Frequently asked Questions
WHAT IS IFCO PASTORS FOR PEACE?
The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization started Pastors for Peace after a study delegation was on a ferryboat in Nicaragua, along with 200 Nicaraguan civilians, when the ferry was attacked by Contra forces recruited and armed by the US government. Two people were killed and 29 wounded, including IFCO Director Lucius Walker.
The aims of Pastors for Peace are:
To deliver material aid to support the victims of "low intensity" war in Latin America.
To offer this aid as solidarity, not charity.
To campaign for a more just and moral US foreign policy in our hemisphere.
WHAT IS A PASTORS FOR PEACE CARAVAN?
People coming together to demonstrate and enact an alternative foreign policy, an endeavor of love rooted in social justice. Caravans travel through Canada and the US collecting aid and giving information about the purpose of the trip. More than 50 Pastors for Peace Caravans have gone to Mexico, Central America, and Cuba.
WHY TAKE AID TO CUBA?
The message of the Caravan is - end the US trade embargo.
The blockade is a violation of the most fundamental principles of humanity. It is our duty as citizens and as human beings to oppose this policy and to help, in a small way, to alleviate some of the suffering caused by it.
WHAT KIND OF AID?
Primarily medical supplies and equipment, also educational supplies including computers, tools, bicycles, and cultural supplies, also the school buses we travel in. Wheelchairs are especially needed.
WHO DISTRIBUTES THE AID?
An ecumenical Distribution Committee made up of pastors and leaders of various denominations and religious organizations in Cuba receives and distributes the aid.
IS THIS LEGAL?
We travel to Cuba as a conscious act of civil disobedience and as a challenge to the US government's cruel and immoral blockade of Cuba, a blockade which uses the denial of food and medicine as a political weapon.. By taking a moral stand and openly challenging the blockade, we urge the US people and government to change this law. That is why the Pastors for Peace Caravan is important. Not so much because of the aid we take, though that is significant and needed, but because it is a statement, "I'm sorry that my government is trying to starve and deprive people to force them to give up their efforts to make a better society. I disagree and I'm trying to change that policy."
