Sign up now

to ride in CRLN’s 30th Anniversary Pedal for Peace Bike-a-thon on Saturday, September 23, 1-5pm!  This is a great way to make a difference in the lives of people in Latin America and right here in Chicago!  Last year we raised $20,000 to support scholarships in Guatemala and El Salvador, health promoter trainings in rural Colombia, legal aid for campesinos seeking land tenure in Honduras, organizing costs for deportation defense and tenants rights’ campaigns in Chicago. With your help, we can raise even more this year. Please invite your friends to participate!

There are 2 changes this year:

1.

All bikers must

register online


and indicate your t-shirt size. Everyone gets a t-shirt this year! There will be an option to pay by check for those who do not wish to pay online

2.

Register by September 9

($20 adult, children 12 and under free, $10 student/low-income). After September 9, there will be a late fee of $5.

As always, there will be a fiesta with food and a short program after the ride.

Here is the process:

1. Register:

Sign up as an individual rider or join a team–CRLN, Chicago-Cinquera Sister Cities, Chicago-Guatemala Partnership, Concern America, La Voz de los de Abajo, Autonomous Tenants Union, or Organized Communities Against Deportations.

2. Set a fundraising goal:

we encourage you to raise a minimum of $100. You can make a personal online fundraising page after you register at CRLN’s

online fundraising site

.

3. Fundraise:

Outreach to family members, coworkers, schoolmates, and more to give through your online page or by checks and cash which can be turned in the day of the event. For downloadable pledge forms, descriptions of participating groups and projects funded, and a route map, click

here

4. Join us to ride:

Main fiesta, program and north starting point:

Lincoln Park, Grove 13 — grassy area west of the Barry Ave. underpass to the Lakefront Bike Path. Look for the Pedal for Peace tables and flag banner by the path near the underpass.

Alternate starting point:

Dog Water Fountain at east side of the 55th St. underpass to the Lakefront Bike Path

We hope to see you there this year with your friends and family.

Donaldo is in Chicago to discuss social movements, economic solidarity, food sovereignty and human rights.

Donaldo Zuniga is the director of the COMAL network, an organization comprised of rural communities in

Honduras

that work to promote fair and sustainable agriculture and marketing. For twenty years, COMAL has defended the rights of small-scale farmers to continue indigenous practices and to protect the environment in a country negatively impacted by unfair globalization and escalating violence. Committed to principles of economic solidarity and practices that contribute to food sovereignty, COMAL advances local food initiatives that contribute to economic well-being. One such initiative is the development of locally produced and marketed natural cane sugar, using agro-ecological methods of production.

As a founding member of COMAL, Donaldo has led extensive training with local promoters on organization, marketing and credit in COMAL’s School for Economic Solidarity, that now serves a broad range of groups as a training center for social organization, workshops and retreats. Committed to methods of popular education, Donaldo worked as an advisor with the Danish agency, Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke (now Action Aid) in Nicaragua, led training on community marketing in Venezuela, and advanced networking on economic solidarity throughout Latin America.

Time: 3pm

RSVP to Sharon Hunter-Smith,

shunter-smith@crln.org

or 773-293-2964, for location. Space is limited.

15:00

to

17:00

Melissa Cardoza

’s book,

13 Colors  of the Honduran Resistance,

tells thirteen stories of women who joined the resistance to the U.S.-backed 2009

coup d’etat

. It has just been made available in a bilingual English/Spanish edition, translated by Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle. Melissa, an afro-indigenous fearless journalist, poet, writer and feminist organizer from Honduras, poetically relates some of the most compelling moments she has witnessed amidst the brutal repression and unyielding hope and struggle that have characterized post-

coup

Honduras today. She will be touring along with her fellow member of the Honduran “Red de Defensoras,” or network of women rights defenders, beloved Honduran jazz/folk protest singer

Karla Lara,

who appears in one of the book’s stories and has been an icon and sharp voice in the resistance. Both were amongst the closest friends to *Berta Cáceres*, the Honduran indigenous leader and organizer of COPINH who was assassinated for her work in defense of the Lenca people and against patriarchy, capitalism, and racism. This book and this tour are dedicated to Berta.

Time:

4:00pm

Place:

Official book launch with El BeiSMan – La Catrina, 1011 W 18th St

Join us for the

2017 Luncheon

to learn about the intersectional organizing work of the

Feminist Antimilitarist Network in Colombia

from

Carol Rojas

. The Colombia Peace Accords, while a step toward peace, face many challenges.  There is an urgent need to rebuild the community and collective ties broken by war. Seeking to build historical memory is also a necessary step in constructing a political project to make the transition as a country to a plural, broad, and diverse democracy, where women can be political protagonists and not victims. To construct peace in Colombia in this difficult time, the Network uses popular education to promote demilitarization and the eradication of systems of oppression based on sex, class, and race.

Click

here

for a brief autobiography of Carol Rojas


.

Date: October 24

Time: 12 noon – 2:00pm

Place: Old St. Patrick’s Catholic Parish Hall, 700 W. Adams, Chicago  60661

Cost: $60 ($54 for members), $25 student/low income, free for Luncheon volunteers (please email

mmckenna@crln.org

to volunteer).

Tickets: Order tickets at

http://bit.ly/crln1024

or by contacting Sharon Hunter-Smith at

shunter-smith@crln.org

and mailing in a check (CRLN, 4750 N. Sheridan Rd., #429, Chicago, IL  60640-5078.

Sponsored by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America in partnership with the Feminist Antimilitarist Network and Witness for Peace.

11 people, including 2 staff members and 1 board member from CRLN, traveled  February 28 – March 6, 2017 on a human rights accompaniment and fact-finding delegation to Honduras coordinated by CRLN’s local partner organization, La Voz de los de Abajo. Designed to accompany the 1 year anniversary commemoration events of the assassination of Berta Caceres, the delegation was invited by her indigenous rights organization, COPINH, to provide an international presence at a march in Tegucigalpa March 2 to the Supreme Court building and an all-day celebration of Berta’s life on her birthday, March 4, in the indigenous Lenca community of Rio Blanco. The delegation also met with organizations representing rural workers, the Garifuna people, a Jesuit radio station providing news coverage, teachers, doctors, feminists, protest singers, students and others. The resistance is still strong, even without Berta!  COPINH’s new chant is “Berta vive, vive! COPINH sigue, sigue!” “Berta is alive! COPINH will survive!”

Come join CRLN members to hear an update on post-

coup

Honduras in this election year in that country.

Time: 3:00 – 5:00pm

Place: La Parada, 2059 West 21st Street, Chicago (Pilsen neighborhood).   Near CTA Pink Line Cullerton stop

15:00

to

17:00

Join us! Únase a nosotrxs!

Travel with CRLN to the border, November 10-12!

SOA BORDER CONVERGENCE & ENCUENTRO 2017

CRLN will again take a delegation to Tucson and Sonora, AZ, and Nogales, MX, to participate in the US-Mexico Border Convergence, co-sponsored by SOA Watch. We reserved a block of hotel rooms and will arrange to rent a van for transportation between the cities in which activities will happen.

Scholarships are available!

This border mobilization is one more way to fight for the closure of the School of the Americas, and to work towards a world that is free of suffering and violence. We cannot forget that many of our immigrant brothers, sisters, and siblings are survivors of U.S.-sponsored atrocities in Latin America.

Join us!

Coordinate with CRLN to join or have your community join human rights activists, torture survivors, union workers, veterans, community organizers, migrants, faith communities, students and educators from across the Americas.

Will you go with us this year to call for an end to U.S. militarization, economic exploitation, and political intervention in Latin America and on the border?

Activities include a vigil at Eloy Detention Center, a vigil to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a march to the border wall, forums and workshops, concerts, and more!

See below for details and a schedule.

To coordinate with us and join CRLN on the border, contact our Immigration Organizer, Cinthya Rodriguez at

crodriguez@crln.org

or 773-964-6252.

Interested in joining in the U.S.-Mexico Border Convergence this year?

REGISTER HERE & JOIN CRLN’S DELEGATION

—

SOA Watch Demands:

• An end to U.S. economic, military and political intervention in Latin America and the closure of the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC)

• Demilitarization and divestment of the borders

• An end to the racist systems of oppression that criminalize and kill migrants, refugees and communities of color

• Respect, dignity, justice and the right to self-determination of communities

• An end to Plan Mérida and the Alliance for Prosperity

Weekend Program:

Friday, November 10 – Tucson, Arizona

8:00am     Welcome &

Registration

11:15am   Community Lunch Gathering

12:30pm   Forums & Workshops

4:00pm     Caravan to Eloy Detention Center

5:00pm     Vigil at Eloy Detention Center

9:00pm     Evening Concert

Saturday, November 11 – Nogales, Sonora/Arizona

8:00am     Welcome &

Registration

8:15am     Gathering for March

9:00am     Veteran-led March to the Border Wall

11:00am   Community Lunch Gathering

12:30pm   Forums & Workshops

5:30pm     Social Gathering

8:00pm     Evening Concert

Sunday, November 12 – Nogales, Sonora/Arizona

8:00am     Blessing

9:00am     Puppetistas!

10:00am   Speakers & Musicians

11:15am

No Más, No More

Litany

11:45am

Presentes

1:00pm     Encuentro Closing

March 6th, 4pm – 7 pm, Timberlanes (1851 W. Irving Park Road)

Chicago-Cinquera Sister Cities’ annual Bowl-a-Rama to raise funds for the rural community of Cinquera, El Salvador, is coming up again, and CRLN will be forming a team.  Will you bowl with us?  Will you form your own team?  Call the CRLN office at 773-293-2964 and let us know if you will participate by collecting pledges from donors and spending a few hours bowling with others interested in people-to-people development.  The cost to bowl is $25, but if you collect $50 or more in pledges, bowling is free!

Chicago-Cinquera is a community to community-based solidarity organization, whose collaboration seeks to work together to build an international movement for social justice and human dignity through a hopeful alternative strategy and vision for development.  For more information, go to

www.chicago-cinquera.org

.

[


Image credit: Design Action Collective


]

(Español AQUI)

Join CRLN and our community partners in calling for Expanding Sanctuary all throughout Holy Week!

This year, Holy Week kicks off for us with the 6th Annual



Occupy Palm Sunday



in the Logan Square & Humboldt Park community of Chicago.

We join the Logan Square Ecumenical Alliance (LSEA), the Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA), and others this Sunday starting at 12:30pm to Rally and Public Prayer at Palmer Square Park (east-side of the park) at 1PM. We rally and pray for an expanded vision of sanctuary for ALL that works to end police violence, deportations, and criminalization!


On Palm Sunday, we will continue to demand a stronger “Welcoming City Ordinance” that provides stronger protections to undocumented communities and the passage of recommendations to the ‘FOP Contract Resolution’ for police accountability


.

Second, join us downtown on



Good Friday



for the 8TH Day Center for Justice’s Annual Walk for Justice

. Join the CRLN contingent for the Fourth Station: ‘Helped in the Struggle,’ two Fridays from now from 12PM-3PM at the corner of Michigan and Congress! Each year we join together for this modern-day Way-of-the-Cross to shed light on unjust societal structures and to reflect on how we can work to dismantle them. The 2017 Good Friday Walk for Justice will provide the space to name and explore our visions for a just and peaceful world.  Our faithful vision of justice and peace includes expanding sanctuary. We imagine our Beloved Community as a place of care and safety for everyone, no matter where they come from, what they look like, or how they express their gender or sexuality.

However, our nation’s administration has a different vision, one that limits care and safety to a homogenous group and criminalizes others. It seeks to separate from the

Beloved Community certain groups, including ourselves and our neighbors, who are undocumented, immigrant, refugee, Muslim, Black, Arab, Native, queer—and to label us as threats.

We resist this limited vision, based on fear and criminalization. We will embrace our vision of sanctuary and imagine how our faith communities can provide community care and safety for ALL. We will create the kind of world we want to live in.

See you this Holy Week!

To learn more, please contact CRLN’s Immigration Organizer at

crodriguez@crln.org

.

—

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:

1. 
   
   Expand Sanctuary in Chicago: Community Action Meeting
   
   
   from 11AM-1PM at 2229 S. Halsted.
   
   Come learn about the campaign to expand sanctuary protections for all Chicago, and find out how you can organize in your neighborhood!
   

2. Stay tuned for April’s City Council meeting & vote on the Welcoming City Ordinance amendments & the FOP contract recommendations resolution.
   
   
   Tell our mayor and city council to stand up to Trump and take action that doesn’t just symbolically defend immigrants but transforms our city’s policies to stop targeting us for imprisonment, risk of deportation, and state violence at the hands of police and aggressive immigration agents.
   
   

3. SAVE THE DATE for May Day 2017.
   
   
   Join us at the International Workers Day March on Monday, May 1st at 1pm, starting at Union Park (Ashland and Lake) followed by a Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) event at 4pm at Daley Plaza
   
   
   .

—

LEARN MORE ABOUT EXPANDING SANCTUARY:

1. ‘
   
   
   Black People Need Sanctuary Cities, Too
   
   
   ’ by Janaé Bonsu (BYP 100)

2. ‘
   
   
   A Radical Expansion of Sanctuary: Steps in Defiance of Trump’s Executive Order
   
   
   ’ by Marisa Franco (Mijente)

3. 
   
   NEW VIDEO
   
   
   : Black, Latinx, Muslim, Trans and LGBTQ communities are redefining and expanding what sanctuary means to protect themselves and each other from not just immigration enforcement but all the threats coming from 45’s regime. (BYP 100 & Mijente)

CRLN Fall Events

September 10, 2017, 3pm: Meet Donaldo Zuniga

director of the

COMAL network

, an organization comprised of rural communities in

Honduras

that work to promote fair and sustainable agriculture and marketing. Donaldo is in Chicago to discuss social movements, economic solidarity, food sovereignty and human rights. Click

here

for more information. RSVP to Sharon at the CRLN office, 773-293-2964, 773-293-3680, or

shunter-smith@crln.org

for location, public transportation and parking information.

September 23, 2017, 1-5pm: Pedal for Peace

30

^th

annual bike-a-thon to

raise funds for health, education, legal aid, and community organizing efforts

in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Chicago. For more information, click

here

. To register as an individual or as part of a team, click

here

. Organizing together transnationally, we can cooperate in making healthcare, education, legal aid, and affordable housing available to more people.

October 9-10, 2017: Alex Escobar Prado

activist, educator, and member of the Guatemalan environmental justice organization Youth Organized in Defense of Life (JODVID). Born out of the struggle for community self-determination and resistance to Tahoe Resources’ Escobal silver mine in southeastern Guatemala, JODVID uses the arts and popular education to mobilize youth in local and regional movements to protect the environment and defend territory. Event times and places are in process of confirmation; information will be posted

here

.

October 24, 2017, 12-2pm: CRLN Annual Luncheon “Constructing Peace in Colombia: A Feminist Vision”

Speaker: Carol Rojas, Feminist Antimilitarist Network

The Colombia Peace Accords, while a step toward peace, face many challenges. Illegally armed groups have escalated attacks against social movement leaders. People displaced by violence lack work, education and healthcare and continue to suffer the psychological effects of war.  To build the peace in Colombia in this difficult time, the Feminist Antimilitarist Network uses popular education to promote demilitarization and the eradication of systems of oppression based on sex, class and race. They believe that this transformation of communities supports the construction of peace. For more information and a link to order tickets, visit our website at

http://bit.ly/CRLNpeace

.