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In This Issue

  1. It’s time for reconciliation
  2. Heart Gardens to honour children lost to Indian Residential Schools
  3. On the Path to Reconciliation: Worship Resources
  4. Be a witness for First Nations children
  5. KAIROS calls on Canadian government to implement recommendations to end violence against Indigenous women
  6. Reflections on Solidarity - Indigenous Women and Resource Extraction: A Panel Discussion, April 19
  7. Join the Justice Tour!
Featured Resource
  1. Ethical Reflections on Fracking (updated)
  2. Briefing Paper: Hopeful Signs, Alarming Realities on the Road to Climate Justice
Spirited Reflections

It’s time for reconciliation
It’s time. Join KAIROS in Ottawa, May 29 to June 3 for Time for Reconciliation, our intergenerational gathering. Prepare for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations. Take action towards a new relationship. Check here for reconciliation events in communities across Canada.
 
Please note these important deadlines:
Registration closes end of day (midnight), Monday, May 11. 
Accommodation blocks at Carleton University and Embassy Suites will be held only until Tuesday, April 28.
 
Register today!
 
We are delighted to announce the following speakers:
 
Cindy Blackstock, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society
Mike Cachagee, Former President, National Residential Schools Survivor Society
Ellen Gabriel, Turtle Clan, Kanien’kehá:ka Nation from Kanehsatà:ke, Human Rights Activist
Jah’Kota, Artist, Musician, Founder Un1ty Entertainment
Erica Violet Lee, Nehiyaw (Plains Cree), 2013 Iris Marion Young Diversity Scholar
Mark Macdonald, National Indigenous Anglican Bishop
Ana Guadalupe Matzir Miculax, Maya Kaqchikel, Guatemala, CEIBA (KAIROS partner)
Marie Wilson, Commissioner, TRC
 
To learn more, download a poster and find updates, visit Time for Reconciliation.
 
Intergenerational. Indigenous and non-Indigenous.Together.

Heart Gardens to honour children lost to Indian Residential Schools
KAIROS Canada inHeart Garden iconvites children and youth in parishes and congregations from coast-to-coast to create hearts for a Heart Garden in remembrance of Indigenous children who attended the Indian Residential Schools. A Heart Garden will be planted at Rideau Hall on June 3 after the official close of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), with similar Heart Garden ceremonies planned at churches and in communities across the country from May 31 to June 3.

Heart Garden is a joint initiative between KAIROS, the TRC, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and Project of Heart.
 
From early April to mid May, KAIROS invites children and youth to make laminated or biodegradable hearts. Each community or congregation is asked to send one heart to KAIROS’ Ottawa office to be received by May 22 to be part of the Rideau Hall ceremonies, and to plant the other hearts in a Heart Garden in their communities between May 31 and June 3. To learn more and for instructions visit Time for Reconciliation – Heart Gardens.

On the Path to Reconciliation: Worship Resources
Three candlesKAIROS has produced an outline, texts and prayers for a worship service that we invite you to use on or around May 31 to mark the formal closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These resources have been prepared largely from the perspective of non-Indigenous Canadians seeking reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. To access them: Worship Resources – On the Path to Reconciliation

Be a witness for
First Nations children
In the March KAIROS Times we told you about the I am a Witness campaign that shines a spotlight on inequitable welfare services to First Nations children on-reserve.
 
The Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal against the federal government on this issue. KAIROS created a series of one-minute videos that capture moving speeches from its October 2014 Solidarity Evening for the Caring Society, held on the eve of final arguments before the  Human Rights Tribunal. 
 
To view the videos posted to date and learn more about this campaign, visit KAIROS’ I am a Witness page.

The seventh video features Sebastien Grammond, Derald Dubois, and Rev. Susan Johnson:

KAIROS calls on Canadian government to implement recommendations to end violence against
Indigenous women
 
CEDAW logoThe recent acquittal of the man accused of Cindy Gladue’s murder sparked protest rallies across the country as many people saw the decision as yet another example of how Canada’s justice system is failing Indigenous women and girls. 

While news that prosecutors are appealing the decision was well received, the tragic circumstances surrounding the death and trial of the 36-year old mother of three highlighted flaws in the way Canada responds to violence against Indigenous women and girls – flaws that are made abundantly clear in a recent report from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Read more.
 

Reflections on Solidarity- Indigenous Women and Resource Extraction

A Panel Discussion, April 19
KAIROS is excited to co-host a panel at the Latin America and Caribbean Conference at Carleton University in Ottawa on April 19, entitled Reflections on Solidarity – Indigenous Women and Resource Extraction. Organized with Horizons of Friendship, the panel will highlight the work KAIROS is doing with Indigenous women and organizations to increase the understanding and visibility of how resource extraction impacts Indigenous women in Canada, Latin America and the Philippines. 

“...we have been taught our identity comes from the land and our songs are from the land and when you do an environmental assessment that does not come up.” - Ann Marie Sam, Nov 2014

Read more.

Join the Justice Tour!
In April and May, a delegation of national church leaders will visit various cities from British Columbia to Nova Scotia to engage in conversations about poverty in Canada and climate change. Local faith leaders will brief the delegation on climate justice and anti-poverty work in the region and discuss plans for further engaging faith communities in the coming months.
 
Justice Tour 2015 is organized by the Canadian Council of Churches and Citizens for Public Justice.
 
The delegation includes three church leaders: Rev. Dr. Susan Johnson, National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada; Rev. Dr. Willard Metzger, Executive Director, Mennonite Church Canada, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, General Secretary, Canadian Council of Churches.
 
To learn more, visit Justice Tour 2015.
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Featured Resources


Ethical Reflections on Fracking (updated)


Since the first edition of Ethical Reflections on Fracking was released in April 2014, there have been several significant developments. A Quebec commission of inquiry has raised new questions about the economic viability and the social and environmental impacts of the exploitation of shale gas in the lower Saint Laurence region. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have introduced indefinite moratorium on fracking.
 
The updated version of Ethical Reflections on Fracking, containing a two-page Executive Summary, is now available.
 
The updated paper also explores significant ecological issues, including the connection between fracking and water contamination, earthquakes and the release of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas.
 
For more information, contact John Dillon, Ecological Economy Program Coordinator, at jdillon@kairoscanada.org
 

Briefing Paper


Also available is KAIROS' new Briefing Paper on Climate Justice, entitled: Hopeful Signs, Alarming Realities on the Road to Climate Justice.

 

Spirited Reflections





Locked Doors, Charmila Ireland
It has been a busy few weeks in the church. Palm branches were laid, feet were washed, tears were shed, and we cried out that Christ is risen. Now that Easter has passed, it is time to step back into day-to-day life. We go back to struggling to live a Christian life, trying to remember the lessons of sacrifice and all-powerful love and grace that we learned.  Read more.

Good Things Can Come to Those Who Wait—and Weep, Stephen Bede Scharper
If good things come to those who wait, they also can come to those who weep. In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene stays at the empty tomb and weeps. She is rewarded by an encounter with the Risen Christ. Read more.
 
A Spirituality of Advocacy, Esther Epp-Tiessen (MCC)
Perhaps it is because we are in the season of Lent… Or perhaps it is because I was recently trying to explain how the work of our Ottawa Office differs from self-interested lobbying… Or perhaps it is the findings of a 2014 research project that challenged us as staff of the Ottawa Office to be more explicit about how our work is grounded in our faith… Read more.
 
Make Us Brave and Keep Us Tender, Lauren Hodgson
We arrived at church holding protest signs. We didn’t stay outside the building, but took our signs inside – the Palm Sunday liturgy that year created space to re-enact what we imagined as a “modern day” palm parade. Read more.
 
Abundance of Life in Reconciled Relationships, George C. George
Prosperity is a magical promise in today’s neo-liberal free market economy. The driving force of the free market economy is profit. From the notion of prosperity emerges a lifestyle of uniformity in which a contemporary “Tower of Babel” is being rebuilt which symbolizes human power and greed. The popular “theology of prosperity” gives the message that if you enjoy material wealth, then you must be blessed by God and if you are poor, it’s your own fault. Read more.
 
Cross and Wilderness, Maylanne Maybee
Recently at a particularly heated moment in one of our weekly staff meetings, a colleague changed the energy by telling a story out of the blue – about an upright piano in his household. Read more.

 

For more information, please visit our website:
www.kairoscanada.org
 

KAIROS Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives
310 Dupont St. Suite 200, Toronto, ON, Canada M5R 1V9
Tel: 416-463-5312 | Toll-free: 1-877-403-8933| Fax: 416-463-5569
Copyright © 2015 KAIROS Canada, All rights reserved.


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