In Montgomery the March to Fulfill the Dream met up with Georgette Norman, the director of the Rosa Parks Museum and she graciously share with us some of her wisdom.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, gardening, georgette norman, march to fulfill the dream, montgomery, PPEHRC, rosa parks, USSF 2010

Context:

According to 2008 census figures forty million Americans, roughly 13.2 percent of the population, live below the official poverty threshold of $22,080 for a family of four. This is an increase of 2.5 million in the last year.

However even this outdated figure is based on a faulty definition of poverty. The United States definition of poverty is based upon a 1960’s determination that Americans spend 1/3 of our after tax money on food, when today we spend about 1/7 of our income on food while the costs of housing, child care, health care, and transportation have grown disproportionately. Our current poverty figures obscure the high numbers of low-wage jobs and jobs with no health benefits, which indicate that many more people, by some estimates as many as 90 million, or about 30 percent of Americans, struggle to make ends meet. Thirty-five million, most of them children, live in households than cannot consistently afford enough to eat. Indeed when you take the PPEHRC definition of poverty: “the inability to meet one or more of your basic human needs,” the percentage of those who are poor is clearly many times higher than reported.

There used to exist a social contract in the United States The social contract is the understanding between the people and their government that determines how people’s needs are met and how social order is maintained. For generations, the old social contract represented the American Dream: employer-based health care for the entire family, pension and retirement, good living wages, the opportunity to own a home and receive a higher education, and much more. When we say the old social contract has failed us, this is not just theory and talk. We see the very real results of a broken social contract reflected in the plight of millions of poor and low-income Americans and our government’s current priorities. The following statistics only begin to demonstrate how the old social contract has been unraveling since the 1970’s:

• In 1980, CEOs made 142 times the average paid worker. In 2008, CEOs made a whopping 611 times the average worker. In comparison other countries set limits, so that CEOs only make a certain amount (such as 20 times) more than the lowest paid worker.

• Since 1990, if the minimum wage was to increase according to increases in CEO pay, the national minimum wage would be $40.49/hour today. It is $7.25/hour today instead.

• Today, Fifty three percent of workers have no pensions.

• Today, there are 150 million underinsured and 47 million uninsured (of which 9 million are children).

• Social Security benefits are now on average $900 a month per person and are quickly decreasing whereas the cost of living has steadily risen nationwide.

• Since 2008 there have been 300,000 foreclosures per month, a seventy five percent increase in foreclosures each year since 2005.

• There are 2 million people in jail today (which is more than China, North Korea, Iraq, etc.).

• Military spending is fifty four percent of the US government’s budget today whereas social welfare funding makes up only one to two percent of government spending.

• The experts predict unemployment will keep rising and stay high even after the economy is officially declared “in recovery” from the latest recession.


In the mid-1960’s there was public policy for a war on poverty. No such war on poverty has existed for many decades. In our 2008 presidential campaign, there was much rhetoric about helping the middle class, but no talk about the issues of the poor.

Instead of a war on poverty, there has been a war on the poor and a dehumanization of the poor. Examples abound. Cities across the country have passed loitering and other ordinances to keep the homeless out of downtowns and the view of its residents. The failure to replace New Orleans’s public housing and public hospital has been ground zero of a policy of economic cleansing.

Attacking the problem of poverty in the world’s richest country will take many approaches and the participation of many sectors of society. But without the participation and leadership of poor people themselves – those most directly affected – success will remain elusive.

As we work to build this unsettling force we face the enormous challenges from a power structure that has been successfully able to divide the poor against each other in a way that has made a coalescing of the poor difficult. They have pit interests against interests (Medicare vs. the medically uninsured, childcare vs. elderly services, homeless vs. homeowners). They have pit values against values (pro-life vs. pro-choice, welfare vs. minimum wage workers, God loving persons vs. heathens). They have pit the urban poor against the rural poor with racial undertones underscoring the divide.

To successfully build the unsettling force we need to shift the focus from competing interests and values to universally human rights. We need to consistently put front and center our economic human rights: the rights to food, clothing, housing, health care, education and living wage jobs. We cannot allow the poor and the consequences of poverty to remain hidden, and we cannot allow a “blaming of the victim” syndrome of those who are poor.


Action Plan


As we organize to build the unsettling force, our fight is to end poverty, not just manage it. In fighting for social justice:

• We need to continue broadening and politicizing the movement.

• We need to use more direct actions; do not be silent!

• We need testimonies that are not just about the suffering but also about possible solutions

• We have to unite!





National

From a national perspective actions over the next year will be focused in two directions: Highlighting the issues of poverty and the poor and legislative change


Highlighting the issues of poverty and the consequences of being poor

We must continue to shine a harsh light on poverty in the United States. We must do systematic documentation of human rights violations using the website and public events. Specific events over the course of the next year will include but not be limited to the following:


Be a participant toward raising issues of the poor in Pittsburgh at the time of the G-20 Conference. We will co-sponsor the September 20 Poor Peoples March for Jobs, participate in the week long tent city, and participate and lead other activities raising the issues of the poor during the week of September 20-25
Support and participate with the National Jobs for All Coalition with their First Friday Actions. On the first Friday of every month the Labor Department releases the previous months unemployment numbers, making it a time when unemployment and joblessness gets media attention. First Friday actions will include news conferences, vigils, pickets and other actions demanding jobs and an effective safety net.
March to highlight the issues of poverty from the Southbelt to the Rustbelt. In the Spring of 2010, a march will begin in the gulf coast of Mississippi and end at Detroit at the time of the U.S. Social Forum.
At the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June, 2010 continue the focus on eliminating poverty through actions and activities.


National Legislative Change

The Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign had put together an out of policy statement focused on the Rights to health care, housing and living wage jobs. This statement is intended to be promoted through the poverty caucus in Congress. In light of the conference in Louisville this statement was amended and added to. Below is the current statement


Out of Poverty Statement from PPEHRC


As we look to join the Out of Poverty Caucus in a national campaign to end poverty, the use of economic human rights should serve as an overall moral and legal imperative of what we should expect.

On October 7, 2008 in the second presidential debate, Barak Obama stated that health care is a human right. Since he recognizes health care as a human right, it is hoped that he recognizes the other economic human rights as well including the right to food, housing, clothing, education, and living wage jobs. As we frame our issues toward eradicating poverty, we should position our issues within the context of fulfilling our economic human rights, particularly using the full Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a guide:


“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Consequently, below are policy statements that PPEHRC promotes:


With health care as a human right, we must have a health care system that is universal and guaranteed all equitably regardless of financial position. Over the last decades, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that this cannot be accomplished in the United States under private, market controlled system. Therefore, we must adopt HR 676 or the “United States National Health Insurance Act,” which would provide universal health coverage to all individuals in the United States and its territories. HR 676 would create a single payer, not for profit health care system, improving access to care for all and eliminating covered benefit health care costs for individual.


With all having a right to a standard of living adequate for the well being of ourselves and of our families including housing. We must transform housing from a commodity based on speculation and private profit to a human right guaranteed to every person regardless of income or situation. we can not tolerate 3.5 million people being homeless during the year, 1.25 million of them children, a figure that is rising as a result of the current economic downturn, and renters being displaced due to housing foreclosures. To provide for adequate housing, we must pass comprehensive legislation such as a strengthened “Bring America Home Act” that would affirm that housing is a human right and with the clear objective eliminating homelessness. Such legislation should:
Create new, affordable and adequate housing units through a dedicated and expanded federal Housing Trust Fund and other measures that will provide affordable rental properties for low income persons and families.
Create new decentralized additional public housing units
Greatly expand the number of housing vouchers (a minimum of 1,500,0000 new vouchers over 10 years)
Turn over vacant and foreclosed properties as subsidized housing
Establish protections for tenants facing evictions due to foreclosure.
Guarantee rental protections including from forced evictions and harassment.
For those who are still homeless, protection of their civil rights including the right to vote, to frequent public places, to utilize public facilities, and to enjoy equal protection of the law.
h) Ensure that the more than 688,000 homeless children in our public school systems are fully integrated with their housed peers, are provided support to succeed in school, and have homes in which to grow and thrive.

Consider the full scope of federal housing subsidies and take action to balance the disparity between housing subsidies for wealthy people and for poor people
Ensure that decent and safe housing is available to all at a cost that is affordable to every person and family


We also support the reintroduction and t the passage of the following legislation

Senate Bill 1668: The Gulf Coast Recovery Act. This legislation will speed up the repair and rebuilding of homes and affordable rental housing in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina; ensure continued rental assistance for both families that have moved back to their home areas and for families displaced by these hurricanes; and provide reimbursements to communities and landlords that were generous in providing assistance to hurricane evacuees in the aftermath of the storms.
House Resolution 582: supporting the right to housing for all children together with their families. The resolution recognizes that as Americans, we believe our children shouldn’t be denied the right to be housed together with their families based on what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you make.
3. Article 23 (3) of the International Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity (and decent living as stated in Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), and supplemented, if necessary by other means of protection.” Notwithstanding this human right, one third or more Americans are not receiving living wages for themselves and their families. Nothing illustrates this more that the fact that 42% of the 3.5 million persons who are homeless, have jobs. Therefore we must pass legislation that mandates a universal living wage. Such a living wage should allow persons and families to have to pay no more than 30% of the income for housing and allow families to be able to adequately pay for food, child care, clothing and other necessities. Furthermore, as unemployment continues to rise, we must have a job creation program that guarantees living wage-jobs.

At the same time, for those, who are unable to work, we must provide for a guaranteed income that allows individuals and families to meet their basic needs. Such an income should not be restricted to a five year time limit as current TANF regulations require.


Local, Regional, State

Although the national actions and activities shine a light and document the issues of the poor across the country, it is through our local, regional and state actions in which we have the greatest opportunity achieve substantive victories and systemic change. Below are some recommendations put forth at the Louisville conference.


State Budgets

Critical funding for welfare, health care, housing, child care, education and other critical needs comes from our state budgets. In these tough economic times, with state revenue not being adequately generated, we are seeing across that states across the country (Ohio, California and Pennsylvania to name just three) are choosing to balance their budgets by severely cutting or eliminating crucial services to the poor that were already inadequately funded.

The poor and our allies must become knowledgeable and sophisticated

In the budget processes in our states to fight the cuts and demand additional resources for our economic human rights. We need to document the stories of what the cuts and inadequate funding will mean to those who use the service and programs and continually publicize them along with other actions in our communities and with the legislators. We must demand that the legislatures raise revenue progressively to fund critical needs.


Housing

As the housing foreclosures continue unabated, it continues to be devastating to low income communities. At the same time the number of homeless continues to dramatically rise. To reclaim our right to housing there are several strategies that we should incorporate

Demands and activities for foreclosure relief including a moratorium on foreclosures
Housing takeovers of vacant foreclosed properties
Sit-ins (refusal to leave) in homes that have been foreclosed with the support and participation of neighbors in the community
Tent cities to dramatize the homelessness crisis
At the same time we must demand local low income housing units, and an end to vagrancy and curfew laws that are designed to keep those who are homeless hidden

In the gulf coast we must continue to support organizing efforts and continue to organize to replace low income housing for the poor in the region.


Education, Youth in the Movement

We have an education system that warehouses our children in the inner city and poor communities. Story after story was told how there is little interest in education in many of our communities with the emphasis on keeping order and regimentation. Adequate resources in the schools are lacking. Efforts to change the system should be led by the youth themselves with active support from the parents and the community.


Religion and Faith Communities

A successful movement to end poverty must integrate the faith communities into the movement. The movement must reach out

To churches and faith groups who can be substantial allies and participants in our actions. At the same time we must build bridges between the faith groups. This can be accomplished by concentrating on the similarities between the religious partners, and having face to face meetings.


Arts and Culture

Incorporating arts and artists in a movement to end poverty can have a profound effect in the movement, Musicians, filmmakers, painters, writers, graffiti artists, photographers, poets, DJs (and so many more) collectively monitor the pulse of the people. It is the artists who can take advantage of the positive possibilities that have emerged alongside the upsurge of poverty. Through their artistry—songs or spray can pieces, poems or plays, on screens or canvases--they express the hope, faith, and truth that resides in our souls.

Consequently, it must be an ongoing priority to integrate arts and culture in all activities in the movement to end poverty. This should be accomplished both by including artists in all actions as well as mentoring new artists into the movement.


Social Workers

How social workers can be active in the movement to end poverty:

Build SWAA chapters
In existing SWAA chapters, social workers can plan reality tours or truth commissions to highlight EHR violations in their communities. There was a lot of discussion about reciprocal relationships, esp. re: reality tours. How do reality tours benefit the (members of the) communities being “toured”?
Work with schools of social work to: offer field placements with PPEHRC groups, educate about economic human rights, develop guidelines for field instruction that include content on macro change, develop service learning opportunities, bring PPEHRC leaders to campus (and always try to use university money to offer honorariums).
Challenge other social work organizations- NASW, ACOSA, others- to focus on social & economic justice and human rights
Challenge Council for Social Work Education to include content on economic human rights and organizing in social work programs.
Educate and call for change within social service organizations (non-profit or otherwise)
Social workers can join and learn from PPEHRC groups.
Use Invisible Theater/Theater of the Oppressed models
Assist PPEHRC groups with organizational resources - photocopies, meeting space, etc.
How direct practice workers can be active in the movement in their work

Document economic human rights violations and talk about economic human rights- (rights, not "privileges")
Link people to PPEHRC groups
Breaking rules; bending rules - saying things you are not supposed to say. Prioritize rights over eligibility criteria
Educate people with resources about what people are doing to help themselves - connect the resources with the people.
Build authentic relationships across class-lines.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty

Eyes & Ears
Seeing is Believing
Source: http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0911&article=seeing-is-believing

Creating a better world first requires an act of imagination.
by Danny Duncan Collum

One day this past July I abandoned my blueberry patch to drive to Louisville and sit in a gathering of artists and activists—black, white, and Latino—who all said they wanted to help change the world. There were teenage rappers from the Mississippi Delta and young video artists from southeast Louisiana. It was a workshop session at the national conference of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

The campaign, made up of more than 90 organizations around the country, aims to “unite the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty … through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.” Some of the campaign’s affiliates do things such as mass occupations of property to prevent home foreclosures. The campaign itself marched on the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last year and is planning a march from the Mississippi Delta to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in 2010. They seem to be picking up the banner of the Poor People’s Campaign that fell after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968.

Not long ago, talk of changing the world, much less abolishing poverty, would draw, at best, a cynical snort. But that was before “yes, we can” and all that. Today, hope is still a four-letter word, but you can say it in public again. But as we near the end of the first Obama year, it is also becoming painfully clear that even electing a smart and sane former community organizer—with big majorities in Congress to boot—was not enough to change the world. The last time I checked, big money still held the upper hand in Washington. There’s been a lot more help to mega-banks than to foreclosure victims. The smart and sane solution on health-care reform (single-payer) never even got a hearing, while the insurance and pharmaceutical companies were stroked and placated at every turn.

But presidents don’t change the world. People do. Presidents are pulled along behind great waves of popular uprising. That’s what happened during our last Great Depression, and Franklin Roosevelt knew it. That’s why he once famously told a group of progressive activists that he agreed with their proposal. “Now,” he said, “go make me do it.” And that’s what happened again in the 1960s when the civil rights movement forced President Kennedy to become a better man than he ever meant to be.

The Poor People’s Campaign meeting I attended this summer focused on the role of artists in a grassroots movement for economic human rights. Again, looking back at those two great periods of social change in the 20th century, they both were accompanied by a renaissance of popular art. Writers, artists, actors, painters, and photographers all had a place in the New Deal and the labor movement that fueled it. In the 1960s, African-American religion and music fueled the civil rights movement and all the ripples of social change it inspired. Acting for a better world requires, first and foremost, an act of imagination. You have to see the potential for change—in yourself and in your community. That act of the imagination can even lead one to see, as one rapper put it in Louisville, “that capitalist society is not eternal.”

That’s why, to the Poor People’s Campaign organizers, the arts aren’t just an add-on to political action. They are powerful motivators that can crack the shell of our American isolation.

Danny Duncan Collum, a Sojourners contributing writer, teaches writing at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky.



Seeing is Believing. by Danny Duncan Collum. Sojourners Magazine, November 2009 (Vol. 38, No. 10, pp. 55). Eyes & Ears.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, Martin Luther King, Obama, PPEHRC, Sojourner Mazagine

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, Cheri Honkala, Gathering of Hearts, PPEHRC, SWAA, WIT

By Emily Udell
eudell@courier-journal.com
July 17, 2009

Several hundred people blocked traffic on Broadway and Fourth Street Friday afternoon as they marched through downtown to draw attention to economic and social justice issues.

The march was part of a conference on poverty that has attracted some 300 social workers, academics, working people and labor activists to Spalding University this weekend.

"The goal of this demonstration today is to lift the voices of poor people across the country," said Khalilah Collins, executive director of Women in Transition, a Louisville group that helped organize the event. "All we have is our voices; we don't have lobbyists."

Collins said participants were trying to showcase issues faced by low-income people, including a need for affordable housing, living wages and access to education. She said these are problems that members of her organization have faced since long before the onset of the global economic crisis.

"This crisis is not new to us," she said. "We've always been homeless; we've always faced having our gas and lights turned off."

The march began at about 3:30 p.m. at Memorial Park at Fourth and Kentucky streets and wove through the downtown. Participants blocked rush-hour traffic as they paraded down Broadway and marched up Fourth Street, carrying signs with anti-poverty messages.

"The people took back the streets," said Fairness Campaign director Chris Hartman, who came to show his support. "It was a moment of empowerment."

The demonstration concluded in Jefferson Square, at Sixth and Jefferson streets, where participants listened to speakers and joined in chants for "Unity!" until about 5 p.m.

Many of the demonstration's participants were attending a weekend conference at Spalding titled "Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to End Poverty," which was sponsored by the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign and the Social Welfare Alliance. The conference included research presentations, workshops and tours showcasing local activists' efforts to combat economic problems in Louisville.

Whit Forrester, 25, said he was energized by the grassroots nature of the march and conference, and likened the work of participating groups to that of Ella Baker, a civil rights activist who began a long career of activism in the 1930s.

"The work that happens like this—a movement for the people, by the people and of the people—has a greater capacity to succeed," Forrester said.

Readers can reach reporter Emily Udell at (502) 582-4199.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, PPEHRC, SWAA, WIT

Posted: Jul 17, 2009 6:04 PM EDT Updated: Jul 17, 2009 6:26 PM EDT

By Paige Quiggins
Original Article: http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=10746803

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign hosted its 11th annual march to end poverty on July 17.

Hundreds of people took part in the march that started in Memorial Park at 3:30 Friday afternoon. Their goal: to put an end to human suffering. The march began with participants shouting "What do we want? Healthcare! When do we want it? Now!" as they proceeded from Memorial Park down 4th Street toward downtown Louisville.

The crowd shouted in excitement, fists clenched in the air, as children chanted "Save my mommy's home!" and "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Poverty has got to go!"

According to PPEHRC member Arun Prabhakaran, the march was put together by hundreds of organizations around the country through local chapters, such as Louisville's Women In Transition.

PPEHRC national organizer Cheri Honkala said the event expected over 500 individuals to step up and voice their concerns. Honkala, a mother of two who was once homeless, said she believed the economic crisis affecting poverty was worse in the South than the North, but the hit has affected everyone.

"Everybody in this country are all a paycheck or healthcare crisis away from homelessness," said Honkala. "Any day could be your turn."

According to Honkala, the organization is also trying to help those going through foreclosures, people without healthcare and others suffering from the recession.

Executive director of Women in Transition, Khalilah Collins, said her local organization was happy to participate in the march because they are attempting to help the women and children affected by the economy.

"In Louisville, we've found women are losing their children, due to poverty reasons," Collins said. "That's being called neglect. Living in your car is neglect. Having no LG&E is neglect. It's an economic human rights violation."

For more information, visit www.economichumanrights.org

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, PPEHRC, SWAA, WIT

By Jere Downs
jdowns@courier-journal.com

Cheri Honkala began her activist career as a single mother on welfare, leading raucous squatting campaigns in North Philadelphia through the 1990s to raise awareness about housing shortages and economic injustice. This weekend the 47-year-old activist leads a national conference at Spalding University.

An estimated 300 social workers, academics, working people, and labor activists are expected to attend "Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference To End Poverty."

"It is so urgent right now," Honkala, 47, said in an interview about the conference's goal to organize poor people to combat housing, education, and economic issues.

"It is like seeing children and families on a railroad track. It is not really a choice whether you push them off to safety."

Now, Honkala is the national organizer of the Poor People's Human Rights Campaign, a national nonprofit group organizing in Philadelphia, Minnesota, and the Missisippi delta areas, among others areas. For sponsors, Honkala's organization teamed up with the local chapter of Women In Transition, a nonprofit advocacy group for poor famliies, and the Social Welfare Action Alliance, a nonprofit group with chapters in Denver, Chicago and elsewhere.

"There are probably a dozen conferences around poverty each year," said Jennifer R. Jewell, a social work professor at Spalding University and co-founder of Women In Transition in Louisville. "What is important about this conference is it is directly led by people who are on the front line. It is such hard work to do what we do. This really rejuvenates us each year."

Presentations of research on poverty and workshops on activism make up a long agenda held at the Egan Leadership Center at 4th and Breckinridge Streets Friday and Saturday. Speakers from Nashville, Tenn., New Orleans, La., and Tampa, Florida are among those who will share expertise. Participants can also take "poverty tours," in the region, narrated by local activists who will talk about Louisville-area issues will also take place Friday and Saturday, departing from Spalding.

Reporter Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669.

If you go

Additional Facts
What: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference To End Poverty
Where: Egan Leadership Center, Spalding University, 4th & Breckinridge Streets
When: Thursday-Sunday.Cost: Many events are free. Some conference registration fees may apply.
For more information: contact Khalilah V. Collins at (502) 432-2029.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, Cheri Honkala, Courier-Journal, Jennifer Jewell, Khalilah Collins

Dear friends,

The International Alliance of Inhabitants congratulates you on your conference, Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty (Kentucky, July 16-19, 2009), which is a very important step in the creation of an independent body striving for structural change in the United States.

Indeed, although the Obama administration represents a certain break with the past, we must still take up the challenge of the struggles of the poor, workers, women, youth and seniors of all colour to open up spaces, win rights and obtain support policies.

Because your struggles and triumphs are significant not only in the United States but also on a global level, we would like to develop with you an experience exchange and the establishment of international solidarity.

In this regard, we would like to inform you that, thanks to our united action, we have succeeded in arranging two international missions whose aim will be to examine how the right to housing is respected in your country. The first mission, organized by the UN-Habitat’s Advisory Group on Forced Evictions will take place in New Orleans from July 26-31, 2009, and the second one, which will be at the national level, will be in November 2009 under the aegis of the UN Special Rapporteur for Housing Rights.

For all these reasons, we invite you to participate in the process of creating the World Assembly of Inhabitants (WSF Dakar, January 2011), an initiative that aims to create a shared space that is global and supportive and that is based not only on recognizing cultural diversity, but also on complementarity and equilibrium in respecting our right to organize ourselves independently as an international urban movement by establishing the Urban Way (Vía Urbana).

The goal of this space will be to promote initiatives of shared and supportive action to defend our legitimate right to housing and to the city in the face of neoliberal globalization, to be build together another possible world and other possible cities.

To do this, we can already count on the support of more than 200 organizations in more than 40 countries, as well as, following the WSF in Belem, on all the international networks working in the field of the right to housing and to the city.

The next stage is the establishment of united WAI promoter committees at the national and international level, and, given your commitment and strong involvement in this area, we would like to count on your participation in this initiative.

Therefore, we invite you to fully participate in the development of this process, starting with the creation of initiatives that will take on the struggle in the context of the World Zero Evictions Days (October 2009), and by taking into account that preparatory meetings of the WAI are on the agenda during the World Days for the Right to Housing (Bobigny, France, November 15-22, 2009) and the World Urban Forum (Rio de Janeiro, March 22-26, 2010).

Finally, in wishing you a successful conference, we invite you to send us its results, which we will make available globally on www.habitants.org.

We look forward to your comments and suggestions.



Ciao in solidarity,

Cesare Ottolini

IAI coordinator

PDF of this message:

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, IAI, International Alliance of Inhabitants, PPEHRC, Social Welfare Action Alliance, SWAA