Social Action | Virginia United Methodist Women

The Conference Mission Team chose the following as our Social Action Priorities for the next two years 2011-2012:

Human Trafficking
Health Care
Domestic Violence

We will advocate for these issues through prayer and discernment.

The District Social Action Coordinators who will receive up to $50 for expenses related to attending UM Day at General Assembly are: Alexandria, Ashland, Danville, Farmville, Lynchburg, Peninsula, Portsmouth, Richmond & Staunton. Presidents, please encourage your SAC to attend this event and hope you will be there, too, along with others from your district.

The Conference Social Action Award form is available on this page (see right side). Encourage your local units to work towards the goals on the form so we can have 100% participation by the districts this year. One change on the form is #2 where UMW Action Network has been changed to General Board of Church and Society's Action Network. The date the form is due is at the bottom of the form. Linda Porter will send SAC the form to report your numbers to her later. Questions? Call or email. 804-674-5220 lpfromnc(at)msn.com

Thanks for all you do for Social Action and alleviating the hurts and pains and injustices of the world.

Our Detention System

There is a powerful new video documentary on the Detention system, which highlights the impact on women and children. Detention and deportation are a priority concern for United Methodist Women. Our church policy calls for an end to detention and deportation until the broken immigration system is reformed. It is dividing families and undermining livelihoods and communities. More than a million people have been deported since the beginning of the Obama administration," notes a University of California at Berkeley Law School study released this month.

While the premiere of this documentary on TV was in October 2011, you can view the documentary on the PBS website (www.pbs.org). Follow this direct link to the documentary: http://video.pbs.org/video/2155873891.

Healthy Families, Healthy Planet

This falls on the same weekend as our Mission Celebration, but you can help spread the word.We are looking for passionate advocates to attend our first ever advocacy colloquium to take place October 13-15 at Trinity United Methodist Church in downtown Denver, CO. We have a packed agenda of worship, panel discussions with health and advocacy experts, conversations with United Methodist health workers from Africa, and hopefully a visit from Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO)!

This in-depth training will educate and empower advocates from all fifteen of our target Annual Conferences on advocating for maternal health. We know that The United Methodist Church can help change the world for women and their children, and this colloquium will broaden the ever-growing base of grassroots activists who are passionate about working for healthy families and a healthy planet! All costs (travel, housing, meals, transportation, etc) will be covered by the project. More information is attached.
Do you know strong advocates who might be interested (including yourselves?) We are looking for at least 2 from every conference. Please have interested advocates fill out the attached application and submit them to me at kateyzeh@gmail.com by July 31, 2011.

Click here for doc form or here for pdf version