Capacity Building Breakout Sessions
Monday, June 11, 9:15-11:15 am
These sessions will be geared toward skills-building, training, information to take home and actions to carry out.
Transformed Hearts, Transformed Churches, Transformed World: An Introduction to JustFaith
Come learn about JustFaith, the life-changing program that has empowered people and churches all over the country to become more active agents of God's compassion for the world. JustFaith and Bread for the World have partnered to launch an ecumenical version of this very successful program, which promises to change lives and create a larger constituency committed to justice.
The Millennium Development Goals: Tools for Teaching and Advocacy
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have brought the conversation about global poverty to a new level. All around the world, the MDGs are changing "business as usual" and reorienting both policy and practice. Learn how the MDGs are affecting the U.S. approach to development and how religious leaders and activists are using these global goals to energize their work. Share strategies for teaching and organizing in your church, community group, or campus.
Talking About Farm Bil Reform: Introduction to Advocacy
This session is your chance to learn how to get involved in farm bill reform and find out about our advocacy goals. Are you from a community with families in need of food stamps and school nutrition programs? Are you concerned that struggling farmers and U.S. rural communities get the support they need to thrive? What about the impact of the current system of commodity payments on farmers and hungry people in the developing world? This is the session to get your questions answered, share stories and strategies, and learn to make the most compelling arguments for farm bill improvements.
Mobilizing Around Elections: Building a Constituency for Change
With the 2008 presidential elections coming up, what are the voter education and mobilization strategies that will galvanize voters who care about hunger and poverty? What nonpartisan strategies and organizations achieved results in the 2006 elections, and what can we learn from them?
A Shift in Direction: Media Advocacy in the Movement to Overcome Hunger
The impact of media on the political process cannot be overstated. Focusing local media attention on hunger issues can change the way people look at the problem of hunger, inspire solutions, and maybe even move mountains. Learn skills for effectively participating in the biggest public conversation taking place in your community-- in the media. Hear how some seasoned grassroots media activists have engaged their local media in the fight against hunger.
Theological Education: From the Seminary to the Streets
Seminaries are experimenting with internships and placements in poor communities. Leaders of poor peoples' movements are teaching in seminaries. New seminary-based social justice organizations and praxis are springing up to take sustained action on poverty, hunger and Gospel imperatives.
Growing the Grassroots in Your Community
You're motivated to be an advocate, but where do you begin? You want to get more advocacy going in your community, but how should you involve others? You have a core group of people who want to do something, but what are the best things to do? Come be a part of this dynamic how-to session led by grassroots leaders and Bread for the World staff as we explore the answers to such questions. You can grow an effective advocacy network in your community!
Advocacy Campaigns: How a Grassroots Organization Delivers Success Over Time
Many organizations lobby Congress and the administration. Learn how building a grassroots advocacy network and organizing specific campaigns enables organizations like Bread for the World—and multi-organization campaigns like Jubilee and ONE—to sustain advocacy on multifaceted policy debates that may take years to win.
Faith and Foreign Aid
Religious leaders in the United States and worldwide — from the Jubilee Movement to the ONE Campaign and evangelical advocacy on HIV/AIDS—have been moving governments to respond to poverty and suffering in far- off places. What are the ways that we can strengthen and broaden on this movement of God – and God's people – in history?
Living Justice in the Day to Day
From the spirituality and ethics of eating to lifestyle choices and dilemmas such as consumerism, we are challenged to live out our faith in ways that embody what we believe. A dialogue among writers, preachers and movement leaders envisioning new ways to be faithful every day.
