Happy New Year!
On behalf of the Faith in Place team and community, we are grateful to be starting a new season with you and all our Green Teams.
Below is a reflection from our Deputy Director, Elena Canler, about our theme for 2023: The Year of Intersectionality.
"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives." - Audre Lorde
We have dubbed 2023, “The Year of Intersectionality” after a year of wrestling with the challenging complexities of our environmental and social crises. Intersectionality is a term first coined by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, a lawyer and activist to provide “a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”
In 2020, environmental activist Leah Thomas brought this idea to environmental work by coining the phrase, “intersectional environmentalism” to describe “an inclusive version of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people and the planet.”
As people of faith and spirituality, we believe in the sanctity of our world and the sanctity of beings, both human and non-human. As a Buddhist, I believe in the interconnectedness of all entities, and I am a part of a sangha (the Pāli word for community) of others who explore the intersection of power and environmental and social well-being in their practice.
We invite you to join us in exploring these intersections over the next 12 months and how our faith can strengthen and nourish us as we face the complex and intersecting challenges in our world.