Representatives from faith communities nationwide met with Reverend Joshua DuBois, Director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, today, to discuss the ongoing violence in Sudan.

As part of its recently launched campaign, Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, AJWS has issued an appeal asking supporters to donate the money they would have spent on food, were they not fasting on Yom Kippur, to AJWS-supported communities building local farming capacity in the developing world.

As part of a national hunger awareness campaign to be formally launched this September, AJWS has published a new resource pack, “Sealed for a year of plenty: Challenging the destiny of hunger,” for rabbis and other Jewish educators wishing to use the High Holidays as an opportunity to address global hunger.

AJWS has recently awarded more than $3.2 million to 151 grassroots project partners in 28 countries. The new grants are divided into five categories, which include sustainable livelihoods and development, community health, community voice, education for all, and community engagement in conflict and emergencies. They provide funding to organizations in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

AJWS is pleased to announce that Laura Talmus has joined its senior staff as the organization’s western regional executive director. In this role, Talmus will be responsible for overseeing all operations in the western United States, including increasing AJWS’s base of donors and grassroots activists.

AJWS president Ruth W. Messinger has been appointed to serve on the Obama administration’s Task Force on Global Poverty and Development. The task force was created by the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which is working to identify areas in which improved, expanded and innovative partnerships between government and faith-based community organizations will yield results in serving individuals, families and communities.

AJWS has announced that Barbara Dobkin will serve as its new board chair, the organization’s principal lay leadership position.

AJWS, long involved in the fight against the genocide in Darfur, expressed concern today that the Obama administration is sending contradictory signals in recognizing the magnitude of what has taken place and continues to occur on the ground in Darfur.