Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights's Blurbs
About me: Welcome to POWER - Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights
POWER is an organization of low-income parents and allies advocating for a strong social safety net while working toward a world where children and care giving are truly valued, and the devastation of poverty has been eradicated.
We are a new organization with a long history. Ten years of working as the Olympia chapter of WROC, the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition, ended in the spring of 2007. (See http://www.olywip.org/site/page/article/2007/06/02.html for more info.) Since then, former WROC members and staff have been building POWER, a new statewide union of welfare recipients and allies with a stronger foundation. Member-led, consensus-based, POWER holds the following values:
Self Determination: We recognize the right of every person to determine the course of her own life, regardless of her class, race, gender identification, sexual orientation, or ability level. This includes the right to define her own identify, have basic needs met, access knowledge and learn skills; the choice of whether and when to have children; raise children according to her culture, convictions, spiritual beliefs, and intuition; and contribute to her community in meaningful ways. Our organization will reflect this in our treatment of one another, and forward these values in our culture and government.
Intentional and Strategic: We strive for our work to be powerful, responsive, and relevant to the needs of low-income families. To this end, we value independence and interdependence of local branches, and simplicity and openness of operations that allow for flexibility, personal relationships, sharing of power and responsibility, and holistic support of low-income parents. We strive for respectful, honest communication and healthy conflict.
Solidarity: While we are led by low-income parents and work towards their goals, we value knowing our local communities, and working to build coalitions. These coalitions will be inclusive of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability and religious differences, and the spectrum of political orientations of our members and allies. We will build solidarity with groups that have different focuses, and but share similar core values.
Children and Mothering: We honor the presence of children and caregivers in community life. We value the sacred work of care giving, and uphold the human rights of children.
Social Justice: We assert that the key to social justice is the equitable distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally, to meet basic human needs unconditionally, and to ensure that all people have full opportunities for personal and social development.
Woman-centered: We value women, and women’s full participation at all levels of society. We value the traditional work of women - homemaking, child and elder care, and community organizing and we believe women should be justly compensated. We assert that women’s lives are affected not only by sexism, but by the intersectionality of oppressions of gender, race, class, sexual orientation and others. We identify the historical women’s movement; however, we oppose racism and class ignorance within this movement.
Anti-oppression: We view racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism as systemic, interrelated, and destructive to all of society. We work to end these and other forms of oppression at every level of our organization, our work and our relationships with each other. We work to create a world in which all people are valued, empowered, and have quality of life.
Throughout our tremendous changes, we have continued our important work:
*Providing information to low income parents about their legal rights to public benefits.
*Educating our communities about the realities of poverty, combating the very prevelent myths and stereotypes about welfare mothers.
Engaging with legislators and policy makers at the local, state and federal level to create and maintain a strong social safety net.
Using direct action to point out social and economic injustice.
You can mail us a donation today to POWER at:
701 Franklin SE, Olympia, WA 98501
If you live in Olympia, we hold volunteer meetings every Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 at our office downtown at 7th and Franklin in the Payne Room of the First Christian Church.
If that time doesn't work for you, or you live in another area, but still want to organize for welfare and economic rights, contact us:
* 360-352-9716 or toll free at 1-866-343-9716
* welfarerights@riseup.net
We offer a variety of ways for you to get involved.
Join workers for major announcement and on Wednesday, November 4 at noon at General Sam Smith Park at the Inner Harbor Baltimore , Maryland. When workers called foul on abuses at the Inner Harbor they started with the most reasonable path possible and sent a letter to Phillips management calling for face to face meetings and a six month "cooling down" period. Workers promised to focus on direct dialogue rather than starting off strong public protests, calls for a boycott or other measures to ramp up the campaign. How did Phillips respond to this offer? First ignored the letter and responded with silence. But as the summer progressed and when workers kept talking with each other and holding constructive meetings to make plans for how to secure improvements, Phillips ramped up the pressure big time. They called a mandatory all-employee meeting and and told workers that if they kept getting organized that management would respond by shutting down the entire restaurant. Rather than meet face to face to resolve worker concerns and improve working conditions, Phillips made threats and ignored all requests for a reasonable dialogue. We kept our end of the bargain, even after Phillips made this and other moves to frighten workers from uniting and demanding better. But the six months ended in October, and with that we're going to ramp up the campaign with a major announcement scheduled for Wednesday, November 4 at noon. Join Inner Harbor workers as they stage an exciting play to announce a major ramp up in the fight for the right to work with dignity, the right to healthcare, and the right to education. With the six month dialogue ended, low-wage workers came together for a four day retreat to strategize and discuss next steps. Workers developed the idea for the announcement as a way to begin preparing for Our Harbor Day 2010, a community-wide participation play. Now, workers are prepared to reveal to the public how we will be moving forward to secure economic human rights f
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. ~Camille Pissarro~
"Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you that you." ~UnKnown~
A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value they put on themselves. ~Jean De La Bruyere~
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. ~Ben Hogan~ Have a beautiful day ~ Lots of Love~ SweetTee
"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count" It's the life in your years" - Abraham Lincoln
I Promise me... Peace - inner peace Love – true love Happiness – smile more, laugh more Be healthy Be positive Be motivated Be confident Be successful Be inspired Be generous – give more Be grateful – Thank you God Good friends More family time More “me” time To be the best me ever! ~unknown~ Lots of Love~SweetTee
COME AND CHECK US OUT SEPTEMBER 6TH AT CHURCHILLS IN MIAMI!!!!! HIT US UP FOR PRE-SALE TIX FOR $8, AND $10 THE DAY OF THE SHOW!!!!ITS GOING TO BE AN AWSOME SHOW!!!!HELP US WIN THIS BATTLE!!!!!!!!!
All four tracks from Remedy's debut EP, "DOSAGE" are now available for purchase and download for 99¢ each directly from our website www. RockBandRemedy. com!Come check it out, and please let us know what you think, good or bad. Also check out our video for "Pinkylead".
Women have strengths that amaze men. They bear hardships and they carry burdens, but they hold happiness, love and joy.
They smile when they want to scream. They sing when they want to cry. They cry when they are happy and laugh when they are nervous. They fight for what they believe in. They stand up to injustice.
They don't take "no" for an answer when they believe there is a better solution.
They go without so their family can have. They go to the doctor with a frightened friend.
They love unconditionally. They cry when their children excel and cheer when their friends get awards.
They are happy when they hear about a birth or a wedding. Their hearts break when a friend dies. They grieve at the loss of a family member, yet they are strong when they think there is no strength left. They know that a hug and a kiss can heal a broken heart.
Women come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
They'll drive, fly, walk, run or e-mail you to show how much they care about you.
The heart of a woman is what makes the world keep turning.
They bring joy, hope and love. They have compassion and ideas. They give moral support to their family and friends.
Women have vital things to say and everything to give.
HOWEVER, IF THERE IS ONE FLAW IN WOMEN, IT IS THAT THEY FORGET THEIR WORTH. ~unknown~
Hey, hi from England & thanks for connecting. We hope you'll enjoy the mix of music, culture, politics, life and, er, other stuff that is Take the Red Pill. We'd love you to register on the site and let us know what you think. Respect! Redpillboy.
I'm truly honored to have you as a new friend. I look forward to getting to know you and to our friendship. Please stay in touch!
Take Care & God Bless, Sharon† *Proud Army Wife & Military Supporter *Bulldog Mom To Winston, Gracie & JJ *"Carolinas PI" and Animal & Child Protection Advocate *NC & SC State Director For Association Of Christian Investigators *NC, SC & GA State Director of Ms. Christian US Pageants “Celebrating the beauty inside and out of virtuous women!” *Owner/Founder of Bulldog Co Network
Hi Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights ... here is our latest 10 min. Shaman Strings live video 'Cave of Graves’ … everybody trying to see something new from those tombs.
Note: The video has 5 minutes cut from the middle of the live recording. LET US KNOW what you think ;-)
