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Hilda Cruz Joins Mercy Global Action Emerging Leaders Fellowship

On International Women’s Day, Mercy International Association announced the ten women who will form the third cohort of the Mercy Global Action Emerging Leaders Fellowship (MELF), 2023-24. IM4HI is honored that our own Hilda Cruz was chosen to be among them.

The MELF Program, grounded in the three pillars of Justice, Leadership and Mercy, uplifts women to become transformative feminist leaders who empower others, enable creativity, and facilitate mobilization around the collective goals of Mercy.

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Statement on Human Rights Abuses in Palestine

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity is a statewide California organization that connects clergy and people of faith to the work of social justice. We believe that all people are sacred across bars and borders. 

As faith communities with shared spiritual values, we believe we have the duty to prevent harm and uphold well-being. In pursuit of dignity for all people, we organize against root causes of harm in our world which are maintained by governmental systems of mass incarceration, military occupation, extractive capitalism, and state violence. 

We are deeply concerned that the US government remains silent in the face of the launch of a new, terrifying level of Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinians. The US sends Israel $3.8 billion dollars a year which enables the massive violation of Palestinian human rights which is currently escalating. Since March 2022, the Israeli military’s Operation Breakwater has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israeli soldiers have killed at least 30 Palestinians already in 2023, including four teenagers. Policies of home demolition, land theft, collective punishment, curtailing freedom of movement with hundreds of miles of separation walls has de facto created a system of apartheid that prevents Palestinians from enjoying the same rights and freedoms Jewish Israelis enjoy.   

We grieve the loss of all life, and we call on the US to stop the military aid to the Israeli government.  We believe in building a movement on behalf of a shared future of justice, equality, and freedom for all people.  

-Statement from the Interfaith Movement For Human Integrity Board of Directors, comprised of Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faith leaders.

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Sacred Socio-Ecological Interconnectedness: Climate Change Refugees and the Eco-Memories of Migration

Sara Fread
Sara Fread

IM4HI staff member Sara Fread, seminarian at Pacific School of Religion, shares a reflection about climate migration and eco-womanist theology, centering IM4HI participant Misael Reyes and his family’s experience with the hurricanes in Honduras several years ago.

… Unfortunately, Misael’s story is not uncommon. Millions of immigrants from around the globe flee dangerous conditions in their home countries in hope of a better life in the United States. Once they make it across the border, though, they are met with continued violence and oppression through the US carceral immigration system. However, we rarely acknowledge a major underlying catalyst of migration: climate change…

— Sara Fread