Rio Texas Methodist Federation for Social Action

Location: Fo Guang Shan Xiang Yun Temple

                        6720 N. Capital Hwy., 78731

Please RSVP in advance!

Screening and panel discussion of the film THE MASK YOU LIVE IN

St. Andrews Presbyterian Church – Austin

Sunday, April 26, 2015  at 4:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary

In 2011, Jennifer Siebel Newsom debuted her first film, MISS REPRESENTATION, which delved into the dangerous ways mass media reflects and enforces our culture’s belief that the value of women and girls lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality. In a similar approach, Siebel Newsom’s newest film, THE MASK YOU LIVE IN, takes a look at modern masculinity. What are the messages our boys and men receive from popular culture, sports, and the media? What happens to kids when the traits we’ve feminized are devalued over and over again? In this film, men from various backgrounds share the impact of their upbringing, relationships with their fathers, their struggles, and the deliberate choices they’ve made in raising their own children. Experts in the field, including authors, doctors, and educators, provide research as well as observations on the challenges men and boys face in our society’s unrealistic expectations of hyper-masculinity.

This project reveals how our current course of male identity needs to be altered.  Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo

iACT’s Hope Awards

Monday, May 2, 2016

The Hope Awards celebration and fundraiser provides support for iACT’s outstanding community service programs. Hands on Housing repairs the homes of impoverished seniors and people with disabilities. iACT for Refugees  provides basic educational assistance to newly arrived refugees from around the world. The Red Bench interfaith dialogue program encourages meaningful conversations that matter.

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Many consider 1863, the year the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, as the year slavery ended. Perhaps others cite 1981, the year Mauritania became the last country on earth to abolish slavery. However, this ancient form of exploitation continues in our time and in our nation in the form of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is typically divided between two types: labor trafficking and sex trafficking. Labor trafficking can occur in domestic work, restaurant/food services, traveling sales crews, bars/clubs, construction, health/beauty services, and begging rings. Sex trafficking venues include hotels/motels, commercial-fronts, residential brothels, escort services, online ads, truck stops, and bars/clubs. Victims of these illicit markets include foreigners who are brought across international borders as well as U.S. citizens and legal residents who are trafficked within U.S. borders. On a global scale, approximately 600,000–800,000 people are trafficked each year.

Of the 14,500-17,500 people who are trafficked into the United States each year, the U.S. government believes that 80 percent are women and approximately 50 percent are minors. While human trafficking occurs in many places both nationally and globally, rates of trafficking are alarmingly high in our state. Texas is a hub for international human trafficking because of its many busy interstate highways, international airports, bus stations, shipping commerce through the Gulf of Mexico, and its shared border with Mexico. Specifically, Harris County and the North Texas region serve as major areas for trafficking. In addition, Texas is home to the I-10 corridor, which the U.S. Department of Justice recently designated as the number one route for human trafficking in the U.S.

Joan Chittister, Benedictine Sister, famed author and international ambassador for human rights will return to Houston October 14 & 15 to speak at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral.  Chittister will address the topic: “Spirituality, Self and Society,” based on her latest book, “The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century,” in which she boldly claims that St. Benedict’s sixth-century text is the only one of the great traditions that directly touches today’s issues: stewardship, conversion, communication, reflection, contemplation, humility and equality.  Sr. Joan expands the principles of the Rule into the larger context of spiritual living in a secular world and makes the seemingly archaic instructions relevant for a contemporary audience

Leading Difficult Conversations Across Difference

Monday, March 7, 2016 6.30-8.00 pm

Community practitioners, activists, advocates and allies will develop practical communication skills to lead difficult conversations around difference in this workshop. The flexible model presented by Jeremy Solomons is as useful to help manage conversations based on the simplest differences

ACCESS TO FAIR HOUSING

March 10, 2015 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Bob Bullock Museum

Event Summary

In the first of a four-part series on the fight for social justice in Texas, join us for a discussion of one of the most basic and necessary aspects of life: fair access to housing, including historical roots in the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Panelists will discuss the realities that have influenced housing policy in the past as well as housing issues that municipal governments still grapple with today, including public policy, discriminatory lending practices, and urban development.

Moderator

Eric Tang is an Assistant Professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, a Faculty Fellow for the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis at UT Austin, and the director of UT’s Social Justice Institute. His current research focuses on the past and present of racial segregation in Austin, Texas.

Panelists

Wesley Phelps is an Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University. His focus for our panel conversation will be on community organization, mobilization, and empowerment and how that has affected federal programs in Texas during the 1960s and beyond.

Tammye H. Treviño was sworn in as Regional Administrator for Region VI for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday, August 12, 2013, in Washington, DC, by HUD Deputy Secretary Maurice Jones.  She has more than 25 years of experience in managing housing and economic development programs for underserved populations.

This program is presented in partnership with the Social Justice Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Civil Rights Project.

http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/calendar/texas-social-justice-series-housing?utm_source=Bullock+Museum&utm_campaign=87f794b0e8-Texas_Social_Justice_Series&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b47aa90d0f-87f794b0e8-171528569

iACT’s Hope Awards

Monday, May 2, 2016

The Hope Awards celebration and fundraiser provides support for iACT’s outstanding community service programs. Hands on Housing repairs the homes of impoverished seniors and people with disabilities. iACT for Refugees

Exciting details to come!

For more information on these events, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org.

2016 Slave Free City Summit

Austin, Texas  •  April 22 – 23 •  For the City Center

“Intersections & Opportunities”

What would happen if the cities of the future were deeply committed to freedom?

For more information go to: