-Rachel Siegel, PJC Executive Director

 

I believe fully that we cannot "be the change we want to see" if we are chronically stressed. Our dominant cultures laud extreme busy-ness and most activists are harried by the unending work. It is so valuable for me to connect with other people looking to create a sense of wellness while we continue our activism from climate justice to animal rights, health care reform to racial justice.

For this reason, we are once again offering the two-part Mindfulness for Activists workshop -- this time in Hinesburg on September 28 and October 5. I am excited to co-facilitate with Ginny Sassaman from Gross National Happiness.

Click here for more information on the workshop and on Ginny. Whether you are a mindfulness practitioner with no activist background or an activist with no mindfulness practice, all are welcome. One past participant said, "Being mindful, I believe, helps keep one able to continue the marathon work of an activist."

-Ellen Davidson and Tarak Kauff, Veterans for Peace

On our most recent solidarity delegation to Occupied Palestine, we visited popular nonviolent resistance forces and leaders in Bilin, Nabi Salah, Hebron, Al Masara, Bethlehem, often staying overnight in Palestinian homes. Always we were welcomed with the warmest hospitality. You could not enter a Palestinian dwelling without being fed, no matter how poor the people were, the best that they could offer, which was always sumptuous. Palestinians are a hospitable people and it did not matter that three members of the delegation were Jewish. We were human beings and we were guests.

Veterans For Palestine: a docu-series (trailer)

 

We marched in nonviolent protests, were fired at and had to duck tear gas canisters, which can and have killed people, we confronted members of the Israeli police and IDF with our rebuke as veterans to what they were doing, what they were part of. We visited scores of homes that were bulldozed in the middle of the night, families having only minutes to vacate...

 

 

This is a h istoric milestone in the fight to ban nuclear weapons: On September 20th many high-level officials are expected at the UN in New York to sign The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The document was adopted in July by 122 nation states following weeks of intensive negotiations and years of conferences and events outlining the danger nuclear weapons pose to humanity. With 14,900 warheads in the world possessed by the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, the treaty's ultimate goal is for all those arms to be destroyed. Austria, Mexico, and Norway have played major role in the process leading to the adoption of the treaty. 

To find out more about the treaty (and enjoy some cake and music!) come to our celebration this Wednesday between 12 PM-2 PM at Burlington City Arts on Church Street.