Dear Friends,
Today is Earth Day.
People all over the world are honoring Mother Earth with events to celebrate her beauty and life support systems, and to continue to raise awareness for the critical need to protect our home. Since 1970, Earth Day has beckoned for environmental protection and FOR was there at the forefront with Alfred Hassler and the Dai Dong organization playing a significant role in calling governments and the broader public to be concerned about the dangers technology and chemical products pose to nature.
 The vital call to save life on Earth continues this weekend with people uniting for a nuclear- free world on the eve of the review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also marks 45 years since the first five nuclear powers agreed in Article VI of the NPT to undertake good faith negotiations for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. It is long past time for the world's people to call to account all those who exercise power by threatening nuclear annihilation, writes Sofia Wolman of AFSC, one of the organizers of the mobilization.
FOR-USA and several local chapters are among the many endorsing organizations of Peace and Planet. We have mobilized activists to attend the weekend and national staff are contributors and participants in the two day conference, interfaith service, international rally, march, and peace festival.
If you're in or near New York City on April 24-26, please join us!
The two-day conference starts Friday evening at Cooper Union -- 7 East 7th Street at Cooper Square -- with opening ceremonies at 6:30, and an opening plenary -- Connecting the Struggles for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World -- at 7:30 that will include FOR Freeman Fellow and representative in Ferguson, Rev. Osagyefo Sekou.
Saturday offers a plethora of crucial and fascinating workshops with experts and people of renown including FOR-USA's executive director, Rev. Kristin Stoneking, who will join members of Pax Christi International and the World Council of Churches to explore Disarmament: Solidarity and a Global Ethic of Abolition. The panel discussion will take place in Cooper Union 427.
 Sunday at 11am, Rev. Stoneking will offer the homily at The Interfaith Convocation for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Tillman Chapel of the Church Center at the United Nations, 777 First Avenue.
Then join me and other FOR staff and members on Sunday:
- 1pm: Rally (Union Square North) with fabulous speakers including Rev. Sekou!
- 2pm: March from Rally to Festival at the United Nations
- 3-6pm: Festival (Dag Hammarskjold Plaza) where FOR will be tabling.
If you can't be in New York and want to participate, here are some ways you can be involved in the Mobilization:
Together we can raise the peoples' voice loud enough to be heard inside the UN and around the world!
In service of Mother Earth and all Her glorious inhabitants,
 Linda Kelly
Director of Communications
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Photos courtesy of Peace and Planet. |
