MCC accused of inadequate response to sexual assault allegation in Mozambique
“I wanted to help people gain access to water,” Katie Moyer says of her motivation for taking an assignment with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Mozambique in 2016. It was her first job after earning an engineering degree from Messiah University in Pennsylvania, her home state. During her four years with MCC, Moyer worked on…
MCC responses to questions, September 2024
While writing the article, “MCC accused of inadequate response to sexual assault allegation in Mozambique,” Canadian Mennonite sent questions to Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) via email. Some of the responses are, of course, quoted in the article. Below are the complete replies sent on September 16 by Laura Kalmar, interim senior director of advancement for…
Readers Write: August 2024 – Responses to ‘Involuntary’
From resigned MCC’ers For 17 of the past 32-plus years, we worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in four countries. MCC was instrumental in forming the values we try to live by today. We are grateful for this. On our last assignment, during which Dave served as an interim representative (overseeing programing in a country),…
Strawberry communion at Six Nations
On July 6, more than 160 people from a variety of denominations and organizations gathered in Ohsweken, Ontario, for a Strawberry Thanksgiving and Communion hosted by Six Nations Polytechnic and co-organized by Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) and Adrian Jacobs, also known as Ganosono, of the Turtle Clan, Cayuga Nation of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee…
Hillsboro Resolution
In 1974, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) approved a resolution that encouraged each Mennonite household in North America to “examine its lifestyle” and adopt a goal to “reduce consumption and expenditures by 10 percent.” It came to be known as the Hillsboro Resolution, as the meeting in question took place in Hillsboro, Kansas. Five years after…
MCC executive directors respond to concerns of former workers
The following opinion piece is an additional response by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) to serious concerns raised in our “Involuntary” article (July 2024) as well as in the online petition and open letter referenced in that article and posted online by a group of seven former MCC workers. – Eds. As the executive directors of…
Involuntary: Terminated MCC workers call for accountability and change
“I still use it,” Anicka Fast says of the brownish knitted potholder she received at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) orientation in Akron, Pennsylvania, in 2009. Fast and her husband John Clarke were en route to their first MCC assignment at the time. Fast is grateful to the women who, for many years, offered those hand-crafted…
A bullet point editorial
This issue of CM contains much intense material. I want to take this opportunity to not add to that, (though I had started writing about an unanswerable question I inherited when I took this job). Instead, I offer quick thoughts on a bunch of elements in the following pages (with page numbers in parentheses). I…
Restorative justice takes root in Zambia and Malawi
A restorative justice curriculum has been introduced at 100 correctional facilities in Zambia and Malawi. In 2019, Rod Friesen, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Ontario Restorative Justice Coordinator, was invited to facilitate a week-long training session for officers in the Zambian Correctional Service (ZCS). This training session was part of a pilot project of MCC Zambia…
Making Wars Cease: Charting the evolution of MCC peace work
In 1841, Ontario Mennonite bishop Benjamin Eby wrote that the time would come “when all Christians, and indeed all governmental authorities, will acknowledge that the waging of war is evil and does not belong in the kingdom of God.” Eby’s words echoed Psalm 46, which says, “Come, behold the works of the Lord. . .…
