Jubilee Economics’ Initiatives
Here is an index of the leading initiatives JEM is actively engaged in. Details will appear interspersed throughout our blog, and can be found by Category or Author searches.
San Diego Community Land Trust
In San Diego, Jubilee Economics Ministries has been a partner for several years in establishing a CLT for affordable housing. Lee Van Ham is on the local board as an expression of JEM’s commitment to a sustainable land use practice that expresses the economic paradigm of jubilee’s abundance, enough for all. For more information on the San Diego CLT, visit www.sdclt.org. To locate a CLT in your area, see the National Community Land Trust Network at www.cltnetwork.org.
The 2020 Initiative
There is an economy that uses only the resources of one planet, and puts out no more waste than the planet can reuse. We are NOT now living that economy, but we can. Doing so is the great work for this decade. The 2020 Initiative is how JEM is contributing to this great work. Participants in the 2020 Initiative commit to stop using structures of a multi-Earth economy and increase their use of at least 10 structures of a one-Earth economy in the next decade. These choices are holistic, i.e., ethical, ecological, spiritual, economically practical, interdependent, and generating of human and Earth community, a community with all of life. It’s how we can live a jubilee economy in the 21st century.
Living the economy that fits planet Earth depends on our choices, our models, and our policies.
Partnership with Chiapas, Mexico: Using Travel to Open Northern and Western Eyes
Many North Americans are not aware of the struggle for human rights and dignity that is underway in southern Mexico. Reports of the Zapatista rebellion of 1994, for the most part, demonized the indigenous population as Marxist, a false allegation, and justified the military suppression. Since that time there have been amazing developments in the creation of non-violent civil societies, fair trade cooperatives, and international participation through NGOs.
A land of lush mountains, verdant valleys, and teeming forests, Chiapas burst into the world’s headlines on New Year’s day 1994—the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect—when an uprising led by the Zapatista movement reminded the world that indigenous people continue to struggle for their rights 500 years after the European conquest. This southernmost Mexican state is the poorest, despite being the richest in natural resources. JEM’s one-week travel adventures to Chiapas offer a unique learning and living experience. Our time in Nuevo Yibeljoj, an indigenous community that refuses to take up arms in the midst of conflict, will bring to life new insights into the meaning of “empire” and faith, and how we might be called to live differently so that others might live.