The Jubilee Blog

Worth A Thousand Words...

post by monét cooper | Jubilee USA staff

Zapiro, South African political cartoonist, sent us some of his illustrations a few days before the G8 Summit in Germany to post to our blog and our website. Now that things have calmed a bit in the office and we're more focused on the passage of the Jubilee Act, we thought it fitting to show you some of the cartoons he sent us. When you finish laughing and thinking, you can do something to stop the cycle of debt and oppression many countries in the Global South face by sending an e-mail to your Member of Congress about the Jubilee Act HR2634.

For more of Zapiro's work you can go here, here or here.

In the coming months, we'll post cartoons online from Zapiro and Gado.

Wednesday's blog post will come from Nate and I at the US Social Forum, the first one of its kind ever in the US. For its first year, the forum will be in Atlanta, GA, my hometown!

If you're going to the forum, we'll post a schedule of the events Jubilee USA is involved in faciliating and co-sponsoring soon. Until then, enjoy more of Zapiro's illustrations after the jump.

New Grassroots Conference Photos

New photos from the Grassroots Conference are up! Jubilee USA Grassroots Conference Flickr page

Nunu Kidane, Jubilee USA board member and director of Priority Africa Network (PAN), also posted photos she took during the conference to her Flickr page. Thanks, Nunu!

If you or someone you know has photos from the Grassroots Conference, you can post them to our Flickr page. Just e-mail monét cooper at Jubilee USA Network for more info.

A Different Take on the Grassroots Conference

Jeremy John, the Grassroots Conference coordinator, sent us a link the blog of Larry Kamphausen. Kamphausen, a Chicago minister who attended our grassroots conference, blogged his way through much of the conference. Whie Jubilee USA doesn't endorse all of the comments made from Kamphausen's blog, we certainly appreciate the candor with which he wrote. Go to Priestly Goth Blog

Also, Gado Mwampembwa, Tanzanian political cartoonist now living/working in Kenya, was one of our featured speakers at the conference. Gado, as he is most popularly known as, used his illustrations as a point of departure to discuss a wide range of issues from corruption and politics to poverty and death. He e-mailed us early this morning to let us know he returned home safely after spending 36 hours en route to his Nairobi home. He also said that he would send us political cartoons from time to time to post to our website, so stay tuned in the coming months for some of Gado's work.

If you missed Gado's conference workshop, you can still view illustrations from his hilariously informative Powerpoint presentation.

The Play's the Thing: Development Economics 'Perform' Differently on Stage

What does sexuality have to do with international financial institutions? Well, nothing really many would say, unless you attended a performance of "The Dictatorship of Debt" a cabaret-dinner theater performance that makes the IMF a transgendered madame who pulls the strings of her employees.

Poetry & Protest

To start the morning's plenary session Nate Fishman, Jubilee USA's Outreach and Congregations fellow, and I (monét cooper), read two poems: "Ase" and "The Coup". We were joined by Portland poet Mic Crenshaw, who we met yesterday at the workshop we coordinated "Open Mic: Poetry & Protest."

We'll put up video from the workshop by next Tuesday.

Feel free to use them at your own events, just be sure to let folks know where you received them.

• Download Ase

To to my dad and other dads out there, happy Father's Day.

'I Am Valuable Just Because I Am'

Marie Dennis, Jubilee USA board member and director of the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, gave the morning reflection that unpacked the concepts we’ve been discussing at Jubilee: the concept of Sabbath and a Sabbath Year.

“I am valuable just because I am,” Dennis said. Comforting words in a society where we’re led to believe that we need to add things to our life to increase our worth.

As she was talking about being valued and the pressure to be a part of a consumer culture—to buy things we don’t need and accumulate goods that really only clutter our lives, I couldn’t help but think about all of the things that we think we need, but we don’t. And about how inundated we are with offers and things to purchase either with money or our time.

Photos of the Grassroots Conference are up!

The first plenary of Day Two: Race to 2015: Debt, Global Justice & th MDGs. From left, Carol Welch, UN Millennium Campaign; Mhizha Chifamba, Washington Office on Africa; and Pat Rumer, Jubilee USA co-chair and Jubilee Oregon co-founder. Photos by Michael Imasua.

See what's happening as it happens by checking back to the blog and our Flickr Gallery.

See photos now!

Stories From the Front Lines Part 5

Beneath the Hype, Beneath the Noise, There is Truth

Amy Goodman wrapped up the night with a rousing 40-minute reflection that links the work of the Fourth Estate (or journalism), with activism, race, politics and Haiti.

Stories From the Front Lines Part 4

Drawing Reality

How does one speak truth to power? Some use a microphone. Godfrey “Gado” Mwampembwa, a popular political cartoonist in east and southern Africa, prefers pen and paper.

Stories From the Front Lines Part 3

Young Inspirations in the Movement

Kuumba Lynx followed Neil’s talk and really showed the ways in which youth — and all of the energy that follows them — are needed in the movement. Their performance was a preview of a show their working on and will tour around the region in the coming months. I couldn’t help but thinking about the ways in which their struggle as youth of color is inherently linked to the issues we discuss at Jubilee USA.

Just as civil society presses to gain the ear of leaders and compel them to eliminate debt and make just trade policies in impoverished countries, these youth are talking — yelling even — about the importance of treating people with respect, thinking about ourselves as connected to others and as people of faith and conscience really allowing what we do spiritually to lead the ways in which we address unjust policies. These are simple concepts, really, but still notions some of us have a hard time following in our daily lives.