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UMW looks at race, class issues raised by Katrina

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose

Kyung Za Yim (center), president of the Women's Division, shares a photo with displaced children at a camp in Bateilik, Indonesia.
Oct. 11, 2005

By Linda Bloom*

STAMFORD, Conn. (UMNS) — United Methodist Women is calling on its membership to address issues of race and class raised by Hurricane Katrina.

“While we identify and address the systemic and institutional sources of injustice, we must also recognize our own culpability,” said a UMW statement.

“Often, protective of our own need for jobs, lower taxes and private schools over the common good, we have bought into the mentality of reducing taxes and privatizing public services, leaving larger and larger groups of people behind.”

The statement, “Be Repairers of the Breach,” was adopted during the Oct. 7-10 annual meeting of the Women’s Division, Board of Global Ministries, in Stamford. The division is UMW’s administrative arm.

UMW members are urged to study biblical and ethical obligations “to respond and address both immediate and long-term system injustices.”

In the community, that means having conversations on issues of race, class and public policy; serving as advocates for those displaced by Katrina; and leading dialogues “on what it means to welcome strangers in our midst and be communities of hospitality.”

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose

United Methodist Dora Jackson, 77, gathers a few belongings from her home in Slidell, La., after it was flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
On a larger scale, UMW members are asked to affirm the rights and self-determination of those affected by disasters; actively work for the return of thousands of displaced persons to their communities; and advocate for the building of government capacity to serve the public good, with the “voices of those most affected” included at the table.

In her address to directors, Division President Kyung Za Yim said the UMW must increase its longtime attention to poverty-related issues.

“We saw through Katrina the ugly face of poverty, where health care and education and the social safety nets have been dropped from under the poor long before the hurricane hit them,” she said.

After the Dec. 26 tsunami, Yim was part of a Board of Global Ministries delegation that visited Indonesia. She said she found the images televised after Katrina to be more horrifying than what she witnessed in Indonesia because of the wealth and capabilities of the United States.

“The day after Katrina, the new figures for people living in poverty rose by a million to 37 million,” she told directors.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose

The United Methodist Church's historic Gulfside Assembly grounds in Waveland, Miss., lies in ruins after Hurricane Katrina.
Jan Love, the division’s chief executive, noted that national mission institutions supported by the Women’s Division and founded by its predecessors served as first responders to hurricane victims and will continue to provide long-term assistance.

“Hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast, especially Katrina, graphically exposed the extreme decay of our inner cities,” she said in her report to directors. “New Orleans is not the only urban area riddled by poverty, racism and violence, but when a natural calamity like a hurricane collided with New Orleans’ long-standing human-made disaster, the flood washed away our ability as a nation to deny these harsh realities.”

In other business, Women’s Division directors welcomed a new treasurer, Andrea Bryant Hatcher, who began her work Sept. 19, and elected M. Lynne Gilbert as assistant treasurer.

Hatcher, a member of Janes Memorial United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, had a personal consulting business in Philadelphia and previously was a senior vice president at State Street Bank and Trust Co. in Boston. Gilbert, a certified public accountant in Greensboro, N.C., is a UMW vice president for the Western North Carolina Annual (regional) Conference.

Division directors also:

  • Approved spending up to $200,000 for an interactive DVD called “Women Empowering Women.” The DVD’s purpose is to interpret the work of UMW.
     
  • Supported the development of an online community and Web-based membership for UMW, along with an allocation of $150,000 for design and program services related to the online community.
     
  • Saw highlights of a DVD of the Sept. 21 “Forum for Discussion between the Women’s Division and the RENEW Network.” The DVD is an unedited version of the forum, includes post-forum interviews and can be downloaded at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw, the division’s Web site, until Sept. 20, 2006.
     
  • Agreed to become an official member of the Global March Against Child Labor, “a movement to mobilize worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children.”
     
  • Endorsed the Federal Fair Minimum Wage campaign initiated by Interfaith Worker Justice, a partner organization.
     
  • Approved a letter-writing campaign to businesses such as Office Max, Office Depot and Corporate Express, calling on them to stock processed chlorine-free paper. The campaign already has involved Staples and FedEx/Kinko’s.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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