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Greetings!
This newsletter has three special articles and an announcement of a special event:
* Massive Poverty Reduction and Middle-Class Gains in Africa, Asia and Latin America Rise (Right column)
* City's Affordable Housing Workshop, May 1 Workshop
* Improving the Education of California's Children Educ
Join Fr. Tom Bonacci, C.P. for an evening of prayer, reflection and discussion in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). We will look at the historical and current significance of Pope John XXIII's Papal Encyclical addressed not only to Catholics but to "all men of good will", and its call on our global and local communities and every human being to peace built on "the recognition, respect, safeguarding and promotion" of human rights and dignity.
When: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:30 - 9:00 P.M.
Where: St. Joan of Arc Church, 2601 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon
This event is free of charge but a free-will offering will be taken to support St. Mary's Center in Oakland. For more information contact St. Joan of Arc's Social Justice Committee Patrick Shandonay, patrick.j.shandonay@gmail.com or 925 365-6838
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Upcoming Events
Tuesday, May 14, 7:30 - 9:00 P.M.
Fr. Tom Bonacci, C.P., an evening of prayer, reflection and discussion in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), looking at the historical and current significance of Pope John XXIII's Papal Encyclical addressed not only to Catholics but to "all men of good will", and its call on our global and local communities and every human being to peace built on "the recognition, respect, safeguarding and promotion" of human rights and dignity
St. Joan of Arc Church, 2601 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon
Saturday, May 18, 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 noonMedSharePlease join the group of volunteers from CCOP going to sort medical supplies at MedShare in San Leandro on Saturday morning, May 18 from 9:00 A.M. until noon. MedShare is an organization that reclaims new, unused medical supplies (of all types) that local hospitals would ordinarily discard into local landfills. Through agreements with the hospitals, MedShare collects these supplies and brings them to their warehouse in San Leandro where volunteers sort and package the supplies for shipment to free clinics in the US and hospitals and clinics in third world countries or in areas suffering from natural disasters. Groups of 20-25 volunteers from CCOP have been helping MedShare for several years, and we would like to invite you to join us. If you would like to participate, or if you would like more information, please contact Mark Nevins, menevi@sbcglobal.net, or 925-846-1014.
People who have volunteered in the past have found it very worthwhile and rewarding. I hope you can join us.
Additional CCOP volunteer days for 2013 are scheduled for July 20, Sept. 21, and Nov 16.
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Action Alerts
United Farm Workers
Urge Secretary of State Kerry to press for peace and justice for all in the Holy Land, including the Cremisan Valley community!
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Improving the Education of California's Children (from Catholic Legislative Network)
For the first time in many years, the budget proposed for the 2013--14 fiscal year does not include spending cuts to the state's K--12 public schools. But because an achievement gap persists between disadvantaged students and others, policymakers, educators, and researchers continue to discuss whether and how the state should direct extra funding to the students most in need.
Californians and Education, a recent statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of CA (PPIC), clearly shows that the public not only supports key elements of the Governor's School Funding Proposal but that most also favor extra funds for needier students and more funding flexibility for districts.
The results are significant because they demonstrate the lack of resources and unmet financial need that still exists in our local K-12 public schools -- disparity that has been largely caused by major state budget cuts in education in the last few years. For these reasons, the California Catholic Conference is supporting two education tax credit proposals this year: SB 943 by Democratic Senator Lou Correa of Orange County and AB 693 by Republican Brian Nestande of Palm Desert. (The Conference is the sponsor of the Correa bill.) Both of these measures are aimed at addressing funding gaps by providing education tax relief and/or incentive programs that would greatly benefit our public and private school children of California.
Much more about education funding and the survey is available here. We also have a background sheet (PDF) on SB 943 and AB 693 available here. [If link fails, see PDF-1]. The two bills were featured during Catholic Advocacy Day. For more information, contact Sandra Vargas, svargas@cacatholic.org.
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Brief Links
2013 Human Development Report linksThe Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World (press release), link 1Full report, link 2 [If link fails, see PDF-2]
Links from Africa Faith and Justice Network's April 26 eBulletin
The Epidemic of Land Grabbing is Worse than Colonization: US Companies are Part of the Rip off, link 4Capitol Hill: the National Bar Association brainstorming on how to help Africa, ink 5South Sudan: Church leaders to head the National and Independent Reconciliation Process, link 6US soon to appoint Special Envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region, link 7US Senate: Examining Ongoing Conflict in Eastern Congo, link 8
Links from Yes magazine's April 26 newsletterThe Economy: Under New Ownership - How cooperatives are leading the way to empowered workers and healthy communities, link 9
From Housing to Health Care, 7 Co-ops That Are Changing Our Economy - How manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and others are doing business the cooperative way, link 10
Link from U.S. Catholic magazine
Let's Not Make It a Crime to be Homeless (one person's view), link 11 |
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Rise of Africa, Asia and South America Is Radically Transforming the World
The rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class, says the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 2013 Human Development Report.
"The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale," the 2013 Report says. "Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast."...
The Report shows that more than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than would have been predicted. These achievements, it says, are largely attributable to sustained investment in education, health care and social programmes, and open engagement with an increasingly interconnected world.
* China and India doubled per capita economic output in less than 20 years-a rate twice as fast as that during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America. "The Industrial Revolution was a story of perhaps a hundred million people, but this is a story about billions of people," says Khalid Malik, the 2013 Report's lead author.
* By 2020, the Report projects, the combined output of the three leading South economies-China, India, Brazil-will surpass the aggregate production of the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada.
* With living standards rising in much of the South, the proportion of people living in extreme income poverty worldwide plunged from 43 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2008, including more than 500 million people lifted from poverty in China alone. As a result, the world has already achieved the main poverty eradication target of the Millennium Development Goals, which called for the share of people living on less than US$1.25 a day to be cut by half from 1990 to 2015.
* Developing countries nearly doubled their share of world merchandise trade from 25 percent to 47 percent between 1980 and 2010, the Report notes. Trade within the South was the biggest factor in that expansion, climbing from less than 10 percent to more than 25 percent of all world trade in the past 30 years, while trade between developed countries fell from 46 percent to less than 30 percent. Trade between countries in the South will overtake that between developed nations, the Report projects. Increasing openness to trade correlates with rising human development achievement in most developing countries...
Environmental inaction, especially regarding climate change, has the potential to halt or even reverse human development progress in the world's poorest countries and communities, the Report warns. The number of people in extreme poverty could increase by up to three billion by 2050 unless environmental disasters are averted by coordinated global action, it says...
Projections in the Report examine the potential demographic impact of ambitious national education policies similar to those implemented in recent decades by the Republic of Korea. The forecast suggests that faster educational progress also substantially reduces child mortality, the direct result of improvements in girls' opportunities for continued education and the well-documented benefits for children of having a well-educated mother. In India, for example, accelerated education progress such as that in the Republic of Korea could cut child mortality by as much as half in future generations.
Educating women through adulthood is the closest thing to a "silver bullet" formula for accelerating human development, the Report's research shows...
Severe poverty remains a major problem throughout much of the developing world, the Report stresses. An estimated 1.57 billion people, or more than 30 percent of the population of the 104 countries studied for the Report, live in what it terms "multidimensional" poverty, including 612 million people in India.
The full statement from which these excerpts were taken is pointed to by the first link in Brief Links. The next two links point to a Summary and the full 2013 Human Development Report.
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City's Affordable Housing Workshop, May 1
The Pleasanton's City Council and Housing Commission held a joint workshop on May 1 beginning at 7:00 P.M. and lasting until almost 10:30 P.M. The workshop was aimed at
* Considering possible amendments to the City's Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (IZO)
* Guidelines for handling current projects until a "nexus study" could be completed
Five options for amending the IZO had been identified (see pages 5-7 of the staff report, Staff rpt [If link fails, see PDF-4]). Option 4 had been proposed by Citizens for a Caring Community (CCC) and is set forth more fully in a letter, CCC Letter to Workshop 4-29-13. It was concluded that staff should lay out two or more options more completely and that perhaps the developers should be given options to accommodate differences among projects. There was a general unwillingness to delay processing of development applications until the nexus study has been completed. In the course of the discussions two bills being considered by the California Legislature were identified: * SB 391, which creates the California Homes and Jobs Trust Fund to aid the financing of affordable housing and imposes a $75 tax to be paid into this Fund on the recording of real estate documents other than property transfers, see SB 391 * AB 1229, which nullifies the Palmer court ruling and allows Inclusive Zoning Ordinances as was the case prior to the Palmer decision, see AB 1229 |
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