WEAP Executive Director Ethel Long-Scott flew to Cairo, Egypt, in December, accepting an invitation to bring WEAP’s perspective to her second international conference of 2009.  The first, held near Paris in March, gathered organizers of the world’s dispossessed and downtrodden looking for ways to make their voices louder on the world stage.  The Cairo conference brought together leading thinkers concerned that globalization is making the world less democratic. “This conference started a public discussion on things that working people need to be talking about,” Ethel said afterward.

Eduardo Loredo leans against the wall of the cardiology clinic at Children's Mercy Hospital. Slouched like a kid at his locker, with a blue backpack slung over his left shoulder, the 14-year-old wears the look of casual indifference that matches his wardrobe: baggy Dickies' pants low on his hips, an oversized Ecko hoodie that blares its brand in black lettering across the front. Eduardo stares past twin boys playing with magnets that cause tiny wooden cars to glide across a tabletop. He doesn't flinch when another young boy's excited laughter collapses into a rattling wheeze. He's twice as tall as the other patients here, but he blends into an otherwise Disney-tinged setting.