The Pursuit of Economic and Social Justice

Over the past 25 years, the Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) has striven for the elimination of poverty through a social justice framework. We are inspired and educated by the courage of both the unemployed and employed poor who have come before us in countless battles against greed and oppression. Their vision, as well as ours, is a simple one that includes all people possessing the right to live with dignity through the fulfillment of our economic human rights guaranteed to us under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These include the right to housing, health care, a living wage, education, communication, and nourishment.

Highlander

National PPEHRC Strategy Session at Highlander in Tennessee, April 2005.

In our 25 years of work, WEAP has fought for mothers on welfare; alongside unions for living wage jobs, healthcare, and just contracts; and with nurses, doctors, and patients against the closings of healthcare clinics and for a universal health system, to name just a few. Through the years we have built partnerships with warriors, teachers, and leaders in churches, union halls, community centers, recovery houses, technology centers, university campuses, and on the streets and under bridges. With these partners we have documented, protested and educated that poverty is an economic human rights violation. However, we know that it can't stop here. Recognizing and understanding the problem is only the first step. We also know that we must educate around solutions. For this reason, we teach and build the Just Health Care Campaign, which works to guarantee healthcare to all Americans for less money than we pay now. We also teach on the importance of a movement to end poverty, to make housing affordable for all people, to guarantee workers rights, and to set a real living wage in America.

WEAP bases its methodology on the understanding that when we operate from our strengths, we are able to make a powerful impact. We use teach-ins to educate and empower people on their rights, and we march and protest to give a voice and face to the millions fighting for their lives. We know that only our voices will allow us to reclaim our economic human rights. As we continue the march to eliminate poverty, we are guided by the words of Sister Pollard, a 70-year-old civil rights foot soldier, "My feet is tired, but my soul is rested."

PROTEST

Ethel Long-Scott, Janine Grantham, Ruth Williams of Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, and New York Leader at the US Social Forum in Atlanta, June 2007.
Credit: Heather McLaughlin