News Archives » Video and Audio
Corporate Social Responsibility and the Churches May 14th, 2012
Thanks to the European Africa Faith & Justice Network for the following information:
Bishops call for increased corporate transparency
Catholic bishops urge the European Union to legislate on extractive companies
While a group of EU member states, including Germany and the UK, are attempting to water down new EU transparency legislation, Catholic bishops from around the world urge the EU to push forward and require European Union-listed and large unlisted extractive companies to publicly disclose the payments they make to governments worldwide. In a joint statement, they say less stringent laws will fail to turn the curse of resource-rich developing countries into a blessing.
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Socially Responsible Investment Coalition Celebrates 30th Anniversary! April 20th, 2012
The Socially Responsible Investment Coalition (SRIC) celebrated its 30th anniversary in the new Whitley Theological Center Facility on the campus on the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio recently. Seamus Finn, OMI presented, using a video and powerpoint presentation in a panel titled “Impacting Investments in a Sustainable World.”
SRIC is a non-profit religiously sponsored organization headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Institutions and individuals belonging to SRIC work to balance their economic policies and practices with their fair and social concerns. As investors and shareholders, members act to influence corporations toward social responsibilty.
Land Grabs in Africa Leave Communities Impoverished April 5th, 2012
The problem of land grabbing in Africa and Asia by investment firms and multinational corporations is a serious and growing problem. Governments make deals with large multinational companies while thousands of poor farmers are left with inadequate compensation, low wages, polluted water and exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals that cause health problems.
While problems with land grabs abound, SOCFIN Agriculture. Co. is a particularly egregious company. Owned by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, SOCFINAF Group owns and operates plantations of rubber, oil palm and coffee in Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia. SOCFIN recently has secured 6,500 hectares of farmland for rubber/palm oil production in Sierra Leone.
The Oakland Institute, a California-based think-tank, has detailed a pattern of coercion, lack of consultation, and failure to fairly compensate Sierra Leonean landowners who have been pressured into ceding their land to the corporate giant. Watch this video on SOCFIN’s Sierra Leone’s operations:
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Torture in Your Backyard: National Religious Campaign Against Torture March 20th, 2012
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) has released a 20-minute film, Solitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard, as a resource for parishes and religious congregations to learn about the destructive use of prolonged solitary confinement and to engage people of faith to call for an end to prolonged solitary confinement in their state. The film features several former prisoners discussing the mental harm they endured as a result of being held in solitary confinement and highlights how the religious community in Maine helped secure a seventy percent reduction in the number of Maine prisoners held in solitary confinement. The Missionary Oblates JPIC office is a member of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT)
Invisible Children KONY 2012 March 13th, 2012
The “Invisible Children Kony 2012” video has gone viral. It is an impassioned plea to end the atrocities of Joseph Kony and his Lords Resistance Army (LRA). Invisible Children Campaign “KONY 2012” provides horrifying documentary evidence about the LRA.
Over nearly three decades the LRA has been responsible for unspeakable acts of brutality, including the abduction of children to work as soldiers. untold thousands have been maimed or killed by the LRA and hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced in northern Uganda, Northern Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Kony in 2005, but to date, no one has found him.
This video is a plea to take action to stop the atrocities of Kony and hold the LRA accountable in a court of law. An important issue raised by the video is the need for immediate international support, and protection of these children and their families from these terrible acts of violence. Organizations such as Catholic Relief Services are on the front lines helping the victims of Kony and Lord’s Resistance Army.
