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United Methodist Mission Delegation to Attend Global Events on Migration

New York, NY, November 15, 2011--A delegation of 18 Methodists hosted by the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries will attend the People's Global Action on Migration, Development, and Human Rights (PGA) in Geneva, Switzerland, from November 28 to December 2, 2011, as part of the mission agency's focus on global migration and poverty.
 
The PGA is a grassroots event organized by Migrant Rights International that brings together migrant organizations from around the world. It is held in tandem with the inter-governmental Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and an event called Civil Society Days. GFMD is the only private, inter-governmental forum on migration.
 
The General Board of Global Ministries (Global Ministries), including United Methodist Women, has organized a delegation highly representative of areas where The United Methodist Church and its mission partners are challenged by migration issues. It includes persons from the church's conferences in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines, as well as the United States. The delegation illustrates an ongoing commitment to the linked issues of global migration and poverty.
 
Ministry with the Poor is one of four current Focus Areas of the denomination, and a model project on Global Migration is part of that emphasis at Global Ministries. Global migration is also an increasing concern of the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration, an official church-wide entity.
 
The backdrop for participation in the upcoming meetings in Geneva includes a 2008 resolution of the United Methodist General Conference, the church's legislature, on "Global Migration and the Quest for Justice," (#6028, Book of Resolutions 2008). This document understands the recent upsurge in migration around the world as resulting largely from the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, with people pushed to relocate by poverty, underdevelopment, climate change, and war. At the same time, wealthy nations eagerly recruit migrant workers to fill gaps in their employment needs and lower costs, although the rights of the new workers are severely limited. Migrants encounter the barriers of racism, harsh enforcement policies, and criminalization of their very presence.
 
Global Ministries' delegation to Geneva will seek to understand the migration realities faced by United Methodists and Methodists in diverse regions of the world. The group will join with secular organizations from six continents in exploring migrant experiences and migration policy. One goal is to strengthen networks to promote global, regional, and national policies that put migrant human rights at the center of concern. Another is to consider how sustainable development could make it possible for the poor to choose to stay where they are and not be forced to migrate in search of livelihoods. Methodist delegates will consider how this global advocacy experience can strengthen their ministries with 1) migrant-sending congregations, 2) migrant-receiving congregations, and 3) migrant congregations.
 
The delegation organized by Global Ministries includes members of the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration, agency staff, United Methodist missionaries, students, and a director of United Methodist Women.
 
 
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Meet the delegates...

 
 
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Discussions

 
 
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PHOTO ALBUM

 
 
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CIEMAL   National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights   Families For Freedom   

Coalición de Derechos Humanos
 
 
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Global Migration and the Quest for Justice

In regard to global migration and justice, the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church affirm:

  1. "We commit ourselves as a church to the achievement of a world community that is a fellowship of persons who honestly love one another. We pledge ourselves to seek the meaning of the gospel in all issues that divide people and threaten the growth of world community." (64)
  2. "In order to provide basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education, health care and other necessities, ways must be found to share more equitably the resources of the world." (58)
  3. "We advocate for the rights of all migrants and applaud their efforts toward responsibility self organization and self-determination." (163F)

You can read more on the philosophical conclusions of the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration, in regard to global migration by clicking here.

 
 
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Look at last year's blogs/photos/etc.
Go back in time to the 2010 delegation to Mexico City...
 
 
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Following partners on Twitter

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Click to buy  

The Latehomecomer is a book featured in the United Methodist Women's Reading Program, and is written by Kao Kalia Yang.  In this moving, intimate portrait of a family, Kao Yang describes a migration story with an escape from Laos, life in refugee camps, the hardships and great joy of caring for a growing family in a new land, and her personal experiences with American life.

 

This book belongs to the following categories for the 2011 Reading Program:

Nurturing for Community

 

 
 
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Enrique's Journey Click to buy

 

In another UMW Reading Program book, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States. 

This is a twenty-first-century Odyssey.  Nazario’s powerful writing illuminates one of the darkest tories in our country.  This is outstanding journalism.  …you know these young heroes.  They live next door. – Isabel Allende

This book belongs to Social Action category for the 2008 Reading Program.  

 
 
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Buy the book
Asylum Denied is the gripping story of political refugee David Ngaruri Kenney’s harrowing odyssey through the world of immigration processing in the United States. Kenney, while living in his native Kenya, led a boycott to protest his government’s treatment of his fellow farmers. He was subsequently arrested and taken into the forest to be executed. This memoir tells of his near-murder, imprisonment and torture in Kenya; his remarkable escape to the United States; and the obstacle course of ordeals and proceedings he faced as U.S. government agencies sought to deport him to Kenya. It is a story of courage, love, perseverance and legal strategy
 
 
  • Created on Nov 15, 2011
  • Updated Dec 6, 2011
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