Did you know that IRTF’s fair trade program raises approximately $25,000 each year, providing vital income for fair trade artisans and farmers in Latin America? They depend on groups like IRTF to find markets for their fair trade goods.
And IRTF, with only two paid staff, depends on volunteers to generate this income for the artisans and farmers.
Can you help out IRTF for a couple of hours?
Click here to see the schedule of dates and hours, and sign up for a shift.
It’s been an election like no other: polarizing, ugly, passionately contested. The results suggest a realignment of U.S. politics and a rightward shift in national policies and priorities. Yet most our greatest concerns were invisible during the campaigns.
Join Cleveland Peace Action for a panel and audience discussion, in-person and on Zoom, of the election and its implications for our work. They will address Palestine, the growing risk of nuclear war, the iron grip of the military-industrial complex, climate change, Latin America and immigration, and party politics.
register here for the online version: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMscO2pqTMvGdLzi1Afgi0RwdSyNiHeQb5y#/registration
12-2pm: The Walk & Fast for Humanity will convene at the Fountain of Eternal Life at 120 Public Square on "Black Friday," November 29, 2024, Noon - 2pm. This is to name four world famines and food insecurity in Cleveland, Ohio. We emphasize the huge Pentagon budget and campaigns that foment poverty and famine in proxy war zones of our government. Famine in Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, and Yemen are our focus. We ask that participants everywhere fast from food, fuel and consumerism on "Black Friday." Readings and songs will be offered. From there we will walk to a public building to address our legislators. We invite you to join us and, if you wish, assist with a reading or song. Please reply to this email maria.smith9907@gmail.com if you'd like to be part of the program, or call Don Bryant at 216.255.1576
In preparation for the Black Friday the Cleveland Nonviolence Network and Cleveland Peace Action are hosting a Nonviolence Training. The training will take place at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont. A registration is not required.
Where is trade policy headed — and what is the role of trade justice activists — now that Donald Trump has won control of the White House?
Join two of the Santa Marta 5 water defenders and representatives from the international campaign for an update of their legal case, and how we can support the Five.
Thousands of individuals and organizations from all over the world have worked with civil society groups in El Salvador for the freedom of the five Santa Marta water defenders who were unjustly arrested in January 2023 and charged with an alleged crime said to have occurred 35 years ago during that nation's brutal civil war. Finally, in October 2024, the five were found innocent of all charges in a court in northern El Salvador. However, the Salvadoran Attorney General has appealed this verdict to a higher court. We will discuss the case and ways the international community can support the Five.
(Spanish-English interpretation will be provided)
register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvdOiprDouH9Ugdi5E3rB7_US2m4f4VX-x#/registration
IRTF is grateful to the 200 supporters who gathered on October 27 at Pilgrim Church in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood for IRTF’s annual Commemoration of the Martyrs. In addition to marking the 44th anniversary of the martyrdom of Cleveland’s missioners in El Salvador (Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel, alongside Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke), we commemorated 36 human rights defenders killed in Central America and Colombia this past year because they dared to speak truth to power.
Our keynote speaker, Lorena Araujo of the largest campesino organization in El Salvador (CRIPDES), held the crowd’s attention with horrific stories of mass arrests, detentions and deaths currently happening under their government’s State of Exception, now in its third year. With more 88,000 imprisoned (and more than 300 deaths in prison), El Salvador now has the highest incarceration rate in the world—surpassing the astronomical rate of incarceration in the United States.
As the people of El Salvador face the greatest challenge to their democracy since the end of the civil war in 1992, they invite us to renew and deepen our solidarity.
If you would still like to make a donation:
https://bit.ly/3YDmETj via Zeffy platform
irtfcleveland.org/donate via Network for Good
René Alfonso Garavito is a valued community member of the Indigenous Makaguan tribe in Arauca Department. He juggles being a a father of three, a university student (studying public administration), and an active member of the Indigenous Guard on his people’s reservation (Reserve Cusay la Colorada).
Tragically, while he was commuting between two towns on September 20, three armed men apprehended him, held him at gunpoint, tied him up and took him away while his 11-year-old nephew watched. His relatives, who suspect he is being held by the National Liberation Army (ELN), are experiencing much distress and anguish; his nephew now has routine nightmares after watching the kidnapping.
IRTF has joined an international call to prioritize a thorough investigation into the kidnapping of René Alfonso Garavito, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice. With his family, we pray that he is released and returned unharmed.
