community organising - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Sun, 06 Jul 2014 23:36:25 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg community organising - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 The power of community organising https://cathnews.co.nz/2014/07/08/power-community-organising/ Mon, 07 Jul 2014 19:13:06 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=60109

While growing up in the Dominican Republic, Ana Garcia-Ashley lived on a dirt road that always had plenty of traffic, making it too dangerous a place for neighborhood children to play. One morning, her grandmother got fed up with the situation and decided to take action. She went door to door, rounding up other concerned Read more

The power of community organising... Read more]]> While growing up in the Dominican Republic, Ana Garcia-Ashley lived on a dirt road that always had plenty of traffic, making it too dangerous a place for neighborhood children to play. One morning, her grandmother got fed up with the situation and decided to take action. She went door to door, rounding up other concerned community members. Together they created a human chain to block the road, stopping traffic in hopes of having their concerns heard. Garcia-Ashley recalls standing in the road holding the hand of her grandmother, who looked down at her and said, "This is what it means to be a Catholic."

That was Garcia-Ashley's first taste of community organizing, and it was a success. She learned that when people with a common cause work together, they can achieve great things.

Garcia-Ashley continued her activism after moving to the United States, and upon graduating from the University of Colorado she became a full-time community organizer for the Archdiocese of Denver. Eventually, her work led her to her current role as executive director of Gamaliel, a national community organizing network.

Through it all she has remained a fearless advocate who will take risks to help those in need, just like her grandmother taught her. "That's how I have lived my life," she says. "You have to put your values and your Catholic beliefs on the front line to get something done."

What exactly is community organizing, and how does it work?

One of the stories that got me to really understand the role of community organizers, including church leaders, came when I was working in the Archdiocese of Denver. I was assigned to work in an area called Westwood, which is a low-income neighborhood of mostly Mexican Americans and African Americans in southwest Denver. Continue reading

Sources

 

The power of community organising]]> 60109 Catholic roots of Obama's activism https://cathnews.co.nz/2014/03/28/catholic-roots-obamas-activism/ Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:30:17 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=56026

In a meeting room under Holy Name Cathedral, a rapt group of black Roman Catholics listened as Barack Obama, a 25-year-old community organiser, trained them to lobby their fellow delegates to a national congress in Washington on issues like empowering lay leaders and attracting more believers. "He so quickly got us," said Andrew Lyke, a Read more

Catholic roots of Obama's activism... Read more]]> In a meeting room under Holy Name Cathedral, a rapt group of black Roman Catholics listened as Barack Obama, a 25-year-old community organiser, trained them to lobby their fellow delegates to a national congress in Washington on issues like empowering lay leaders and attracting more believers.

"He so quickly got us," said Andrew Lyke, a participant in the meeting who is now the director of the Chicago Archdiocese's Office for Black Catholics.

The group succeeded in inserting its priorities into the congress's plan for churches, Mr Lyke said, and "Barack Obama was key in helping us do that."

By the time of that session in the spring of 1987, Mr Obama — himself not Catholic — was already well known in Chicago's black Catholic circles.

He had arrived two years earlier to fill an organising position paid for by a church grant, and had spent his first months here surrounded by Catholic pastors and congregations.

In this often overlooked period of the president's life, he had a desk in a South Side parish and became steeped in the social justice wing of the church, which played a powerful role in his political formation.

On Thursday, Mr Obama met with Pope Francis at the Vatican after a three-decade divergence with the church.

By the late 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had taken a conservative turn that de-emphasised social engagement and elevated the culture wars that would eventually cast Mr Obama as an abortion-supporting enemy. Continue reading.

Source: The New York Times

Image: Joe Wrinn, Harvard University/AP Photo

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