[Dialogue] community in Peru

[Lynda Cock]

Ellie, I thought of your work with the mining community in Peru when we
heard the news of the earthquake.  Have you heard from that part of the
country?   Lynda

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From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Elliestock at aol.com
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 3:14 PM
To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Dialogue] {Disarmed} Re: congregation-based community organizing


In a message dated 8/16/2007 3:38:33 AM Central Daylight Time,
martin at ica-uk.org.uk writes:

Dear all,  

Do any of our colleagues in the US have any experience of
"congregation-based 
community organizing"?   

My partner Derek is involved with the Faith Network for Manchester where we
live here 
in the UK, and it is exploring new ways to increase the influence of faith
communities and 
others in decision-making processes. The mechanism of  "congregation-based 
community organizing" (CCBO) is being used and Greg Galluzzo, Director of
the 
Gamaliel Foundation in the US, is supporting the initiative. 

If any of you have any experience of working or supporting such a way of
working, Derek 
would be grateful to hear of it, and any advantages or pitfalls.  Have any
of the ICA ToP 
or other tools been used? 

many thanks,
Martin


--
Martin Gilbraith, Director <martin at ica-uk.org.uk>

ICA:UK, registered charity #1090745 & company limited by 
guarantee #3970365
registered in England & Wales, at 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester 
M15 5RF
tel/fax: 0845 450 0305 or 0161 232 8444 - website: www.ica-
uk.org.uk

a member of the Institute of Cultural Affairs International
"concerned with  the  human  factor  in  world development"




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Derek,
Ellie and I have been part of the Institute since 1970 and have been local
church pastors since then (with an interlude of five years on the staff of
ICA) using movement methods and context.  We are currently co-pastors of the
Northminster Presbyterian Church in St. Louis and when we came here in 1998,
the church had been involved in congregation-based community organizing
through the Gamaliel Foundation of Chicago since 1991.  We have encouraged
cbco and I especially have been regularly involved in the St.Louis
affiliate, Metropolitan Congregations United for St. Louis (MCU).  I am
currently facilitator for the St. Louis Clergy Caucus, the clergy whose
congregations have committed to MCU and community organizing.  The approach
is quite different from the Institute in that it confronts the
powers-that-be with power of its own (money and people as Alynski always
said) as a way of accomplishing its goals of instituting what grassroots
people and communities want and need.  As controversial as its methods are
(continuing the Alynski style), it does get congregations involved in local
issues and with other faith communities they might not normally engage with.
The most helpful book on explaining what the Gamaliel Foundation and
cong-based community organizing is all about is Doing Justice by Dennis
Jacobsen, a Lutheran pastor involved with Gamaliel.
Carl(eton) Stock
St. Louis



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