CMSA and CRLN Join Together as One Organization
For immediate release
September 1, 2009
Longtime partners, the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN) and the Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance (CMSA) have agreed to formally come together into one organization, under the CRLN name and banner. This comes after two decades of partnership – including sharing office space and staff. With this deeper collaboration, the formerly separate organizations will be strengthened and enhanced.
For the past year, CMSA’s primary project has been the Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition (CNSC), working with diverse faith communities – through education, advocacy and action – for just and humane immigration policies necessary to ensure that not just our religious community, but our nation, is a sanctuary of peace and justice for all. New Sanctuary Project coordinator Jenny Dale has joined the CRLN staff and three members of the CMSA steering committee, of which two members are from the Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition, have been elected to the CRLN board of directors.
“The connections between poverty, hunger, militarization, violence, displacement, exclusion and immigration are marked,” according to Jim Vondracek, CRLN’s managing director. “This is a unique opportunity to bring these missions together, to bring increased vigor and strength to the task of working for human rights, peace and justice for the peoples of this hemisphere.”
CRLN’s board of directors has added Immigration to the organization’s program areas, which also include: Colombia; Emerging Popular Democracies; Closing the School of the Americas/WHINSEC; Building Just US/Cuba Relations; and Promoting Fair Trade.
With the addition of CMSA and its work of sanctuary, walking in accompaniment with victims of violence and exclusion, CRLN will be strengthened. Through human rights and advocacy alerts, delegations to Latin America, hosting of Latin American human rights and church leaders here, the annual Pedal for Peace event, supporting victims of violence and displacement in Colombia, meetings with U.S. policy-makers, and many other ways, CRLN will carry forward the work of CMSA. Through all of these activities, CRLN will continue to engage religious communities and leaders to speak out for just U.S. policies.
For more information, please contact:
773-293-2964
CRLN, Suite 429, 4750 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, Illinois 60640
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