Program areas at Franciscan Action Network
On peacebuilding, fan hosted our second faith in democracy interfaith vigil on the eve of january 6 insurrection at the capitol with 76 people attending in person and over 1,223 views online between youtube and fans website. During lent, fans campaign, seeing anew with the eyes of the heart saw over 3,100 people engaging with the offered material. Our just peace for ukraine series of webinars focused on peacebuilding in ukraine and narrative/propaganda & opportunities for diplomacy with a final listening session on attitudes toward the war. Late in the year fan became an active member of christians for ceasefire and organized several prayer events on the gaza war. Fan was a sponsor of several gun violence prevention events during the year including remembering parkland and a faith in peace concert.
Fan took a major step to rejuvenate our Network in 2023 through our first-everfranciscan justice leadership conference, an intergenerational gathering of morethan 100 held in october. With 60 young adults participating from four franciscancolleges and voluntary organizations along with members of our 20 Franciscan justicecircles, it was an exciting opportunity for generations to learn, pray, and gainadvocacy skills together through 15 meetings with congressional offices.additionally, our Franciscan justice circles continue to grow! All of the franciscancolleges participating in our october conference now have active justice circles,and participants at the universities of north carolina and Georgia are also starting circles.
Our creation care work began early in the year with a screening of the letter film and discussion that saw 100 people in attendance, 65 of whom stayed for small group discussion. A major component of our year was the working for environmental justice campaign. In partnership with Franciscan federation and other communities, fan hosted three webinars focused on specific areas of the country and instances of environmental racism currently ongoing. After presenting attendees with stories from locals, we offered ways to advocate alongside our grassroots speakers and partners. After the successful series, we began sending a monthly newsletter called the current that is dedicated to this type of advocacy.