• Goal #2 Universal Education
• Goal #3 Gender Equity

Built around the commitment and energy of two professors at Santa Clara University, since 2001, FAVL has established and continues to support nine libraries, five in Burkina Faso, two in Ghana, one in Tanzania, and one in Uganda.

FAVL is all about long-term commitments of support to ensure that libraries are not only established, but that they thrive. Village libraries are established if a donor is willing to make a long-term commitment to support a library. This is something that St. Jude’s has yet to do, but our parish could decide to take on the responsibility to bring a library to a village in the West African country of Burkina Faso. With only 22% of its adult population able to read and write, Burkina Faso has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world.

A simple building, or site, for the library is donated by the communities that will be served. Five thousand dollars then enables FAVL to help the village refurbish the building, hire a librarian and stock it with 1,000+ books suitable for pre-school through adults. Once launched operating expenses are typically $2,000 a year. The typical library has a reading room and office for the librarian.

www.appropedia.org

Appropedia.org, the second program added in March, is an inspired effort to make Web technology a useful tool for addressing virtually all of the eight Millennium Development Goals. St. Jude’s donated $1,500 to help Appropedia develop partnerships to support significant growth in users over the coming year.

Appropedia uses Wiki technology on its Web site to allow anyone connecting with Appropedia.org to add, remove, or edit content. This empowers a new Web-based community to collaborate, share information, technology and ideas -- all with the objective of being more effective in finding solutions, reducing poverty and bettering the lives of people worldwide. Its promise is as a place for various people to contribute needed puzzle pieces for others to find and use to create and improve, scalable and adaptable solutions to problems in the world's poorest communities.

For more than a year, parishioner Curt Beckmann has been a founding volunteer at Appropedia, helping the site to grow and realize its potential. Approximately 80% of St. Jude’s Outreach donations are made in support of programs and services where St. Jude’s parishioners also volunteer their time and talent.

St. Jude's support for Appropedia favorably impacts all of the eight Millennium Development Goals, it helps to directly address two of the goals:

For 2008, MDG-related support will likely account for more than 10% of St. Jude’s Outreach donations. In 2004, only two percent of St. Jude’s Outreach budget was being spent on activities relating to the MDGs.

Learn More about the Programs St. Jude's Supports

To learn more about these, and any of the other programs that St. Jude’s parishioners support by volunteering, or through Outreach donations, go to the Volunteers & Outreach page. Virtually all of the programs St. Jude's supports rely on volunteers to achieve their mission. Follow links from our Volunteer & Outreach page to their Web sites to consider ways that you can become involved.

Considering Inhumane Treatment of the Undocumented

Leaders of the Episcopal Church are calling church members to stand with the suffering as the human cost of aggressive enforcement of existing immigration laws is mounting. With immigration reform stalled in Congress, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has called on "all people of faith to vehemently insist that migrants be protected from inhumane treatment."

Affected individuals and families are part of our greater community within the Diocese of El Camino Real, and those served by many of the programs St. Jude’s supports, including Santa Maria Urban Ministry.

St. Jude’s parishioners had an opportunity to learn more about this issue from guest speakers at the January Social Justice/Outreach meeting. Pastor Anna Lange-Soto of El Buen Pastor Episcopal Church in Redwood City was the principal speaker. She provides compassionate support to those whose lives are being upended in the current environment due to two principal factors:

• Limited options for permanent residency
• Enforcement that lacks proportionality and humane treatment

Pastor Anna spoke of how the humanity that underlies the root causes of migration -- seeking a better life for children and families -- is often denied.

Parishioners also heard from Transitional Deacon Lawrence Robles, executive director of Santa Maria Urban Ministry, talk about how these issues spread fear and uncertainty within the community he serves. He spoke of families who have relied for years on a primary wage earner, and then loose that foundation, as jobs are lost and fear of discovery keeps them from building on their experience.

Both Pastor Anna and Deacon Lawrence talked about how the shadows in which undocumented people live are "getting darker," and how the lack of options and heightened enforcement is driving them into a “boxed canyon” that strips them of their humanity.

Personal Perspective

To give a personal perspective on the traumatic impact to families among us, Pastor Anna brought along 19 year-old Sughey Contreras from Menlo Park.

Sughey, her parents, and two of her siblings are undocumented. She has 3 other siblings who were born in the U.S.: 14- and 11-year old sisters, and a 6-year-old brother. Sughey and her older siblings were brought to the Bay Area from Mexico by her parents when she was two years old, her brother was three and her sister six months. She and her brother and sister have since grown up in the Bay Area, attending public schools, never living anywhere else. Sughey is now attending college and aspires to be a social worker. Her sister is a senior in high school. Her mother owns and operates a popular taqueri in San Leandro.

Sughey explained how her home was raided in the early morning on December 6 by Menlo Park police and Federal Agents. They were looking for her father who has been absent from the family for years. Sughey’s story speaks to the dehumanizing process of enforcement and questionable denial of rights.

Officers separated Sughey from her non-English speaking mother when they heard her try to explain to her mother the right to see a warrant, which had yet to be shown. Sughey was then arrested for being undocumented along with her mother and 2 siblings. That left her U.S.-citizen siblings, who were threatened with being split-up within foster care. But, other family stepped in to help keep the kids together.

It was a very cold December day, yet her brother wasn’t allowed to dress and was taken to jail in boxers and a thin undershirt. She explained that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff “didn’t treat us like real people” and that at first she hoped she was in the midst of a terrible dream. She was held in jail until December 10. Her mother wasn’t released on bail until Friday, January 11.

What happens next is uncertain. Her younger brother hasn’t understood what happened to his mother and worries that he will be taken away. Friends have been keeping her mother’s taqueri open. Legal expenses are already over $10,000.

Another point that Lawrence and Anna both made is that these events can be far reaching -- what happens to one family traumatizes others across the community. The circumstance of discovery leads to separation from work, family and friends, and the contribution they make to the community.

Steps being taken by the Episcopal Church

Pastor Anna also touched on the New Sanctuary Movement. Among those participating are the Episcopal cathedrals in Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle. She explained that they are helping house and care for families of undocumented parents that include children who are American citizens.

Anna spoke of the unequivocal call from the National Episcopal Church to end an enforcement-only policy like that which has swept-up the Contreras family.

What is being sought by the Church is justice, mercy and proportionality - penalties that are proportional to the laws broken.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, on September 13, addressed the difficult circumstances, like those that Anna, Lawrence and Sughey described, in an open letter to all Episcopalians:

"I would urge our government, in the strongest terms, to cease these incursions into work places, homes and other venues where migrants gather until we have comprehensive immigration reform. This one-sided approach to addressing our immigration problems neglects the tenets of justice and compassion, which define us as Christians and as a church, which embraces the marginalized and the defenseless… It is long past time for our government to establish immigration policies which respect the rights and gifts of those among us, now living in fear, whose contributions to our communities and economy are so valued."

Theological Underpinnings

Episcopal Migration Ministries, part of the national church, points to the parable of the Good Samaritan as reminding us that neighbors are often unlike us and may come from communities and regions that are shunned or treated with disdain. "Yet, we are told to embrace an inclusive view of family and community in expressing our faith. In the parable, the provision of hospitality is more than a gesture - it is a willingness to see the hurt friend through to recovery, to make a difference in restoring hope to the suffering. We are admonished to create the time and space to extend help. The story of the Good Samaritan calls us to invest ourselves in the restoration and recovery of others regardless of circumstance. It is also a message against the racism and prejudice that can affect our attitude toward refugees and immigrants."