for some. Hosted by the CUC’s Truth, Healing and Reconciliation Task Force co‐chairs, Revs. Samaya Oakley and Meg Roberts.
For general information: http://cuc.ca/conference-2016/
Saturday and Sunday Workshops: http://cuc.ca/conference-2016/workshops/
Registration: http://cuc.ca/conference-2016/adult-registration/adult-registration-form/
Monday, February 22, 2016
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Decolonizing
Our Work for Justice: Join the UU College of Social Justice and Lummi Nation
for a Program on Indigenous Rights & Climate Justice, April 25-May 1
“Whose land do you live on?”
It’s an uncomfortable question for those of us known as “settlers,”
and one that we do not regularly have to face. Last year, as part of the UU
College of Social Justice’s “Solidarity with Original Nations and
Peoples” program, I
had gone in considering myself someone whose eyes were open to the injustices
done to the original peoples of the United States. As I stood on the rocky shorefront
of the Salish Sea, listening to Lummi organizer Freddie Lane explain the
history of this sacred site under threat, I realized that my knowledge barely
scratched the surface.
I did not know
that Federally Unrecognized Tribes lack government acknowledgement only because
they never signed a treaty with the United States and they were never
conquered. I did not know that the U.S. military’s very origins were in the domination
and genocide of the original people of this continent. And I did not know the scale
of the determination, cultural pride, creativity, and hospitality that I would
find among the Lummi leaders and organizers that invited us onto their
sovereign Nation.
Today, one of
the most urgent challenges the Lummi people face is the struggle to prevent
construction of an immense coal terminal on their sacred land at Cherry Point.
Designed to facilitate export of some of the dirtiest fossil fuels, such a
terminal—and the multiple rail lines serving it—would be disastrous to the
land, water, and culture of the people who have lived there for thousands of
years.
The UU College
of Social Justice’s second annual journey, “Solidarity With
Original Nations and People”[AK1] , taking place from April 25-May 1 will
not only introduce participants to this specific justice struggle; it will also
empower us all to return to our own locations and look with new eyes on the
history of the towns and cities where we live, and to find new pathways to
solidarity with First Nations across the continent.
As Unitarian Universalists we have demonstrated our
ongoing support for the Lummi Nation’s struggle to preserve Cherry Point. Lummi
Nation Council member Jay Julius and Master Carver Jewell James spoke to a
crowd of over 2,500 at last year’s Public Witness[AK2] at
General Assembly in Portland, hundreds of us wrote to President Obama asking
him to block the Gateway Pacific Terminal, and through Faithify[HH3] we
raised nearly $14,000 to for the Lummi Nation’s totem
pole journey[HH4] for
climate justice and building solidarity among tribes along the coal train
route.
By asking “Whose land do you live on?” instead of “Who
were the Native Americans who originally lived in your city or state?”—which
places First Nations peoples in the past—I am learning to decolonize the
question, and my work for justice. I hope you will join me.
Hannah Hafter
Senior Program Leader for Activism
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
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