Ulster Project Delaware 2008, a project of Pacem in Terris, is now in its 33nd year of bringing Northern Irish Catholic and Protestant teenagers, between the ages of 14 – 16, to our area for a month of trust building and reconciliation activities.  This year’s group of 18 teenagers and four adult leaders from Portadown, Northern Ireland will arrive on June 29 and stay until July 25.  While here, they will be hosted by host families with a teen of the same age who will also participate in the daily activities.

 

 

The project is the oldest, continuously running Ulster Project in the United States.  Since it was founded in 1976, it has brought 637 Northern Irish teenagers and 120 adult leaders (including those coming this summer) to our area from the towns of Portadown, Banbridge, and Coleraine.  In 1988 Ulster Project Delaware was awarded the Eisenhower Award by the Delaware Chapter of People to People,”  …in recognition of a demonstrated and significant contribution to the advancement of international understanding.”

 

 

The public is invited to meet and greet this year’s teens and leaders at the following events:

 

 

1)  Reception to Welcome the Northern Irish teens and leaders on Saturday, June 28, at 7 p.m. in Heritage Hall at Newark United Methodist Church, 69 E. Main St., Newark, DE 19711.  It will be an opportunity to meet the Northern Irish group from Portadown as well as the local host teens and their families.  Free.

 

 

2)  2008 Catherine Rooney Irish Pub 5K Run Walk for Ulster Project Delaware, Thursday, July 10, 5:30 p.m. registration, 6:45 p.m. race starts.  To register on-line go to

 

 

For more information or registration forms, call 302-656-2721.

 

 

3) Carwash to Benefit UPD – on Saturday, July 12, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. As a fundraiser for the project, the teenagers will be washing cars at two different locations: at Newark United Methodist Church, 69 E. Main Street, Newark in the back parking lot and at the Exxon Station at the intersection of Foulk Road and Silverside Road in North Wilmington. The two groups will be in friendly competition to see who can raise more money for the project.  There is no set fee for the carwash, so patrons are urged to be as generous as possible.

 

 

4)  Portadown Night, Thursday, July 17th – a talent show presented by the young people and leaders from

 

Portadown as their way of thanking all who have made Ulster Project Delaware possible. The show will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Wilmington Drama League, 10 W. Lea Boulevard, Wilmington, DE 19802.  Free.

 

 

For more information about any of these events, call Ulster Project Delaware at 302-656-2721.

www.races2run.com  Registration cost is $16 until July 7th and $20 on Race Day.

 

Caravan for Cuba Members to Stop in Newark

 

On Sunday, June 22, Pacem in Terris and the Social Concerns Committee of the New Ark United Church of Christ will be receiving two members of the 19^th US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan for Cuba, sponsored by Pastors for Peace, during the 9:30 a.m. worship service and the Fellowship Hour at 10:30 a.m. at the New Ark United Church of Christ, 300 E. Main Street, Newark, DE 19711.  Eugene Hamond, one of the caravanistas will explain the purpose and mission of the caravan to Cuba during the Fellowship Hour.  We are inviting members of the public to the worship service and/or the Fellowship Hour.  Following that, those who are interested can join us in taking them out for lunch in Newark.  They will have left Philadelphia that morning and will be making their way to Richmond, VA after lunch.  They will be driving a small truck that is part of the Friendshipment Caravan.                                      

 

Eugene Hamond is a health and safety professional in New York city who has been politically active on anti-war and social justice issues since his first year in college in 1963.  He first visited Cuba in 1993 with his wife Nora, who is second generation Cuban American, as part of a trip with the Center for Cuban Studies for environmentalists and journalists. Cuba was then in a deep economic crisis due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of inexpensive petroleum and chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  They saw many people in Havana riding bicycles, and they saw a big raised bed garden in front of an apartment building so that people could get vegetables, probably an early step in what has become large-scale urban organic gardens.  He was very impressed that, despite economic difficulties, young (and older) artists were being subsidized, and that education and health care and health promotion were top priorities. Cubans they spoke to were well informed and articulate about what was going on in the world.

 

Eugene was a participant in the Pastors for Peace Caravans to Cuba in 2005 and 2007, and drove his car in a Caravan in 2004 from Toronto to Tampico, Mexico. He is active in a Latin American Solidarity Committee in the New Paltz area. He has helped collect supplies for caravans in the New York area for the last 6 years while Nora has been a volunteer with Pastors for Peace since 2001, and one of their sons has been

on caravans as a bus driver.

 

Eugene Hamond and the other person coming to Delaware are part of the effort coordinated by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace, to deliver humanitarian aid to the Cuban people.  Between June 14 and June 28, 2008 the Friendshipment Caravans will travel on 14 different routes, visiting 125 cities in 47 US states and 6 Canadian Provinces, collecting aid, caravan participants, and giving educational presentations as they go. They will travel in school buses, trucks, and cars to Cuba via Mexico with medical and educational supplies collected from groups across the U.S. and Canada.  Following a Participant Orientation in Texas from June 29 – July 2, they will cross the U.S.–Mexico border on July 3 - 4.  They are refusing U.S. Treasury Department licenses as a collective challenge to the blockade and travel ban.  They are asking the U.S. government to revoke the blockade and establish a foreign policy based on true democracy and respect. Thirty tons of school supplies, including computers, and medical supplies and medicines will be donated by the caravan to the Cuban people.  The material aid will be loaded onto a cargo ship in Tampico, Mexico and members of the Caravan will fly from Tampico to Havana and will spend from July 5 - 12 in Cuba visiting hospitals, schools, and a range of social projects in Havana, hearing from important Cuban speakers, and meeting people via cultural activities.  The supplies that they bring with them are distributed through the Martin Luther King Interfaith Center, a non-governmental organization that is affiliated with the World Council of Churches.  They will then fly back to Mexico and cross the Texas border on July 14^th, bringing with them a symbolic donation of goods that Cuba would like to trade with the U.S. people.

 

On October 30, 2007 the countries in the United Nations General Assembly once again voted overwhelmingly (184-4 with one abstention) to call for the end of the U.S. blockade against Cuba.  U.S. policy towards Cuba is condemned internationally, increasingly discredited domestically, and subject to many challenges from within Congress.  Part of the mission of the Pastors for Peace 19^th Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba is to make the American people aware of the need for our country to normalize relations with Cuba, to end the blockade, to resume trade relations and cultural exchanges between our countries.

 

For more information about this event, please call the Pacem in Terris office at 302-656-2721.

 

                                                    Jazz Concert to Benefit Pacem in Terris

 

 

On Saturday, July 12, from 7 – 9 p.m. Harry Spencer and fellow musicians Vernon James (flute, bass clarinet, and saxophone), and Karen Rege (piano) will perform a benefit concert for Pacem in Terris in the Church Hall at the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew & Matthew, corner of 8^th and Shipley Streets, Wilmington.  Saxophonist Harry Spencer, well known in the area, performs regionally and nationally.

 

Some of Harry Spencer’s saxophone students will also perform and improvise at the event.

 

 

Tickets for the concert cost $10, which includes refreshments, and children six and under are admitted for free. To order tickets or for more information, call the Pacem in Terris office at 302-656-2721 or send a check payable to “Pacem in Terris” with the memo, “Jazz Concert,” to Pacem in Terris, 1304 N. Rodney Street, Wilmington, DE 19806-4227.  Tickets will also be available at the door. 

 

 

 

TALK TO IRAN

NO BOMBS

NO BLOCKADES

NO SANCTIONS

 

United for Peace and Justice is calling for nationwide actions the weekend of July 18^th to protest the situation with Iran

 

In accordance with this nationwide action, we will be devoting our Saturday vigil on the Concord Pike to Iran. 

 

Please join us.  Bring a sign about Iran – no other issues, please

 

Saturday, July 19

11 am – noon

Concord Pike

 at Concord Square

(Borders, Chilis, Super G)

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