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Events
A Bold Agenda for Change: Voices from the Front Lines of the Economic Crisis
Cannon House Office Building 300 New Jersey Ave SE, Washington, DC, United StatesRepresentatives from poverty-fighting networks from across the United States will testify at an ad-hoc hearing hosted by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
The people who will testify come from all over the United States: from Los Angeles to New York; from New Orleans to Boston. They include people most severely affected by the economic crisis, including day laborers, domestic workers, and people fighting the eviction of people from their homes. This event is part of an effort to forge a bold agenda that creates good jobs and advances economic and environmental justice here and abroad.
Members of the Inter-Alliance Dialogue — an emerging coalition of networks representing domestic workers, janitors, day laborers, housing activists, worker rights advocates, and others from the front lines of the economic crisis — will speak, including:
Jobs with Justice: Sarita Gupta and Elce Redmond
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance: Jihan Gearon and Tammy Bang Luu
National Day Laborers Organizing Network: Jacinta Gonzales
Right to the City: Roxan McKinnon, Wanda Salaman, and Melonie Griffiths
National Domestic Workers Alliance: Jocelyn Gill-Campbell
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Panel Discussion: ‘Meltdown: Economic Collapse, a Peoples Plan for Recovery’
Cobo Hall 1 Washington Blvd #401, Detroit, MI, United StatesNational and local political leaders will join a panel of esteemed economists and journalists for a town hall discussion of the economic collapse and how Detroit — and the country — can recover. Putting the needs of workers and citizens (not bankers and stock market speculators) at the center of the conversation, the panel will examine local solutions as well as the role of Detroit in the national economy.
The event marks the publication of Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Nation Books, 2009) by Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel and other editors at the magazine.
Moderated by The Nation Magazine’s John Nichols, this discussion will feature:
Documentarian and activist Michael Moore (invited)
Representative John Conyers (D-MI)
Bestselling author Barbara Ehrenreich
Detroit City Council Woman and Radio Host Jo Ann Watson
Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Elena Herrada, co-chair and founding member of the Committee for the Political Resurrection of Detroit
This event will also preview national and local organizing efforts leading up to the 2010 United States Social Forum (USSF), to be held in Detroit. The USSF is a convening of hundreds of thousands of social and economic justice advocates from around the country chartering a course for a reversal of inequality at home and abroad.
Roundtable Discussion: The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Africa
George Washington University, Marvin Center Amphitheatre 800 21st St NW, Washington, DC, United StatesThe Institute for Policy Studies and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Present a roundtable discussion, moderated by Foreign Policy In Focus co-director Emira Woods, that will attempt to answer some of the following questions:
What is the impact on women, workers, and small-holder farmers? What are the challenges but also the opportunities that the crisis presents for the continent? What is Africa’s economic outlook? Is the continent in a better position to weather this crisis than it was in the '80s and '90s? Could the crisis bring an end to the Washington Consensus? What are the opportunities for structural change that meets the needs of people and the planet?
List of speakers:
Jose Gijon, Chief Africa economist and Head of the Africa Desk, OECD Development Centre Regina Amadi, Former Head of Africa, International Labor Organization Tony Avignan, Economic Policy Institute Briggs Bomba, Associate Director, Africa Action Leonce Ndkumana, Director of Development Research, African Development Bank
This event is co-sponsored by Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Africa Action, Transafrica Forum John Hopkins School of Advanced Studies, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, American University’s Africa Council, and the Foreign Policy In Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Discussion: Housing Struggles Worldwide
IPS Conference Room 1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC, United StatesAshraf Cassiem, the chairperson of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign will speak about some of the realities of post-apartheid South Africa, the campaign's organizing efforts in poor communities, obstacles facing social movement-building in Africa, and the anti-foreclosure activism emerging in some of the US cities he will be visiting, including Washington, DC.
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, based in Cape Town, South Africa, was formed in November 2000 with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.
The AEC is currently an umbrella body for over 15 community organizations, crisis committees, and concerned residents' movements who have come together to organize and demand their rights to basic services.
Africa Action and the Institute for Policy Studies will be cohosting this discussion and lunch-in. To RSVP or for more information, please contact Michael Stulman at Michael Stulman africaaction.org or 202-546-7961.