New KAIROS chair a veteran in development work
January 25, 2008
TORONTO - The new chairman of the board for Canada’s largest, Christian and ecumenical social justice organization is a veteran of Third World development work from the Anglican communion.
Cheryl Curtis, executive director of the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, takes over from Redemptorist Father Paul Hansen at the head of the board room table of KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.
Curtis has also worked for the United Church of Canada directing social justice and ethnic ministries, and for 11 years in a joint Anglican-United Church project to help refugees resettle in Canada.
Toronto-based KAIROS was formed in 2001 by fusing together 10 national inter-church coalitions. It is supported by 11 church bodies, three of which are Catholic.
With Catholics and most mainline Protestant churches involved, KAIROS works on behalf of the vast majority of Canadian Christians on poverty, ecology, international human rights, aboriginal rights and other issues.
Other new board members include: Omega Bula of the United Church of Canada as vice chair, Jane Orion Smith of the Quakers as treasurer, Rev. James Dekker of the Christian Reformed Church as secretary, Benoit Bariteau of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops as member-at-large.
Old hands continuing to serve on the KAIROS board include Hansen as past chair, Stephen Allen of the Presbyterians, Ryan Andersen of the Lutherans, Michael Casey from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Anglican Alice Jean Finlay as past vice chair, Rev. Gordon Haynes of the Presbyterians, Joanne McFadden of the United Church and Lois Coleman Neufeld of the Mennonites.