Collaboration with other Peace Groups
Erie Benedictines for Peace take part in activities planned by other peace groups.
We have joined with groups in Erie protesting the war in Iraq, remembering those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and speaking out against those who took us into this war.
Sister Marcia Sigler and Oblate Marlene Trambley assembling signs…
Sisters Marlene Bertke and Ellen Porter (front) and Oblate Cheryl Bough (rear) at the Erie Federal Building...
Sisters Marlene Bertke, Pat Lupo, Chris Kosin and Dorothy Stoner at a protest in New York City against the war…
Oblate Mary Jo McEvoy holding paper cranes that symbolize those killed in Iraq…
Sister Carolyn Gorny-Kopkowski and Oblates Barb Roseborough and Pam Mead at a march in Erie…
Reaching out to Women in Other Countries
Erie Benedictines for Peace sponsored two projects this year involving women in foreign countries.
Through the organization Women for Women International we sponsored a woman in Afghanistan, providing Shabnum Ghulamjan with a monthly stipend for a year. Our support will provide the tools and resources Shabnum needs to rebuild her life after the war. Our monthly contribution will allow her to obtain basic necessities for her family—food, clean water, medicine. The stipend will also help her with school-related expenses for her three children and enable Shabnum to participate in a program that will provide her with vocational skills training.
The other outreach is a Solar Cooker Project. Women who fled from Darfur, Sudan into refugee camps in the neighboring country of Chad are being given solar cookers.
As explained in Parade magazine, "a solar cooker is pure ingenuity. Take two pieces of cardboard, add some tinfoil and sunlight—and anything can be cooked. You can even get water to boil."
The cookers have made a huge difference—and not just because they are a way to heat food—because without them, refugee women must go outside the camp to gather firewood. But to leave camp is to gamble with death. Women and children, especially girls, are "particularly vulnerable to attack and rape when they are out getting wood," says Rachel Andres, director of the Solar Cooker Project at Jewish World Watch.
We sent out an appeal and raised $1,080. With this money, 72 solar cookers were purchased and distributed in the refugee camps.