EDFU Foundation Newsletter | July 25, 2023
It's been a while.........
Hello, to our community and patrons! It’s been a while…. 3 months to be exact. It’s time to update you on what we’ve been doing at EDFU Foundation!
The Permanent Forum on People of African Descent
The 2nd session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) took place May 30-June 2, 2023 at the United Nations headquarters in NYC, NY, USA.
EDFU Foundation was in attendance, along with several of our partners and fellow community members.
EDFU Foundation & The Conservancy Corp are the fiscal sponsors of the International Civil Society Working Group for PFPAD (ICSWG). Together, we held 3 virtual events and 5 in-person events. All of these events can be viewed on the EDFU Foundation YouTube page.
Virtual Events
In-Person Events
ICSWG Welcome Ceremony: "People of African Descent: Building Bridges, Building Collective Power"
UNPFPAD 2023 Side Event: Faith & Reparatory Justice: Present & Future
You can view all of the official United Nations (UN) sessions of PFPAD and read all of the statements made by both member states and civil society on the UN’s website.
We were honored to have met so many wonderful people from around the world who are working to unite, uplift, hold space, and quite literally are just putting in the work to improve the conditions for Africans and people of African descent.
While there were many issues regarding the UN and this forum, it did not stop the harmony or unity there. It was much louder at this session than the 1st.
We invite you to follow us on Instagram to see our Reels and posts that we shared from PFPAD. We continue to share memories, reflections, and thoughts as we unpack the information and experiences at PFPAD 2023.
During PFPAD, we started a series on Instagram called: “The People Speak”. This movement happened when so many people in civil society were vocalizing to us that they were not being called upon to give their speech or statement. (This is just 1 of the many issues we referenced above.) EDFU realized we had a camera, a mic, and a willingness to let the people speak!
You can currently see 4 individuals who participated in our series during PFPAD on our Instagram. More videos from PFPAD are coming and we have now begun to upload these videos on our Facebook.
Our Bay Area Street Pantry program continues weekly. Every Friday at 10:30am we hand out free food in Oakland, CA, USA. There are no qualifications or requirements to receive food. Anyone in line by 12:30pm will receive food.
We are witnessing a rapid increase in the number of households we serve weekly.
We currently average 115 individuals coming through weekly and sometimes as high as 125. This is a significant increase from the 75 average in 2022 and the 90 average during the first quarter of 2023. With both federal and state emergency COVID-19 funding ending and the state of California ending 2 qualifications that allowed several college students to qualify for CalFresh/SNAP, we believe that food programs such as the Bay Area Street Pantry have become more of a need and will continue to be until the economy improves.
We could use your help! In May, we were able to get a cargo van to assist us with our efforts in providing food to our community. However, the high cost of registration and some much-needed repairs have put us in need of financial assistance. The vehicle is used and we need to replace both back tires, get a tune-up, and the breaks need to be checked. This van has made a huge difference in the amount of food that we have been able to provide our patrons and we would like to continue to be able to do so. If you can, please donate! If you can’t donate, please share the campaign!
March-June was a busy time for EDFU Foundation. In our previous newsletter, we highlighted our events and experience at CSW67. In April, we held a virtual side event for the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. We will be posting the recording soon. Stay tuned! We also held an in-person event during the UN’s Youth Forum with the International Youth Leadership Institute.
While our schedule has slowed down for the remainder of 2023, the work is never done. We will continue to amplify the messages of The People; we will continue to hold space for those who need to heal, unite, and teach; and we will continue to build a better world for the future.