Children's Defense Fund
national conference
slated for July 22-25 in Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio, June 18, 2012 – National
Council of Churches member communion representatives and NCC program leaders
will be among the 3,000 persons expected to attend the Children’s Defense
Fund national conference here July 22-25.
“This
is not a talk conference,” said Marian Wright Edelman, Children’s Defense
Fund founder and president. “It is an act conference. It is not a problem
wallowing, handwringing conference. It is a strategic problem-solving
conference.”
Prominent among the ecumenical leaders encouraging attendance at the conference are
the Rev. Michael Livingston, director of the National Council of Churches
Poverty Initiative, and Shannon Daley-Harris, chair of the NCC’s Committee
on Families and Children.
“The 16.4 million children who are poor in the United States, and the 8.3
million children who have no health care, need all the support they can
get,” said Livingston. “This conference comes at an urgent time in our
nation’s history.”
Daley-Harris, who is also religious affairs advisor at the Children’s
Defense Fund, stressed that “a majority of children cannot read or compute
at grade level in the fourth, eighth, and 12th grades. We have a growing
national crisis that demands an urgent response in these politically
volatile and polarized times.”
In addition to religious leaders, the conference is expected to attract
leading researchers, educators, policymakers, practitioners, faith leaders,
and other advocates including 1,500 young adult leaders.
“This is not a conference about what CDF is going to do,” Edelman said in an
open letter of invitation to the conference. “It is about what you and we
are going to do together to stretch ourselves way beyond our current comfort
and courage zones, incremental programs, and defensive efforts to hold on to
important existing gains.”
Edelman said the conference will “help build the powerful, proactive united
voice and transforming movement required to enable all our children to get
the quality early childhood foundation, school and stimulating out of school
experiences, and comprehensive continuum of support to make the successful
transition to adulthood they need and deserve.”
In the midst of a national political campaign, Edelman said, “this
conference is not just about what political leaders in any party are going
to do in Washington or state capitols, city halls, and county councils. It
is about what we are going to push them to do to ensure justice for our
voiceless, voteless children and the poor.”
Additional information, including conference registration forms, can be
found
here.
See Edelman's spoken invitation below:
Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for
shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's
37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican,
Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace
churches -- include 40 million persons in more than 100,000 local
congregations in communities across the nation.
NCC News contact:
Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell),
pjenks@ncccusa.org