The Purpose of the United Religions Initiative in North America is to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the earth and all living beings by connecting and empowering the interfaith movement in the North America region.
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URI and the Environment
By Rebecca Tobias
"Our purpose is to create wise environmental grassroots and global partnerships to aggregate, amplify and catalyze moral imperatives among all traditions to live in sacred relationship with the natural environment and the community of life."
This is the mission statement for our Environmental CC, and it captures the tone and the intention expressed in the rich and varied contributions from our members from multiple Cooperation Circles who have offered their reflections in this special Earth Day edition. Most call to question the quality of our spiritual and practical lives, mindful that our natural environment has reached limits and challenges never before encountered by the human family. Great changes lie ahead which hold moral and ethical questions too often unexplored as each of us asks, "What role do I play in caring for Creation?" Read more...
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 Leadership Spotlight
URI North America is honored to feature the Rev. Sally Bingham, President and Founder of Cooperation Circles Interfaith Power and Light and the Regeneration Project with over 15,000 congregations affiliated throughout the United States. Rev. Bingham is deeply respected in both the interfaith and environmental sectors and was recently featured in Rolling Stone Magazine . Earth Day is the perfect opportunity to engage your Cooperation Circle and to urge your congregation to join Interfaith Power and Light. Rev. Bingham, thank you for everything you do to foster peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.
A Message from Rev. Sally Bingham
Last week in Washington DC leaders of state Interfaith Power and Light programs met for our annual three day conference where we shared creative ideas, best practices, and discussed mutual concerns.
On day three, 80 of us fanned out on Capitol Hill and visited legislators carrying moral and values based messages related to energy efficiency and regulation of air pollution. We expressed our wish for President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline because we believe that transporting dirty tar sand oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico brings extraordinary risk to the heartland of America and provides no particular benefit to the American people. We simply cannot risk harming Creation and our nation’s natural resources because it is profitable for a few while so very costly to many. Protection of the gifts from God that provide health and safety to all people is a priority of ours. After all, God put Adam in the garden to till and to keep it. We are expected to be gardeners not wrecking machines.
Learn about the impact of Keystone XL on your communities and add your voice to the US State Department public comment period through our Interfaith Power and Light petition website, opportunity for your participation ends April 22nd.
Greening the Faith: An Interview with Sally Bingham
Below is an excerpt from an article printed with permission
from Sierra Club Green Home
"This interfaith ministry combines nearly all mainstream religions. “We’re the only group that does just climate work and that works with the interfaith community...Among those faiths uniting under the banner of religious environmentalism are the major denominations—“an absolutely wonderful, unintended” benefit, Bingham says. “We’ve brought all these Jews, Christians, Mormons together … standing in solidarity with an issue they care greatly about. And that’s been wonderfully fulfilling.” Read more...
In this warm-hearted video interview, Bishop William E. Swing speaks with Rev. Sally Bingham about how her calling to protect the environment changed the course of her life, and the lives of so many others across the country. Hear her inspirational story to find out how one person can make a major difference in our world.
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Cooperation Circle Spotlight
We at OCICE feel that Global Warming is the biggest issue affecting the planet today and that it is exacerbating every other environmental issue. We stress the need to push our local, state, and federal governments to focus on solar, wind, and geothermal energy production, rather than coal, nuclear, and natural gas. In fact, we feel that all environmental groups should focus their energy on this issue until we have all the world's government leaders on-board with making real change ! read more...
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A Message from Sande Hart
Chair, URI North America
To suggest that serving the URI’s North American region as Chair is a privilege and honor would be an understatement.
 In 2002, when I first developed the women’s interfaith organization S.A.R.A.H., it was the connectivity, resources and matrix of the URI that made our work richer, deeper and shine a lot brighter. When 12 women first convened in my family room in August of 2002, we knew we were about to embark on some important work. read more...
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The U.N. and the Environment
By Monica Willard, URI UN Representative
This year, on April 22nd, I will be attending an Interactive Dialogue of the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly on 'Harmony with Nature' to commemorate Mother Earth Day. The purpose of the interactive dialogue is to advance discussions on different economic approaches, in the context of sustainable development, and to further a more ethical basis for the relationship between humanity and the Earth. Learn more.
The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will be held in New York on May 20-31st. Many URI CC members will take part in presentations and dialogues. Twelve year old Ta'Kaiya Blaney of the Sliamonn First Nation of BC Canada, who presented at Rio +20, will be speaking representing Indigenous Youth, alongside Elder Chief Oren Lyons on a panel entitled: Celebrating and Commemorating the Rights of Mother Earth for the Seventh Generation: sharing our vision of the past, present and future generations. The panelists will address the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.
Twelve year old Ta'Kaiya Blaney of the Sliamonn First Nation of BC Canada
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April 2013
Special Earth Day Edition
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URI North America
P.O.Box 1653
Burlingame, CA 94011
www.urinorthamerica.org
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See you at NAIN!
August 11-14, 2013
in Toronto
The Leadership Council of URI North America will be attending NAIN this summer and encourages all Cooperation Circle members and Affiliates who are interested in a rich interfaith exchange and learning experience to join us. The final call for workshop proposals is May 1st.
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URI North America
Leadership Council
Sande Hart, Chair
Danya Wellmon, Vice Chair
Ardisanne Turner,
Immediate Past Chair
John Denker, Treasurer
Sarah Talcott Blair
Fred Fielding
Gard Jameson
Michael Pappas, Global Trustee
Rebecca Tobias, Global Trustee
Suhkvinder Kuar Vinning
Sam Wazan, Global Trustee
Kathryn Ward,
Regional Coordinator
URI in North America is one of eight regions of the global URI Community
"Our purpose is to create wise environmental grassroots and global partnerships to aggregate, amplify and catalyze moral imperatives among all traditions to live in sacred relationship with the natural environment and the community of life." URI Environmental CC
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Director of URI
We work with interfaith communities (individuals and organizations) in cities to create cultures of compassion. We create materials and trainings to look at how to address social issues using compassionate action. For example, we are developing an educational curriculum for use in Pakistani schools. We have formed strong partnerships with Stanford University who is offering a training program that focuses on compassion as part of their teacher’s education program, TED (a website that has remarkable talks given by remarkable people doing great work in the world); Karen Armstrong and Louisville (a model Compassionate City), which is an active interfaith community. See website for 
The work of the InterSpiritual Centre has three major areas of focus. 1. Serving the sacred in human community: We work to foster interspiritual understanding and collaboration by promoting opportunities for diverse groups and individuals to cultivate and share insights, teachings and practices. 2. Sharing sacred space: We share physical space on the Vancouver Unitarian campus, and look forward to working with organizational and/or institutional partners to develop larger multi-use facilities. 3. Honoring the sacredness of the Earth: One sacred space that all creatures share is Earth itself. See website for 
of us. I wish there were a
way to celebrate and honor every one of them. When we strive in our own lives to live up
to the ideals of compassion, respect, and understanding, I think we emulate in some way
the dedication of these women, past and present. 
e blessed to have tremendous female visionaries and leaders
throughout URI North America and wanted to extend special recognition to these groups
with a special focus on women in honor of International Women's Day: 
