Campaigns

If you are interested in getting involved with any of the groups listed below, you are very welcome to attend their next meeting. Please call the relevant staff member in advance to confirm that the meeting is going ahead as listed below, as meetings are sometimes subject to change.

• Trade Justice Campaign
• Anti-Racism Project
• Food Security
• Act Now

A Summary of the Lisbon Treaty for Comhlamh Supporters

What is it? What are the key areas to consider? Download the summary below.

Lisbon summary in PDF

Latin America Week 2008: Declaration on Water

The Latin America Week Conference 2008 expresses its solidarity with the people in Europe, Latin America and the rest of the world in their defence of the right to water against attempts to turn it into a commodity, to be traded for profit.

Click here to download the full declaration in PDF format.

Cluster Bombs: Online Petition

Cluster bombs have killed and injured thousands of civilians during the last 40 years and continue to do so today. But now there is a historic opportunity to make them a thing of the past.

The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) Ireland is a group of Irish non-governmental organisations working to achieve a new international treaty to ban cluster munitions by the end of 2008.  For further information, check out www.stopclusterbombs.ie, or contact Susan at susan@stopclustermunitions.org.

The website also contains an online petition: http://www.stopclusterbombs.ie/petition

The Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 

You may be aware that the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill has been published and Integrating Ireland, along with RIS, IRC, MRCI, encourage you to raise local media awareness and lobby your local public representatives and TDs in the coming weeks on the issue, as your actions will be critical alongside national lobbying if we are to win amendments to the current bill. Some of the provisions of the Bill may have serious ramifications for returned development workers. A summary of key concerns can be found on:
http://www.integratingireland.ie/userfiles/File/Database/IRP%20Bill%20Leaflet%20Feb%202008.doc

 Read Comhlámh's letter to the Minister about the Izevbekhai case.

Read Comhlamh's submission on the Bill

A number of local public meetings are also being organised at a regional level in Galway, Limerick, Clare, Sligo, Athlone, Waterford, and other locations, to raise awareness on the issues. Further information can be gained from Integrating Ireland - 00 353 1 475 9473, info@integratingireland.ie, www.integratingireland.ie

Check Out Our Recent Campaign Statements 

Just click this!

Have You Returned from Time Overseas?

Bringing It All Back Home

On your return to Ireland, continuous engagement is the key to getting the most out of your time overseas. By drawing on the experience and learning you have gained, your input and perspective are invaluable to others and to yourself, whether you go on to study in a related discipline or get involved in campaigning or development education. As one volunteer remarked, "Commitment doesn't end at the airport."

Comhlámh (which means "Link Hands" or "Solidarity") provides an invaluable conduit for studying, campaigning, activism, and lobbying for change. What makes it unique, and imbues it with a specific understanding of volunteers, is that it was set up in 1975 by Irish returned development workers, who defined the organisation's principle objective as, "to enable persons who have rendered services overseas in developing countries upon their return to Ireland to bring to bear their own particular experience in order to further international development co-operation."

It now has activist groups and initiatives made up of volunteers from the public in the areas of Trade Justice, Anti-Racism, Focus magazine, Audio Visual Productions, and Options and Issues in Development, and it runs regular courses and training workshops for the public, volunteers and development workers alike.

Comhlámh members and supporters have always seen overseas development work as part of a broader commitment to global development and solidarity. Many of the causes of global inequality, poverty and oppression have their origin in the industrialised countries and can be addressed by education and campaigning.

People of all ages are joining Comhlámh and they believe that being a member and supporter of an organisation like Comhlámh is more important then ever in the ‘new' post-Celtic Tiger Ireland and an increasingly troubled and unequal world.

Right now, human rights, social justice and global development were never so important.

Get involved through Comhlamh...

Comhlámh is Part of the Stop Climate Chaos Campaign

Stop Climate Chaos is a coalition of civil society organisations (including Comhlámh, Concern and Trócaire, as well as environmental groups like An Taisce and Friends of the Earth,) campaigning to ensure Ireland plays its part in preventing runaway climate change.

Together, we call on the Government to:

• Ensure Ireland does its fair share to prevent climate chaos by immediately bringing in a climate change law which provides for an annual Carbon Budget and 3% year-on-year reductions in Irish greenhouse gas emissions.
• Push for an international agreement to keep the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees C or less. This means global greenhouse gas emissions must reach their peak and begin to decline irreversibly within 10 years.
• Support developing countries to adapt to the unavoidable effects of climate change.

Stop Climate Chaos will seek to mobilise the Irish public to take personal and political action in support of these common objectives. Within this shared framework our members will promote their own approaches to aspects of the challenge ahead.

Vision
A world where human impact on the global climate has been contained to a level that enables social, environmental and economic justice for all.

Mission
To build a broad coalition that creates irresistible public pressure for political action to stop human-induced climate change having catastrophic consequences.

Website: www.stopclimatechaos.ie

Watch our report on Climate Change from Cultivate's Cool Earth Show at the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures 2007 here: http://www.comhlamh.org/resources-downloads.html

Check us out on MySpace.com

http://www.myspace.com/comhlamh