2007 Ministry Fair Days
“What One Can Do—Changing the World”
Saturday,
October 6, Trinity, Shelburne
Saturday, October 20, Trinity, Rutland
Saturday, October 27 , St. Michael’s, Brattleboro
Each day begins with registration at 9:00, followed by workshops at 9:15, a second round of the same workshops at 10:30, Eucharist with Bishop Ely preaching and presiding at 11:45, and pre-convention information sessions with Diocesan Convention delegates from 1:30 until 4:00 pm. Please bring your own lunch.
Download a brochure/bulletin insert with complete information on the Ministry Fair Days.
Download Ministry Fair Registration Form
The theme for the Ministry Fairs is that of the 175th Diocesan Convention: “What One Can Do—Changing the World.” The focus will be on how Vermont Episcopalians can become engaged with the worldwide effort to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations in 2000 as a strategy for attacking the problem of global poverty. The committee hopes that participants will leave with a greater awareness of the MDGs, with a conviction that each of us really can do something, no matter how small, some resources about what that something might be, and with their hearts touched by the work of Vermonters in the effort to “make poverty history.”
The Ministry Fair Workshops
1.
Meeting the MDGs: a Human Response to Christ’s Call to
Reconciliation
This workshop
will provide an overview of the MDGs and how, in the context of globalization,
we can with God’s grace transform the world with respectful awareness
and openness to God’s diverse creation. We are asked to engage in global
mission to become involved with sustainable solutions to meet the MDGs. Come
explore where you are called to share your gifts to bring Christ’s
hope and love to the suffering.
2. Africa's
Excluded and Invisible Children
Children
in Africa are beset by poverty and factors that interact with it: lack of education,
poor health, food insecurity, limited access to benefits, and, ultimately,
the loss of childhood. They are excluded from basic services and become invisible.
CHABHA (Children Affected by HIV/AIDS) has learned of two models that effectively
find, help, and ultimately, include excluded children.
Both models
are community-based. Both draw on older teens and young adults as the caregivers
for the children. Both provide care for children in their homes and in that
way help other family members. Both provide a range of services, including
family help, food and other material supports when needed, advice, help with
education, health issues, psycho-social issues, and support and help during
emergencies; they are “holistic providers.” Both provide care over
the length of time required to enable the children and families to become independent.
Due to the small size and the semi-autonomous governance of these programs,
they can mobilize and adapt to changes quickly. Both are relatively efficient
in terms of cost. Both have steady supplies of relatively small amounts of
funding.
While these
programs target children affected by HIV/AIDS, the examples are appropriate
for all excluded and invisible children who are without help. The workshop
will share these examples of hope.
3. New Sudan
Education Initiative
The New
Sudan Education Initiative (NESEI), a Chittenden County based non-profit, is
a partnership between Southern Sudanese and a global network of friends who
are uniting the Diaspora to bring the gift of education home to Sudan to ensure
a lasting peace and to promote prosperity, gender equality, and self-reliance
through holistic education.
NESEI recently
received a World Bank Development Marketplace grant in a competition that awards
grants of up to $200,000 to fund creative, small-scale development projects.
With an added $100,000 grant from an anonymous donor, the funds will go toward
the first of twenty secondary schools NESEI plans to build in Southern Sudan.
In addition to basic secondary education, the schools will offer specialized
training in many of the areas needed to rebuild the area’s social and
economic infrastructure. The first, the New Sudan School of Health Sciences,
is projected to open in Yei, Sudan, in April 2008. It will educate 200 teenage
girls and young women, focusing on community health and nursing.
Offered
by Sudanese representatives of NESEI living in Vermont, the workshop will include
a video made during NESEI co-founder Abraham Awolich’s return visit to
Sudan. The presenters will share their stories, describe NESEI’s secondary
schools project, and respond to questions.
4. Cada
uno de nosotros podemos hacer algo.
Each one of us can do something. [Oscar Romero]
Many Vermonters
have connections with Anglican/Episcopal churches in Latin America. This workshop
will explore facets of our accompaniment in Latin America, focusing in particular
on a new micro-loan program, Hasta
la Cosecha (Until the Harvest). This program
gives out small loans to farmers so that they may buy all that is needed to
plant a crop and harvest it. It is administered through local Episcopal vestries
in the Baja Lempa area of El Salvador. Participants will also learn about the
Nets for Life anti-malaria initiative that Episcopal Relief and Development
plans on expanding into Latin America and the Caribbean.
5. Kids4Peace
Kids4Peace is a project devoted to building the Abrahamic Partnerships among Jewish, Christian
and Muslim children from both Israel/Palestine and Vermont. Vermont hosted
its first Kids4Peace summer camp in late July, with 24 children, ages 10-12.
The camp
is just part of a nine-month long program led both here and in Israel that
is aimed toward reconciliation, transformation, and communion among the “People
of the Book.” Children and adults learn to listen, respectfully observe,
question and understand each other’s traditions. Pride of tradition is
blended with curiosity and respect as everyone learns that God’s call
to Abraham is a call to all of us. The kids also have plenty of time for fun
and to meet each other as friends and, hopefully, to become life long contacts.
Kids4Peace
believes that as we adults model peaceful co-existence through mutual understanding
and respect, children can begin to cast off the ages-old bands of separation
that have led to so much brokenness between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Only
when the conflict in the Middle East is brought to an end can the MDGs truly
be realized in that part of our global community.
The workshop
will share the experiences of the inaugural summer camp season as well as plans
for the future. There are many ways to get involved, as parishes, as individuals,
as community contacts. There are many ways that each of us can broaden our
understanding of Abraham’s legacy, learn about our Abrahamic Partners
and help to fulfill the Covenant promised to us all. As God called Abraham,
so are we called, through Christ, to listen and to share the promise of peace
through God’s Kingdom on Earth.
