WISC Working Groups
Learn more about the Washington Interfaith Staff Community’s working groups:
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The Interfaith Criminal Justice Coalition engages in federal advocacy campaigns to address mass incarceration in the United States to policies that restore equity, end excessive punishments, promote alternatives to incarceration, encourage rehabilitation and reintegration and protect the dignity and well-being of everyone impacted by the criminal justice system.
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The Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition (IDAC) mobilizes the religious community to take action on disability policy with Congress, the President and Administration, and society-at-large. IDAC is a diverse, nonpartisan coalition of thirty-three national religious organizations whose core spiritual values affirm the rights and dignity of people with disabilities.
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The Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs focuses on domestic poverty. The group does its work through subcommittees, focused around four priority issues: (1) Budget and Tax; (2) Hunger; (3) Jobs, Economy, and Labor; and (4) Housing.
▻ Contact the Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs
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The Interfaith Working Group on Drone Warfare works in collaboration with the Interfaith Drone Network to challenge the use of armed drones by the US government. In addition to working on DC based advocacy the Network and Working Group have helped to organize a number of regional educational events.
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The Interreligious Working Group on Extractive Industries engages in education, solidarity and advocacy around the harms to the environment and human communities of mining, oil and gas drilling, deforestation and other forms of extracting natural resources. We are prioritizing the need for safeguards around mining for minerals used in the transition to renewable energy, support for communities’ right to say “no” to mining, and reducing illegal deforestation through trade.
▻ Contact the Interreligious Working Group on Extractive Industries
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Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice is a movement of over fifty partners and allies of the ecumenical Christian community with shared traditions of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Their goal, through worship, theological reflection and opportunities for learning and witness, is to strengthen their Christian voice and to mobilize for advocacy on a wide variety of U.S. domestic and international policy issues
▻ Contact Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice
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The Energy and Environment Working Group advocates to collaborate and coordinate on federal and international environmental advocacy. This group currently centers on supporting climate finance, conservation, and clean energy funding in the federal budget; public lands; environmental justice; and defending existing environmental/climate legislation and regulations.
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The Working Group on Faithful Democracy looks at the issue of money in politics from both a faith and legislative perspective, using the issues of climate change, gun violence prevention, and immigration/private prisons as catalysts. The group seeks to remove the "roadblock" of money in politics by advocating for overturning the Citizens’ United ruling and passage of some form of public financing to stop the corrosive influence of money in politics.
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The Interfaith Working Group on Foreign Assistance advocates with Congress and the Administration in support of robust U.S. humanitarian and poverty-focused international assistance.
▻ Contact the Interfaith Working Group on Foreign Assistance
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The Interfaith Working Group on Global Hunger & Food Security promotes policy solutions to food security that favor small holder farmers and agroecology as the most economically and environmentally sustainable methods of ending the crisis of world hunger. The group opposes the agro-industrial model that favors transnational corporations and chemically-dependent agriculture as a false solution to global hunger.
▻ Contact the Interfaith Working Group on Global Hunger & Food Security
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The Health Care Working Group works on U.S. health care policy including Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP and the Affordable Care Act. Our work encompasses protection of existing health care safety net programs and supporting legislation that increases access to good, quality health care.
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The Human Trafficking Working Group focuses on lifting up the issue of Human Trafficking from the voice of the faith community. The group Ieads grassroots education/coordination.
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The Interfaith Immigration Coalition advocates for just and equitable immigration policies and educates and mobilizes faith communities nationally to protect the rights and dignity of immigrants and refugees.
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The Native American Concerns Working Group supports legislation that would mitigate the damage done to Native American communities and individuals by U.S. government actions and inaction, based on the Doctrine of Discovery. Advocates bills or funding pertaining to education, health care, religious freedom and sacred sites, tribal justice, and self-determination.
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The Interfaith Peace and Security Working Group coordinates a faithful response to military spending in the federal budget and challenges the militarized foreign policy that our imbalanced budget supports. The group engages the intersecting issues of nuclear weapons and peacebuilding alternatives in its efforts to strengthen the education and advocacy work of WISC related to military spending.
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The Working Group on Racial Justice works with WISC member organizations to provide a forum to do interpersonal and organizational anti-racism work and power analysis, to ground WISC’s policy work in racial justice principles, and to coordinate contributions to the national conversation on race.