Looking for experience in organising? Contacts with other SCMers in North America? A window into the international ecumenical movement and your place within it?
The North America region of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF-NA) is looking for students and young adults to join working groups in the following areas:
- Advocacy and Solidarity
- Bible and Theology
- Communication
- Fundraising
- Women, Gender and Sexuality
(more details below)
WSCF-NA’s work connects local and national movements with the global Federation through its regional and global strategic plans.
The 2016-2019 WSCF Strategic Plan highlighted Overcoming Violence, Eco-justice, Higher Education, and Identity, Diversity & Dialogue as major themes to be tackled. The main thematic area for WSCF-NA in 2015-2017 has been racial justice and indigenous people’s rights. The 2016-2017 working groups will continue this good work!
Please contact the WSCF-NA office for more information and to join a Working Group: wscfna@gmail.com
Advocacy and Solidarity Working Group
Chair: Aude Isimbi
This group is a bridge between the global federation and the Student Christian Movements in the U.S. and Canada. We work on diverse issues such as Indigenous and Racial Justice, Immigration and Refugee Response, Climate Change and Ecojustice, Militarization and Colonialism, and Higher Education Access, and Gender Equality. We work with two main focus:
1) The student/young adult body discerns the key issues in the region that are important to advocate for, and the key people to stand with in solidarity. We are then able to organize ways our interaction. This can include writing and disseminating solidarity statements, linking up with advocacy groups that we can work with, creating special programs to increase exposure and education, and providing support for new and existing community-based programs.
2) We work to facilitate the student/young adult body putting the mandates of the global federation into action. This is accomplished through solidarity events, programs and trainings, and providing access to conferences that align with those mandates. As there are broad issues that affect other regions with roots from our two countries, so the working group educates our members, churches and communities of those issues, raising awareness and equipping them to advocate.
The working group meets via Skype every first Monday of the month at 7pm Eastern time, with the understanding that should programming or other special meetings conflict with that time, we would move the meeting time to the following Monday. This meeting time is revised at the beginning of every academic semester to make sure we are accommodating to our student members.
Bible, Theology and Innovative Working Group encourages students to find good news in the scriptures, and to think critically about how the Bible speaks to our modern-day context. The Bible and Theology Program engages the region in its call to be God’s agents in addressing the world’s current challenges such as war, poverty, economic injustice and the threat to our planet. During this academic year, the Working group will be providing worship and reflection material for the upcoming WSCF-NA events and soliciting input from our ecumenical partners with prayers, liturgical ideas, theological verbatims.
Chair: Maya Brigid Brathwaite
The Communication Working Group is looking for people who are interested or experienced in communication. Members of this committee will help in determining guidelines for communication strategies in the work of the World Student Christian Federation-North America and in implementing communication tools to make the work of WSCF visible and palatable to students, young adults, partners and donors. You will help with the website, database, social media, e-newsletter, branding strategies and crowd funding.
Chair: Zillah Wesley II
The Fundraising Working Group develops concepts for educating and promoting fundraising techniques within the WSCF-North American Region. Fundraising programs such as the Give One be One (GOBO), seasonal teller-funding, and grant writing are sources of outreach to donors. While providing fundraising training to the WSCF North American Regional Committee and other members of the WSCF, the Working Group envisions fundraising strategies and efforts to contribute to the WSCF core budget and programming.
Chair: Je’ Exodus Hooper
The Women, Gender & Sexuality Working Group facilitates the region work on women’s issues and issues related to sexual minorities and people oppressed and marginalized on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and the hegemony of the gender binary. The Working Group supports North American SCMs as they engage with related issues. In the 2016/17 academic year we will be focusing on two major projects: the preparations for an intergenerational, interfaith conference on faith and feminism (date TBD); and helping the Student Christian Movement of Canada to refresh and update its ecumenical resources on feminism and LGBTQ+ issues. A variety of roles and time commitments are available.
Chair: Wynne Taylor