Volume 11, Issue 1   Interchange April 2001

At this rate, with these models of consumerism which lead to the destruction of the natural means of life, of the atmosphere, to shortages and pollution of drinking water and of the seas, to climatic changes, natural disasters, to poverty, to deeper and widening gaps within countries and between countries, you can state with mathematical precision that the social and economic order which exists in the world today is unsustainable.

-Dr. Fidel Castro, at Riverside Church in New York City, Sept 8, 2000 (full text available from FRD)

Pastors for Peace Sponsors
Friendshipment #12

From June 16 to July 12, the Pastors for Peace Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization will take its twelfth caravan through the US blockade to bring aid to Cuba. Educational materials, sports equipment, ambulances, school buses, computers, medical equipment and medicines will be brought to Cuban locations including the Latin American School of Medicine which, without tuition, hosts students from all over Latin America and Africa.

On principle, Pastors for Peace does not apply for a US Treasury Department License to travel to Cuba or to bring aid. For the first time the caravan will attempt a new reverse-challenge of the embargo, bringing aid from Cuba to the US.

The caravan will travel through the US and Canada, arriving in Texas on the 29th of June. After crossing into Mexico, aid materials will be loaded on a boat in Tampico. The caravan will be in Cuba from the 4th to the 11th of July, before returning to the US.

Pastors for Peace has organized eleven similar caravans in the past, including one last November, which FRD's Zachary Berman joined for the Solidarity Conference (Interchange Dec 2000). Caravans are also organized to bring aid to Central America.

This Friendshipment will honor Cuba's achievements in energy and transportation alternatives. Because Cuba has been selected by the United Nations to host World Environment Day in 2001, the trip will visit innovative projects throughout Cuba connected to this theme.

Applications are now available. The deadline for scholarships is May 21, and for completed applications with deposit, June 1.

Contact: IFCO/Pastors for Peace, 402 W 145th St, New York, NY 10031 phone: (212) 926-5757; fax: (212) 926-5842 email: ifco@igc.org web: http://www.ifconews.org

  

Religious and Social Processes Conference

The third International Socioreligious Studies Meeting, entitled Religious and Social Processes Under the Conditions of the New Century, will be held July 3-6 in Havana.

The meeting will be sponsored by the Socioreligious Studies Department of the Center for Psychological and Sociological Research (CIPS), with the co-sponsorship of the Study Center of the Council of Churches of Cuba (CE-CIC), the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center. (CMMLK), the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue (CCRD), the Yoruba Cultural Society of Cuba, the Commission for Studies of the History of the Latin-American Church (CEHILA-Cuba), the "Oscar Arnulfo Romero" Reflection and Solidarity Group, and the Center for American Studies (CEA).

Themes to be addressed include Religion and globalization; Religion and cultural identity; Place of religion in the construction of utopias; Economic order and religion; Religion, gender, race and ethnic groups; Religious identity; Ethical religious propositions; The so-called new religious movements; Modernity, rationalism, secularization and religion; New theoretical approaches to the theory of secularization; Popular religiosity and people's expectations; Popular religious pilgrimages; Faith and politics in the face of social change needs; Jubilee and the foreign debt; Value of myths in a technological world; Ecology and religion; and New theoretical problems in the study of religion.

Within the framework of the meeting, a workshop will be held to discuss the relation between religion and emigration, in particular, the preservation or change of cultural identity under the conditions of emigration and the role of religion and religious organization in that context. This Workshop is also co-sponsored by the Center for Study of Political Alternatives (CEAP), of the University of Havana, and by the Program for Analysis of Religion among Latinos (PARAL), New York.

The deadline for registration and submission of paper proposals was April 1. Inquiries about late registration should be made to Dr. Jorge Ramírez Calzadilla, Presidente Comité Organizador, Tercer Encuentro Internacional de Estudios Sociorreligiosos, Calle B No. 352 esquina a calle 15, Vedado. Ciudad de La Habana, La Habana 10400, Cuba; Telfs: (537 )31-3610 y 3-366 Fax: (537) 33-4327. E.mail: cips@ceniai.inf.cu

Castro Nominated
for Nobel Peace Prize

Fidel Castro has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of developing nations. Hallgeir Langeland, a Norwegian politician, said Castro deserved recognition for sending doctors, engineers and aid workers to developing nations despite the hardships of US sanctions imposed on Cuba.



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