Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice - Newsletter -- Paz y Vida and In the Community

Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-268-9557		Updated: 31 August 2007
Newsletter September 2007

September 2007
Newsletter Contents

Paz y Vida and In the Community
Membership Application

Paz y Vida

The UNM Sociology class that went to Nicaragua this summer (see Sept. 17 event) met with several women's groups organizing in their community to build substantial housing to replace stick/tarp/temporary shelters. We were quite impressed with the organization of the women and have developed a project of raising $16,500 for a group of female maquila workers for land on which to build houses. The housing and infrastructure money has been secured. The women have already raised $3,500 to which we will add $10,000. We are asking your support for this worthwhile project. You can make your tax-deductible contributions to: Communitas Foundation, Casa Xalteva Nicaragua Project, POBox 4542, Abq., NM 87196-4542. Please put Paz y Vida on the memo line of the check.

For more info please call Renee at 505-344-5735.

Art Riffenburgh, 78, a worker for justice and exemplar of compassion, has gone on before us July 24, 2007. After previously surviving leukemia, his voice was stilled by throat cancer but our memories hold his words. Art was a faithful worker for prisoners' rights, women's rights, and the rights of all non-human creatures on this earth. Art's career was in law enforcement, as a NM State Police officer and later as a probation/parole officer until he retired in 1978. This experience gave him the intimate insight into our "corrections" establishment which guided his powerful contributions to the NM Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty of which he was an active, cherished member for many years. He yearned for justice for those in Guantanamo Bay and so many other places. He was solidly opposed to torture in any form. He lent courageous support to the effort to close the "School of the Americas" in Ft. Benning, GA, when he committed civil disobedience and risked arrest at age 69. Art was also very concerned about the earth, especially all the creatures of the Arctic. His "citizen business" cards read: "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. Live modestly. Forgo greed. Be compassionate." The world is a better place for Art having been here with us!

Audrey Riffenburgh

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