Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 143

PROGRAM
Friday, December 4, 2009
Observance on Dene (Indigenous Canadian) Spirituality
Francois Paulette, Canada: Dene Room 218
Religious or Spiritual Observance
During this spiritual observance, Francois Paulette will be offering traditional prayers in Dene.
Francois Paulette is a Dene Suline and member of the Smith's Landing Treaty & First Nation. He became the youngest chief in the Northwest Territories Indian Brotherhood. In 1972, along with other chiefs, he challenged the crown to recognise treaty and Aboriginal rights. He served on the National Indian Brotherhood Treaty Implementation Committee, the Assembly of First Nations Renewal Commission, and the Parks Canada Aboriginal Consultative Committee and has spoken internationally on Dene history and Aboriginal rights.
INTRARELIGIOUS 9:30-11:00am
Poverty Must No Longer Be With Us
Haruhisa Handa Jim Wallis Katherine Marshall Dr A T Ariyaratne
Tim Costello
Sulak Sivaraksa
Rabbi David Saperstein
Sr Joan Chittister
Plenary Hall
Panel Discussion
In 2000, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York and committed their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty. They set out a series of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with a deadline of 2015, ranging from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education. The poverty symposium will explore how faith communities are meeting the many dimensions of contemporary poverty. The MDGs offer a framework for global action, but the experience and reflections of faith communities are not fully part of the MDG process. A central Parliament objective is to jolt this situation with new ideas. This session introduces major themes addressed in the symposium's twenty sessions. The agenda explores the historic shifts from charity and compassion to respect, rights, and equity as drivers of social justice; practical approaches from education and health to finance to healing the earth; provocations and answers to conflict; women as leading partners for successful modern communities; and seizing the opportunity for change in times of crisis. The common thread linking.
9:30-11:00am INTRARELIGIOUS SESSION
poverty symposium sessions is the search for ideas and paths towards action by faith communities and new forms of partnership, both interfaith and among social actors inspired by faith and the core values of human rights. Born in Japan in 1951, Dr Haruhisa Handa operates more than a dozen companies in Japan and abroad, ranging from management consulting to publishing. He is heavily involved with social causes, currently serving as director of World Faiths Development Dialogue; founder and chairman of Asia Faiths Development Dialogue; president of the International Shinto Foundation; advisor to the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions; and chairman of the International Foundation for Arts and Culture.
Jim Wallis is a best-selling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on faith and public life. He is the author of The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America' and 'God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It'. Wallis speaks around the country, and his columns appear in major newspapers, including The New York Times and Washington Post.
Katherine Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Visiting Professor in the Government Department and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. She leads the Berkley Center's work on faith-inspired institutions working in development, involving a series of regional background papers and consultations with academics and practitioners, and a series of reviews of development topics.
AT Ariyaratne is founder and president of Sri Lanka's Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a nonprofit organisation that involves millions of people in 15,000 villages in development projects. Ariyaratne has won international recognition, including the Sushil Kumar International Peace Award in 2006 and Srilankabhimanya (pride of Sri Lankal, Sri Lanka's highest civilian honor, in 2007, Sri Lanka's largest non-governmental organisation, Sarvodaya plays an important role in the country's ongoing recovery from the 2004 tsunami.
Tim Costello is a leading Australian voice on social justice issues, having spearheaded public debates on gambling, urban poverty, homelessness, reconciliation and substance abuse. As CEO of World Vision Australia, Tim has insisted that the issues surrounding global poverty be on the national agenda. World Vision serves nearly 100 million people around the globe. Tim's many awards include Victorian of the Year. Officer of the Order of Australia. Victorian Australian of the Year, and the Australian Peace Prize Sulak Sivaraksa, of the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute, is a Nobel Prize nominee and prominent Buddhist social and environmental activist in Thailand. He has founded numerous organisations and has been involved in Buddhist-Christian dialogue for decades. His books include 'Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society' and 'Loyalty Demands Dissent'.
Designated in Newsweek's 2009 list as the most influential rabbi in the United States and described in a Washington Post profile as 'the quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill, Rabbi David Saperstein represents the national Reform Jewish Movement to Congress and the Administration as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
Joan Chittister, OSB is a noted national and international lecturer who focuses on women in church and society, human rights, peace and justice, and contemporary religious life and spirituality. In addition to being the executive director of Benetvision, a center for contemporary spirituality located in Erie, Pennsylvania, she is author of 22 books, including Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light' and 'The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman's Life'.
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