In 2009, we did a little thing with young people called “Vincentian Blog Action Day,” getting people to publish on the relationship between educational access and poverty reduction. We did it again in 2010 on clean water access. See these articles.
On this International Mission Sunday, what about an “internet mission”?
What if we developed something similar for 2017 on “Welcoming the Stranger: Confronting Immigration Policy in your Country”?
The idea would be to flood the Vincentian internet with stories and educational materials about one issue on one day.
Are you interested?
that would be a good one
Temos um blog sobre meio ambiente e sustentabilidade e participamos do Blog Action Day desde 2009, além de participarmos de outros blogs, e estaríamos sim, interessados em participar do outra “corrente do bem” que possa contribuir para a conscientização de mais pessoas no sentido de atenuar as dores e sofrimentos pelos quais passamos juntos neste planeta que é um verdadeiro presente de Deus.
Thanks to Paulo Athadye, I noticed this post. Having accompanied several people through the maze of immigration several times, I know that understanding policy is itself a very complicated thing. But there are related issues that also are compelling, I would love to broaden your topic beyond policy and into the realm of actual experience.
Some ideas that might be addressed: What are the challenges of helping a person or a family settle and become part of the fabric of a new community? How do we balance our enthusiasm for our own culture without dismissing theirs? How do we recognize and make sense of those cultural difference that keep us from understanding each other? How do we give support without over-promising and then burning out in the effort to help someone start anew?
Also, taking it still further from either policy or real-life experience, I would love to see more ideas about how to encounter and join into constructive conversation with the person whose ideas are like a stranger to me. I believe that the spirit of hospitality and welcome can help bridge the gap between different people, but how to deepen the conversation, how to stop bullying by some people to press their agenda on others, ie, how to establish common ground in a virtual world where there are no clear tangible effects of either welcoming the stranger or of drawing into a closed circle of friends…. How do we open our social media communities to be a place of welcome to all, and how do we make use of this common ground to learn and grow in faith?
So I guess I’m asking a lot, but on the other hand, there seem to be a lot of insightful people here. So why not ask?