December 2008

Kia ora,

This message is to wish you a very happy Solstice, Christmas and New Year. It includes an update about the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples' petition to parliament, preliminary information about the 2009 National Peace Workshops, details of Peace Movement Aotearoa's office and other arrangements during December and January, and our thanks for your support during 2008.

The Office of the House of the Clerk initially refused to accept the signatures on the UN Declaration petition to parliament (on a technicality, this is not related to it entering the premises without having gone through the security scanner!). Agreement has now been reached whereby another petition, in Peace Movement Aotearoa's name, is being lodged - urging the House of Representatives to take note of the UN Declaration petition - and it will then proceed to a Select Committee.

This somewhat bizarre process will actually make it easier to add additional signatures to those presented on Human Rights Day, so please continue collecting signatures through the summer - the summer festivals would be great places to take petition forms and a pen! The form is available here or from email - the final deadline for return of signatures is Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day, 1 March.

The 2009 National Peace Workshops, the national gathering for people interested in peace, social justice and human rights, will be at the Quaker Settlement in Whanganui in mid or late March - the date is currently being finalised, and will be available soon. The theme of the 2009 NPW is 'Promoting peace through active non-violent resistance' and the main focus will be participatory discussion with Maori, Pacific and Pakeha contributors who have experience of community and individual non-violent resistance, and/or non-violent direct action in Aotearoa and overseas. Preliminary information about the National Peace Workshops, including the programme outline, venue and accommodation options, is available here.

Email messages: there will be no more e-list messages from us this year, other than any relating to the National Peace Workshops and a couple of other things we are working on at present. We will resume sending list messages in the last week of January. From now until then, email messages sent to us will be downloaded but not processed (unless they relate to the ongoing areas of our work).

Web site: there may be some updating of three pages over the holiday period * the Universal Periodic Review of the NZ government's human rights record page (this page has been updated recently with a new resource section, have a look if you're interested in the Universal Periodic Review) * the NZ police and tasers page, and the National Peace Workshops page.

Telephone messages and mail: our office will be open for several hours each week throughout the holiday period to collect telephone messages and mail.

Our thanks to everyone who has supported Peace Movement Aotearoa during 2008 - whether through your gifts of time, energy or donations; and for sharing with us the issues of concern to you and your thoughts on them.

If you should feel inspired in this season of giving to make a donation in appreciation of our work over the past year, that would be gratefully received - especially as we did not have time to send out an annual appeal mailing during 2008, which has been another exceptionally busy year for us. Your generosity will be rewarded with the knowledge you will be helping our work to continue in 2009. Simply print out the form below, fill it in and post it to us with your cheque. If you would like to make a donation via Internet banking, please email Peace Movement Aotearoa and we will provide the details for you.

We wish you, your friends and your family a peaceful, restful break, and safe journeys if you are travelling,
from everyone at Peace Movement Aotearoa.

Name / Group : _______________________________________

Address : ___________________________________________

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Enclosed is a donation of $ ______________ to help Peace Movement Aotearoa’s work in 2009
  - a receipt is / is not required for this (please circle one).

Please tick here [   ] if you would like to be sent information about the Peace Movement Aotearoa's pledge scheme, an easy way for you to make regular automatic payments to support our work.

Please post with your cheque (made payable to Peace Movement Aotearoa) to Peace Movement Aotearoa, PO Box 9314, Wellington 6141. Thank you