The Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) is committed to attaining economic human rights for all people. In a land of abundance, there is no reason anyone should not have their basic human needs met. WEAP is diligently working to organize the poor, working, and unemployed into a force to achieve a vision of a world without poverty and despair, a world that Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of in his Poor People's Campaign of 1968.
The individual mandate is one of the most popular, but also one of the most confusing health care reform proposals being put forward by leading presidential candidates and state legislation. Click below to read WEAP's informative Myth and Facts Sheet that sets the record straight by breaking down what an individual mandate really is and the effects it would have on our workers and families.
John Lewis, now a U.S. Congressman, was barely 21 years old when he organized the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Tennessee. At 22, with one suit and little money, Lewis moved to Alabama in order to lead the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Throughout history, young people have played a critical role in movements for social change, though never as pronounced as in the 1960’s.
Once upon a time there was a defiant girl named Cara. Cara had a lot of pain in her life, but from whom or what she did not know. It did not matter to her for she lived each day partying like it was her last. She did not care what she did, who she hurt, or if it really was her last day. She always assumed she would die young, probably in a car accident like her beloved uncle. He was the only person she ever identified with. This was her only sense of something beyond her; she believed it was her fate. So she went through life assuming she would never live to see the consequences of her actions. Then, one night, on a dark, country, highway, her speeding car plunged down a steep, wooded ravine. The journey out of that ravine would change her forever.
As the saying goes, "Knowledge is Power" and the people of WEAP are living it. They tell it like it is, keeping it real and walking the walk, not just talking the talk. I attended their first teach-in last month to let them know what is going on in their sister city across the bay. As a nurse and a nurse practitioner with the city and county of San Francisco for over 11 years, my practice with people without health insurance and even those that do but don't like their care, has become a real daily struggle for me.
"We, the poor, jobless, downsized, uninsured victims of welfare reform and others abused by the institutions of domination are no longer silent. We are moving forward with the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer and so many freedom fighters to improve the lives of Americans."
-Portia Anderson, WEAP
Upcoming Events
| 05/15/08 | Truth Commission- Health Care: A Human Right - Oakland, CA |
| 06/18/08 | Teach-In & Dialogue- Health Care: A Human Right - Oakland, CA |
| 10/10/08 | Town Meeting - Health Care: A Human Right - Oakland, CA |