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Thanks
to all who joined and/or donated to
the Poetry Benefit for Haiti Emergency
Relief Fund. Here is the link to the
recording that we can continue to enjoy.
As most of you must know by now,
a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake
recently struck Haiti, leaving devastation
in its wake. Hundreds of people have been
killed, and the terrible counting has begun.
Centered on Haiti’s southern peninsula, the earthquake severely damaged the cities of Les Cayes and Jeremie. Hospitals in the area are overwhelmed. And, to make matters even worse, Tropical Storm Grace is poised to hit Haiti this weekend.
We are reaching out to you today on behalf of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund to ask for your immediate support for earthquake relief. We remember the 7.0 magnitude earthquake of 2010, where 300,000 perished and over 2 million Haitians ended up in tent cities. And we remember the ways in which funds collected by major aid organizations in the name of earthquake relief somehow never made it to those in need.
The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund has no paid staff or overhead. They will send each and every dollar directly to grassroots community organizations on the ground in Haiti. These groups are the ones positioned to provide the most effective support for families and communities impacted by the earthquake. When the 2010 earthquake hit the capital of Port-au-Prince, HERF funded mobile health clinics, women’s groups and community organizers who brought relief for thousands of families.
When Hurricane Matthew devastated the southern peninsula in 2016, we supported the work of grassroots activists who organized caravans with health care workers, medicine and food for people in the affected areas. To repeat, each and every dollar raised went directly to Haitian community organizations.
Now, Haitians are mobilizing once again at the grassroots community level, forming work brigades to respond to this new disaster. As they confront this crisis, we ask for your solidarity and support.
Please
Donate to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund
We Thank You!
Ecumenical Peace Institute of Northern
California
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund Board of Directors
Walter Riley,
Attorney at Law, Co-Chair
Sister Maureen Duignan, O.S.F.,
Co-Chair
Seth Donnelly, Educator and
Long-Time Haiti Solidarity Activist
Nia Imara, Astronomer and
Artist
Pierre Labossiere, Co-Founder,
Haiti Action Committee
Marilyn Langlois, Human Rights
and Community Advocate
Robert Roth, Educator and
Co-Founder, Haiti Action Committee
We would
all love to see a more compassionate
community, part and parcel of who we
are. Former nun, theologian and author Karen
Armstrong initiated the Charter for Compassion,
bringing together the three Abrahamic faith
traditions. From that came Compassionate
Cities. California is in the
process of becoming Compassionate California.
Daniel Zwickel initiated a Compassionate Bay Area
program, which holds monthly CyberCafés
every 2nd Monday. Please email
us if you are interested in
joining the conversation.
For more on the Livermore Lab Interfaith Witness and Worship, click: HEREZoom Good Friday at LLNL 2021: https://youtu.be/7RpZgZ6X99k
Zoom Good Friday at LLNL 2021 High Def: https://youtu.be/B229JU4J0tM
Benjamin Mertz' Good Friday Prelude 2021: https://youtu.be/c8vpiJN4V_U
Good Friday 2021 at LLNL Marylia Kelley: https://youtu.be/N9E07lqppCg
Good Friday 2021 at LLNL Jackie Cabasso: https://youtu.be/sQrl9RhyagY
Good Friday 2021 at LLNL Homily Rev Michael: https://youtu.be/T6-ZN339DuA
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A special report by
the Sanctions Kill Coalition,
September 2021:
“We don’t deserve this” The Impact and Consequences of US Sanctions |
Pierre
Labossiere is Co-Founder
of the Haiti Action Committee
(HAC) and the Haiti Emergency
Relief Fund (HERF) established
in the Bay Area in 1991 and 2004
respectively. Working with
Haiti's grassroots movement that
is engaged in the struggle for
justice and democracy, HAC and
HERF provide information
regarding conditions on the
ground, assist refugees and
support community-based
initiatives and institutions
working for the liberation and
the rebuilding of Haiti. |
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| Betsy
Rose is a singer, songwriter and
community activist and Bay
Area legend and an icon whose
insight, warmth, humor, wit and wisdom have
added a wealth of songs to the world of folk
and progressive music for over forty years.
... Betsy has performed and taught widely
throughout the United States and Canada,
India, Australia and the Czech Republic.
Visit her website: Betsy
Rose Music Rev. Silvia Brandon-Pérez is a rebel priest, singer-songwriter, an interpreter for torture victims and one of EPI's board members. Silvia is Cuban-born, a multilingual translator, author and an ordained Catholic priest who provides paralegal services for people who can’t afford it. She also runs a Catholic Worker House from her home in Hayward, California, that provides temporary shelter, showers, food and even clothing for people down on their luck, called the Oscar Romero and Simone Weil Catholic Worker House. |
From Carolyn’s Poetry Corner, “Scarrs Run Deep”
—Port-au-Prince
Sudden rain descends outside our dining room.
Drops the size of thimbles strike the courtyard awning
in rackety thunder.
People run to bring cushions in from chairs
take down clothes from the line
shut windows.
Run-off from the brief downpour
converges on the city below
built on the dump.
The child care center is knee-deep in brown water.
Mud and garbage flow in a filthy slurry
from surrounding suburbs down to Cité Soleil,
the city of the sun.
A wall surrounds the city of toil
where people slaved for a dollar a day
in cavernous buildings now echoing empty.
In the brief rain unsound foundations crumble.
The wall goes down crushes lean-to shacks.
Five people die.
Laws of gravity, reverse!
Water, flow uphill!
Cleanse of filth the city of darkness.
Purify each crack and corner
of the city of greed.
Wash clean our lives.
Prepare us to build a city of light.
© 1995 Carolyn S. Scarr
Recipe
Into a quart jar
place two cups water
taken from a ditch
beside the pasture
where the cattle once grazed.
If you do not live near a pasture
water from any drainage ditch
or from an urban creek
may be substituted.
Add one cup water
from the toilet bowl
where you rinsed the baby's diaper
when she was sick.
Be sure you do not
flush the toilet first.
Ask your husband
to urinate into the jar.
Only a little is needed.
When your neighbor washes his car
scoop up some of the run-off.
Add half a cup to the jar.
Put in a tablespoon or more
of fine dirt.
Screw down the lid.
Shake well.
Although the cholera
and typhoid bacilli
will probably be lacking –
and the amoebae –
following this recipe carefully
will result
in a reasonable facsimile
of the solution drunk
every day
by millions of people in Iraq
whose sewage treatment plants
and water purification systems
were bombed to smithereens in 1991
and cannot be rebuilt
under the conditions of siege
referred to as
“sanctions”
and maintained by military blockade
principally by the United States of America.
You might take your jar
to your congressperson or senator.
Ask that person
to keep it on the table
where he or she sits
in the halls of Congress
until the water runs clean
from every tap in Iraq
and no baby
dies of dysentery.
This recipe can be increased
to serve 22 million people.
June 3, 2000
Carolyn S. Scarr
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS IN HONDURAS ARE KILLED TOO:
THE CASE OF BERTA CÁCERES
Program/Seminar by
the Western Institute for Social Research in
Berkeley: Cosponsored by EPI
Friday,
November 19, 6-8pm
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Poetry Benefit
for Haiti Emergency
Relief Fund
is past.
A link to listen to the recorded event will be available soon.
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Interfaith Witness and Worship|
Join Zoom webinar gathering: Opening music 7:45 a.m. Worship 8:00 a.m.  |
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Music featuring:
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and:
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(Should the FLKR page be no longer accessible, you may view a formatted for EPI webpage by clicking HERE. Thank you again, David, for sharing your art/craft with us! )
 You may
click on the image above for the PDF flier with
details.
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You may
click on the image below to view
full-size;
Click here to go to the website for more details.  |
  Pastor
Will’s sermon, “Keeping Faith in the Face of
Empire”
Mark Coplan’s Good Friday, 2019 Photos: Interfaith Worship & Witness
Civil DisobedienceVideos: Good Friday Service at Lawrence Livermore Lab 2019 (1 hr 23 minutes) Good Friday Action at Lawrence Livermore Lab 2019 (11 minutes) Thank you to all who participated! |
 Jeanette reading names of the dead
and distributing fliers at the EPI Living Graveyard Jeanette Louise Smith, 1946 – 2019 After a long struggle with Alzheimer’s
Jeanette succumbed to a stroke on Wednesday, June
19, 2019. A lifetime lover of music and a magnificent singer, Jeanette passed away peacefully with the music of Lior who performs regularly for the residents of Lakeside Park, and with Gloria’s Healing Touch, and finally with the Oakland Threshold Singers. Jeanette graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in biology, got her Juris Doctor from McGeorge Law School and became an attorney in 1976. She worked early in her career for California Rural Legal Assistance, then Legal Aid for Seniors, and subsequently for the State of California’s Department of Health Care Services. After her retirement and while she still could, Jeanette was a regular participant in the Living Graveyard, a witness for peace and justice in the Middle East. Reading the names of the California dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jeanette often grieved over the names of Hispanic GIs with whom she identified from her work with CRLA in El Centro. Jeanette is survived by her sister, Carolyn Scarr, brother-in-law, Tony Scarr, niece Amanda Scarr. She was also very close to her cousin, Velma Carroll. Memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m.
on Saturday, August 17 at Trinity United Methodist
Church, 2362 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 94704 (between
Dana and Ellsworth). Please call or email
and let us know you are coming: epicalc@lmi.net
(510) 527-8370. |
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| Listen
to and watch the 2018
Good Friday Interfaith
Witness Worship Service,
Stations of the Cross and Gate Action. Click: HERE Photos and Video of the 2018 Fall Dinner are now available for viewing.
Thanks to Tony Scarr for the audio recording: Glenda’s Welcome ^ Janet on EPI ^ Zahra’s Talk Q&A ^ Closing Prayer by Imam Rashi  Click on the photo above to read more about it!
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for nothing and vanity”
You can
still watch and listen to videos and
audio tracks from our Fall Dinner
with Norman Soloman.
