Update on Yucatan project

Below is how the Social Justice Committee describes the project in the Yucatan. We are still collecting information and feeling around for what is the best "bang" for the travel and $ "buck", and have spent hours and hours discussing this project from many different angles. It began as a spring-break reforestation project; then, when we found out that 1) spring break was a good time to water and weed trees but not plant them, and 2) there was a wonderful organization, the Mani Agroecology College, that we could work with, it morphed. It is still morphing as we learn more about the situation and possibilities:

"The UUFA Social Justice Committee has been developing a partnership project with the Mani Agroecology School ("U Yits Ka'an") in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. This school teaches sustainable agricultural practices, Maya culture, and liberation theology. The project will include opportunities for members of our congregation to serve and meet rural Mexicans, learn effects of the global economy first-hand, and materially support natural resource conservation and sustainable development in a poor region of our neighboring country. We will offset the "footprint" of our travel by watering and weeding tree seedlings that have been planted on previously forested land (a project of former UUFA member, Patricia Negreros-Castillo). This trip is being planned for Spring Break of 2011 and it is hoped it will be part of our Green Sanctuary Action Plan."