By Alejandrina Ibañez Aramayo | UMAVIDA Twenty years ago, the Peñas Canyon, located in the Pazña Municipality and Department of Oruro, Bolivia, was a prosperous community that thrived from diverse, agricultural production, including potato, quinoa, fodder, broad beans, corn, a variety of tubers, etc. But now, the community solely depends on livestock subsistence farming for… Read more »
December 2, 2016
Water Ceremony Seeks to Restore What Mining Has Dried Up
By Alejandrina Ibañez Aramayo | UMAVIDA Twenty years ago, the Peñas Canyon, located in the Pazña Municipality and Department of Oruro, Bolivia, was a prosperous community that thrived from diverse, agricultural production, including potato, quinoa, fodder, broad beans, corn, a variety of tubers, etc. But now, the community solely depends on livestock subsistence farming for… Read more » 
Hurricane Matthew Raises the Importance of Working Towards Long-term Social Change in Haiti By Cindy Corell | Mission Co-Worker, Joining Hands Haiti Our brothers and sisters here in Haiti are suffering – again, and as they too often do. The effects of Hurricane Matthew of Oct. 4 were horrendous. Most people in the far southwestern… 
Presbyterian Hunger Program partner Social Action in Nigeria recently published a report Up in Smoke: Gas Flaring, Communities and Carbon Trading in Nigeria. As nations attempt to address the growing challenge of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, impoverished communities in countries like Nigeria stand to lose out. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 established an international system for trading carbon… 
Raise Your Voice Against the TPP November 15-17 The White House has indicated that they still plan to introduce the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Congress this month during the Lame Duck session. We have heard for many years from our partners overseas about the harmful impacts of free trade policies on the poor and vulnerable. Our… 
Target Democratic House Reps. Himes and DeGette By Jed Koball | Mission Co-Worker Peru Presbyterians are working in collaboration with Joining Hands partners in Peru, Public Citizen´s Global Trade Watch and others from civil society in the U.S. to prevent a lame-duck vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement that has been a focal point… 
On October 14, 2016, leading up to World Food Day, agricultural and indigenous communities from across El Salvador came together to call for an end to the use of chemical pesticides at a national level. Those gathered protested the harm that agrochemicals pose to human health and the health of the environment. “We see the… 
RELUFA, the Joining Hands network in Cameroon, has just released a policy brief on the implementation of the Kimberley Process in Cameroon. The Kimberley Process is a process that is meant to keep “conflict diamonds” (diamonds procured through the financing of violence and war) out of the market. RELUFA’s policy brief “The Kimberley Process: Responding to challenges and Policy… 
“Story of an Unbroken Breeze” is a short documentary filmed by NAFSO, the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement, a member organization of the Joining Hands network in Sri Lanka Praja Abhilasha. The documentary details the violent land grabbing that Panama communities (Panama is located in Ampara district , in the eastern province in Sri Lanka) endured and their struggle… 
By Jed Koball | Mission Co-worker Peru The recently released award-winning documentary ¨When Two Worlds Collide¨ tells the dramatic story of the 2009 massacre in Bagua, Peru that shaped the context of modern day politics and development in Peru and also helped set the course of advocacy for our Joining Hands partners there. 2009 was… 
“He devoted his entire life helping communities to become self-reliant, and worked tirelessly to draw attention to issues faced by communities in the northern part of the country and bring development in the area. With RELUFA, Elias contributed to the construction of 45 granaries in far north Cameroon, which have been well managed and operational…