Board approves $114,000 in ethnic program grants
3/26/2003 NOTE: For related coverage of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society's meeting, see UMNS stories #164, #170 and #176. HERNDON,
Va. (UMNS) - Programs serving ethnic minorities will receive more than
$100,000 in grants authorized by the United Methodist Board of Church
and Society.
Voting directors of the United Methodist Church's social advocacy agency acted on the grants during their March 20-23 meeting.
In
all, eight grants totaling $114,000 were given for advocacy and
justice-oriented programs in the United States and the African country
of Ghana. The Ethnic Local Church Fund was created to help the
denomination's program boards support local church and annual conference
ministries in each board's area of concern.
The largest grant
awarded this spring, $40,000, will help support the Ethnic Young Adult
Summer Interns at the board for the eight weeks they will spend in the
nation's capital. They will work in advocacy and serving as resource
people for annual conferences, campus ministries, ethnic caucuses and
state and federal offices.
Issue seminars supplement their
placements and include such topics as gender equity and violence against
women, racism and racial justice, and economic justice and poverty.
Applicants include young adults from the central conferences - regional
units of the church in Africa, Europe and Asia - who are already in the
United States. The multicultural group also learns about the United
Methodist Church and how it addresses the issues.
A $20,000 grant
will support a program in the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference
that serves Native American youth of 88 churches. The One Voice One
Community program is aimed at developing in the young a political
consciousness as native people.
The program, part of the
conference comprehensive plan, plans to use events such as a rock
concert and a United Methodist seminar as well as district and
conference workshops to teach about tribal, state and national political
processes.
A $15,000 grant will help a social justice education
and advocacy event to raise Korean United Methodist awareness about the
issue of reunification of North and South Korea. The California-Pacific
Annual Conference is administering the grant, and programming
leadership is provided by the Los Angeles-based Korean Christian
Newsweek and the National Association of Korean United Methodists. The
event will be a three-day seminar, drawing immigrant peace and justice
activists, first- and second-generation Korean Americans and Korea
experts.
A program called "Bridging the Gap of the Social Health
Needs of Native Americans in the Southeastern Jurisdiction" is also
receiving a $15,000 grant. The advocacy effort seeks to involve Native
American pastoral leaders from nine states in advocating for services
and ministries that address family violence, substance abuse,
homelessness, suicide and sexually transmitted diseases. The program's
goal is to identify and prepare leaders to serve as liaisons and
advocates to health and human service agencies as well as emergency
crisis programs.
The board approved a $12,000 grant to the Focus
on Youth Initiative Program of the Black Methodists for Church Renewal
in the North Carolina Annual Conference.
The conference
comprehensive plan provides the framework for this collaboration of 12
small and medium churches to build a program of leadership training and
social education for African-American youth. It will include a six-part
study of the denomination's Social Principles; an advocacy seminar in
Washington; weekend immersion experiences with Native American, Anglo
and African-American communities; a mission trip to Jasper, Texas; a
cultural immersion trip to Jamaica and other events.
The Asian
Help Services of Metro Ministries in the South Indiana Annual Conference
and Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis conduct an ongoing
leadership training program that reaches 300 central Indiana Asian
communities including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino
and Thai people. The $5,000 grant is being given for supplies and
stipends for leadership training workshops.
Two grants of $3,500 are going to women's groups in the autonomous Methodist Church of Ghana.
The
Christian Women United Development Front in Ghana's North Volta
Conference asked for a grant to train women evangelists with theological
education about issues such as forced marriage and genital mutilation
as well as economic justice for single mothers. The evangelists will
work among the rural poor through the project, called "Strengthening the
Faith of the Poor Christians."
The other award will be used by
the Central Volta Methodist Women in a project called "Women Victims of
Domestic Violence," which will address social justice and empowerment of
women about their human rights, particularly against rape and other
gender-related offenses.
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