Church backs community violence-reduction initiatives
-24/06/06
Tired of the continual
Church backs community violence-reduction initiatives
-24/06/06
Tired of the continual rise of conflict and crime in its neighbourhood, a Philadelphia church has become involved in local work to promote violence-reduction programmes and to look for alternatives to youth alienation.
It is one of a growing range of mini-initiatives in communities across the USA, which bring together civic and religious bodies to combat violence and promote a culture of peace and inclusion.
Observers say that there are lessons which can be learned from this kind of work in other urban situations across the world. The World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence has been encouraging such local action as well as tacklng global concerns.
“There are so many shootings, stabbings and beatings around our doors that we are not even choked up anymore,” exaplained the Rev Laurie Ann Rookard, pastor of Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church.
In response, the church, in conjunction with the Camphor Council for Community Development, has created strategies to address violence in the neighborhood.
The council is hosting a conference to look at ways forward today (24 June 2006) and has also organized a silent march to increase awareness about the situation in the locality.
Rookard says Camphor’s main goals include implementing a plan to reduce violence within the Haddington and larger West Philadelphia communities, to educate people on how to treat and prevent violence, to implement a neighbourhood watch, to beautify vacant lots, and to attract funds for much-needed youth programmes.
The meeting brings together community leaders and experts from diverse professions to discuss crime, violence, and conflict related to ethnicity.
Awards to “outstanding” anti-violence workers will also be presented and the participants will remember the victims of crime who have died on the community’s streets.
Another group called Men United for a Better Philadelphia has been working to combat violence in the city, especially among youth, for a number of years.
MUBP spokesperson Bilal Qayyum believes that destructive and anti-social behaviour has several roots, including “lack of hope, no (job) opportunities … lack of strong parent-child relationshipsÖ and the availability of guns.”
Qayyum says that as more institutions become involved in trying to resolve these problems, the solutions will be more effective. And “instilling more spiritual values in families is really part of the long term solution,” he adds.
Camphor Church has received a grant from the Urban and Global Ministries office of the United Methodist Church Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
[With acknowledgements to Milse Furtado and UMNS]
[Also on Ekklesia: Peace church seeks positive alternatives to military recruitment; Becoming a Peace Church [File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat]; Peace churches help to rebuild US Gulf Coast]
Church backs community violence-reduction initiatives
-24/06/06
Tired of the continual rise of conflict and crime in its neighbourhood, a Philadelphia church has become involved in local work to promote violence-reduction programmes and to look for alternatives to youth alienation.
It is one of a growing range of mini-initiatives in communities across the USA, which bring together civic and religious bodies to combat violence and promote a culture of peace and inclusion.
Observers say that there are lessons which can be learned from this kind of work in other urban situations across the world. The World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence has been encouraging such local action as well as tacklng global concerns.
“There are so many shootings, stabbings and beatings around our doors that we are not even choked up anymore,” exaplained the Rev Laurie Ann Rookard, pastor of Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church.
In response, the church, in conjunction with the Camphor Council for Community Development, has created strategies to address violence in the neighborhood.
The council is hosting a conference to look at ways forward today (24 June 2006) and has also organized a silent march to increase awareness about the situation in the locality.
Rookard says Camphor’s main goals include implementing a plan to reduce violence within the Haddington and larger West Philadelphia communities, to educate people on how to treat and prevent violence, to implement a neighbourhood watch, to beautify vacant lots, and to attract funds for much-needed youth programmes.
The meeting brings together community leaders and experts from diverse professions to discuss crime, violence, and conflict related to ethnicity.
Awards to “outstanding” anti-violence workers will also be presented and the participants will remember the victims of crime who have died on the community’s streets.
Another group called Men United for a Better Philadelphia has been working to combat violence in the city, especially among youth, for a number of years.
MUBP spokesperson Bilal Qayyum believes that destructive and anti-social behaviour has several roots, including “lack of hope, no (job) opportunities … lack of strong parent-child relationshipsÖ and the availability of guns.”
Qayyum says that as more institutions become involved in trying to resolve these problems, the solutions will be more effective. And “instilling more spiritual values in families is really part of the long term solution,” he adds.
Camphor Church has received a grant from the Urban and Global Ministries office of the United Methodist Church Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
[With acknowledgements to Milse Furtado and UMNS]
[Also on Ekklesia: Peace church seeks positive alternatives to military recruitment; Becoming a Peace Church [File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat]; Peace churches help to rebuild US Gulf Coast]