Work for and with the poor to improve their lives
Kathy Peterson
freshman
As students at an institution that is committed to promoting social justice, many of us are involved in programs and service projects designed to help the poor and homeless. Notre Dame students are encouraged to work for poor people, but rarely do we have the opportunity to work with poor people.
However, the Progressive Students Alliance (PSA) invites students, faculty and members of the community to hear a speaker who is paving the way for poor people in America to secure their basic economic human rights. Cheri Honkala, the spokesperson for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, will be speaking about this growing national movement by poor people at 6 p.m. today in 155 DeBartolo.
Honkala, who was once homeless herself, is an activist for equal economic human rights at the Kensington Welfare Rights Union in Philadelphia. This group is one of the many emerging poor people's groups working for social change in the United States to better ensure rights guaranteed by the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights include: the right to jobs at a living wage and just conditions of work; the right to well-being of a person and his or her family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services; and the right to education.
Here in the United States, the richest country in the world, we would expect to find that these rights of our citizens are being fulfilled. However, the fact is that there are close to 65 million Americans living in poverty.
These people in many cases are denied access to resources that are clearly available in our wealthy nation. For example, there are more abandoned houses in this country than there are homeless people, and the number of surplus luxury housing units in the United States is equal to the entire housing stock in Canada. Not only this, but the state of California produces enough food to feed everyone in the world, yet Americans still go hungry. And in a country that values free enterprise, it is almost a crime that many people who have been brought up to understand the importance of working hard are only rewarded for their work by being exploited in the workplace.
These facts are evidence that changes are needed to help poor people — changes that we, as students and moreover as Americans, should be working to achieve.
The Kensington Welfare Rights Union teamed up with other groups led by the ranks of the poor in 1997 to form The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. The campaign has planned a bus tour called the New Freedom Bus Tour: Economic Human Rights for All, which will stop in 25 poor communities across the nation to document the face of poverty in each area.
The month-long tour, which begins Sunday, will conclude with a presentation of its findings to the United Nations on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, and with a call to the United States to end human rights violations in this country. Members of the tour hope to engage poor people, students and others in their effort to learn about and fight against injustices to poor people.
In addition to hearing Honkala speak on Thursday, I also invite you to Chicago, the closest stop of the New Freedom Bus Tour, next Tuesday to learn about the campaign. I truly feel that, as students of this University that focuses on social issues, we are obligated to show our support of this movement to end poverty. I strongly encourage all students to come hear Honkala speak and to learn how you can take an active role in the campaign to end poverty in America.
Kathy Peterson
freshman
Lewis Hall
Nov. 5
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, November 7, 2002
