Events Archive

International Housing Hearing                                                                                             
In 2005, the Poor People's Campaign is granted international hearing on housing rights violations.  Social Justice ManagerJanine Grantham provided testimony on WEAP's behalf.

WEAP's State of the Budget Report                                                                               
Read WEAP's position on the state budget from 2005.

Martin Luther King Health Care Speak-Out & Teach-In                                             
On January 27, 2005, WEAP, SEIU 790 and CHAM co-sponsored a teach-in and speak-out on the healthcare crisis in our community. We heard powerful testimony from SISTERS recovery program and the Committee of Interns and Residents as well as from the co-sponsors on the problems facing our community and the need for real solutions. We spent much of the night educating each other on the Just Health Care Campaign.

WEAP hosts the Women's Trade Union Leadership Exchange                                        
On January 12, 2005, WEAP hosted visitors from Brazil's Unitary Central of Workers, Guyana's Teacher Congress, the Nigerian Labor Congress, and South Africa's textile and clothing union. These four trade women union leaders have struggled in their own countries for the rights of workers and women and joined WEAP to talk of the importance of coming together on a global level. WEAP spoke to our sisters about the struggles of poor and working women in America, a message they very rarely get outside of America. As Violet Seboni of South Africa said, "the important thing now is to think big because our struggles are your struggles, your wins are our wins. We must unite across the globe to gain rights for all our people."

United Food and Commercial Workers Rally                                                           
December 8, 2004                                                                                                                    
WEAP Executive Director, Ethel Long-Scott, spoke to grocery workers whose long and hard fought battles for health care and wage benefits that are now being stripped from them.

SEIU 250 and California Nurses Association Community Health Forum               
WEAP, alongside other outraged patients, advocates, and healthcare workers spoke out against the five-day lockout of Sutter healthcare workers. Hearing horrific stories of all-day waits in emergency rooms, to misdiagnoses of critical illnesses, we stood unified in support of the workers’ battle to make our hospitals decent.

Faith Meeting                                                                                                                          
The fight to overcome poverty is both a spiritual and an economic battle. In a half-day workshop co-hosted by WEAP and CHAM, we broadened the discussion of "moral values" to include our basic economic human rights such as the rights to housing, health care, and living-wage jobs. For more info, read our summary.

Health Care is Our Economic Human Right Trainings with SEIU 790                    
WEAP and SEIU 790's Education/Training Department conducted an educational session on the Just Health Care Campaign. Public sector SEIU 790 workers are experiencing an assault upon their benefits, including oftentimes healthcare, as the city, county, and state cry broke. We need a plan that will save us money and give everyone access to healthcare as a right.

March for Our Lives                                                                                                        
October 7, 2004, alongside 15,000 other poor people from across the nation, members of WEAP protested the Republican National Convention and the war at home: the war on America's poor and working people. With more than 80-million uninsured Americans in the last two years, and one in three Californians without health care coverage, we assembled in a non-violent manner to demand that government officials address this economic human rights violation. See the March for Our Lives home or this article by Portia Anderson from California PPEHRC.

Campaign for a National Healthcare Program                                                                             
In protest of the Republican National Convention, WEAP joined other concerned citizens in the struggle for universal health care coverage. With the healthcare crisis only getting worse, WEAP was proud to join CNHP in urging our nation to begin proposing real solutions-like single payer, worker-friendly healthcare for all Americans. For more information read our summary. For more info, visit www.healthcare-now.org.


Economic Human Rights: A Fight for Our Lives

March for Our Lives - Check out why the following individuals decided to march:                                                                                                                                
Michael Polson                                                                                                                
Scottie Smith                                                                                                                          
Eduardo Martinez                                                                                                                        
Rochelle Robinson                                                                                                                    
Latrice Washington                  

Women Returning to College Conference, sponsored by Church Women United and the American Association of University Women - Saturday, April 16, 2004, Ethel Long-Scott spoke on the Economic Human Right to Education and the need for women to compliment their education with a social justice commitment in building a strong social movement to ensure rights for all.

Press Conference Committee for Interns and Residents - Friday April 9, 2004 Ethel Long-Scott spoke at a press conference with the Committee for Interns and Residents (CIR) who are in a struggle to unionize at Children's Hospital in Oakland. CIR's goal is to put Doctors back in control of making the best choices for their patients, including the ability to use discretionary money for much needed medical equipment and for translators so Doctor's, nurses, and interns can communicate with patients who speak other languages. As a part of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 19 clearly details our right to communicate along with our rights to health care.

North Berkeley Senior Center Class Cultural Issues: Democracy in America Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Ethel Long-Scott spoke on the right to health care and that the time is now to build a strong social movement for Just Health Care.

Mobilizing Committee for Measure A - WEAP continues its participation in the Mobilizing Committee for Measure A to follow-up and to garner the momentum created tin the campaign to move forward towards the site to a single payer system in the US.

Candlelight Vigil - Right to Health Care - Thursday, February 26, 2004, WEAP working in partnership with local unions and the Measure A Campaign held a candlelight vigil at Highland Hospital. Measure A will keep our public Emergency Rooms and clinics from shutting down. The importance and success of the campaign was highlighted when more than two-thirds of Alameda County voters approved Measure A.

We all know emergency services must not shut down, because that would just ramp up the health care hardship so many of us have to face. But we all also know that we need to do better -- a lot better - than the emergency care we have. Measure A showed that Alameda County residents will sacrifice in order to do what the government won't-keep access to emergency services open!

 
California Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC)

Town Hall Meeting, Health Care as an Economic Human Right sponsored by Community Homeless Alliance Ministry (CHAM) as a part of the CA PPEHRC- Tuesday, April 27, 2004, San Jose, CA.

March 4 Education - Wednesday, April, 14, 2004- Carolyn Milligan, Michael Polson, and Sandy Perry lead a CA PPEHRC delegation of 17 people to the March4Education from San Pablo to Sacramento. We joined with the march on its sixth day from Dixon to Davis, singing Rich Man's House as we joined the march. Another CA PPEHRC delegation from Merced of teachers, students, and parents joined the marchers on April 16, 2004.

March4Education was sponsored by the March4Education Committee and sprung from the outrage of students, parents, teachers and community members on recent budget cuts in Contra Costa County. These cuts include the closing of libraries, arts programs, sports programs and extracurricular activities, as well as the laying off of school counselors and the possible closing of several schools. The CA PPEHRC joined the march to unite with their mission of saving education and to bring an economic human rights framing to their battle. Doing teach-ins along the way on the Universal Declaration of Human PPEHRC helped to rejuvenate and energize the marchers’ spirits and support them in their battle.

Town Hall Meeting on the Health Care Crisis, March 10, 2004, Oakland, CA. - More than twenty organizations and nearly one hundred were present. The meeting aimed not only to put a face on the health care crisis but, also, to talk about solutions. For two hours we heard from grocery workers, hotel workers, breast cancer survivors, unemployed people, clergy, representatives from the offices of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Supervisor Keith Carson, and Supervisor Nate Miley and many others.

Health Care Fair - St. Mary's Center, Thursday, February 26, 2004, Carolyn Milligan spoke on Health Care as Economic Human Right and about Just Health Care as a viable solution to the health care crisis. WEAP conducted teach-ins with health care providers and other fair participants on Just Health Care and Economic Human Rights.

PRC Teach-in Just Health Care - February 2004, WEAP's social justice team conducted a teach-in on Health Care as an Economic Human Right and Just Health care as a viable solution to the health care crisis was conducted with participants of the Prescott Resource Center.

Covenant House Teach-in Just Health Care - February 2004, WEAP's social justice team conducted a teach-in on Health Care as an Economic Human Right and Just Health care as a viable solution to the health care crisis was conducted with participants of the recovery house and with low-income youth.

March for Compassion and Spiritual Renewal 2001- for information, check out:                                                                                   
Read our Press Release                                                                                      
Why should I march