Christian Peacemaker Teams’ income from individuals, groups, and grants for the
first six months of this financial year is U.S. $77,000 less than the same
period last year. This figure
reflects a drop of 23%. Can you
help us make up that shortfall over the next two months?
In 2008, just as we were expanding our programme work in Africa, and the
Philippines and considering plans to deepen work the USA/Mexico border region, the global economic recession hit and
giving fell significantly, leaving CPT with a large deficit. So in 2009, we reduced expenses
CPT-wide, suspended new projects and cut our borderlands work significantly, as
well as asking for your concerted financial support.
You came through! We were able to sustain our core work in Colombia,
Iraq, Palestine, and Canada, continue to support in a small way the Borderlands
work, and to balance the budget in 2009.
In northern Iraq our small team walks with and advocates for a woman’s group working across ethnic divides in the volatile city of Kirkuk, for refugees in the Zharawa camp fleeing attacks by Turkey and Iran on their border villages, and for the Mothers for Peace group in the Makhmur refugee camp housing exiled Turkish Kurds.
In Colombia CPT has been pivotal in the international call holding the Body Shop accountable to their own corporate values in relation to the displacement of a small Colombian farming community. Our team also accompanies a number of other communities and social organizations who work for justice in the threatening context of a resurgent paramilitary presence in the central Magdalena River valley.
Our partners and neighbours in the Hebron District in Palestine daily reclaim their lives and land in the face of harassment and attacks by expanding Israeli settlements despite the current peace negotiations and a supposed freeze on settlement development. CPT is by their side and honoured to follow their lead in nonviolent engagement.
In central Canada, CPT supports a number of First Nations in their struggle for their lands that are occupied by non-aboriginal settlers. CPT advocates within Canada for just and peaceful solutions to unresolved land issues and the dismantling of the racism that holds this centuries old occupation in place. Last summer aboriginal women and their allies, including CPT, won a significant victory in stopping a dump that was to be built on a pristine aquifer.
Now in 2010 it appears that a reduction in donations because of the continuing
recession is threatening this core work too. So today we again ask for your strong support from a tight
space. To continue this work, and to take up the work suspended in 2008,
we need your financial support. Please
join us in the global struggle for peace with justice. Follow this link to make a contribution.
Doug Pritchard and Carol Rose
Co-Directors
Christian Peacemaker Teams
For an overview of CPT’s work in 2009, including a financial summary, see https://cpt.org/news/year_in_review
