Social Action
Saskatoon Unitarians support social and environmental justice and inclusion in many ways. Our Social Action Council facilitates social action within our congregation. It has several roles:
- Keeping the congregation informed of relevant issues and events in the broader community
- Offering Sunday services on social and environmental justice topics
- Selecting other charitable organizations for the congregation to support financially
- Involving the congregation in advocacy when issues arise
- Organizing occasional educational and fundraising events such as Gaza Conversations and Fair Trade Day
New members and new ideas are always welcome! All meetings of the Social Action Council and its Green Sanctuary and Widening the Circle teams include the option to attend online. We also have an email distribution list for social action events in our community.
Green Sanctuary
Since 2012, the Green Sanctuary team has sought to spread awareness of ways to live in healthy relationship with nature. The team has undertaken many projects to increase the sustainability of our congregation, in our building, our practices, and our grounds including replacing two sections of lawn with wildflowers and permaculture plants.
The team regularly offers Sunday services on environmental themes and seeks opportunities to advocate for sustainable policies. For example, recently our congregation supported the Swale Watchers’ concerns about the freeway being proposed by the provincial government, which would impact the Northeast and Small Swales. Another important initiative has been supporting the Indigenous-led Saskatchewan River Water Walk, which has taken place over the past several summers.
Widening the Circle
From 2016-21, our Reconciliation team invited Indigenous leaders to speak and lead educational events and encouraged congregational participation in events offered by Reconciliation Saskatoon and the Office of the Treaty Commissioner. Building on the work of this team, “Widening the Circle” has a broad mandate to find ways to understand and decrease racism, work towards truth and reconciliation, enhance cultural awareness, and dismantle oppression. The members have been learning about these issues together and are exploring ways to engage the whole congregation in further learning, in Sunday services as well as other formats.
Welcoming Congregation
All people should feel welcome at every level of congregational life, however they define themselves in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2000, our congregation became certified as a Welcoming Congregation by the Unitarian Universalist Association (US), which involved completing an extensive education program and voting as a congregation to affirm that we welcome the membership and active participation of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
We live out this commitment in different ways, including participation in and support of Pride activities in the community; addressing LGBTQ2S+ issues in some of our Sunday services; and advocacy (e.g., speaking out against the Saskatchewan government’s 2024 pronoun law). But we know the work of welcoming is ongoing. We strive to keep learning how to practice radical inclusion.