Events
Coffee Hour: The High Cost of Free Trade in the Americas 9/18
Saturday, September 18th
10:00am-11:45am
At the Resource Center of the Americas
Presented in English
Description:
There are few policy areas that affect the everyday lives of people throughout the Americas more than trade. The fallout across borders from NAFTA & CAFTA have been severe. High rates of unemployment, depressed wages, loss of family farms, labor and human rights abuses, limited access to essential medicines, compromised environmental regulations, and many other ills have shown us that there is nothing free about free trade agreements. Join us as we connect the trade dots, from Minnesota to Mexico and beyond, and discuss how we can push for a more just trade model as outlined in the TRADE Act, so that past mistakes are not replicated and the benefits of trade are shared with those who do the work.
Speaker:
Jessica Lettween
Jessica is the Director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, a coalition of more than 30 organizations across the state that promote the benefits of a fair trade system that, through the trading of goods and services, can achieve economic justice, support human and worker rights, promote healthy communities and protect the environment. Jessica’s professional background is in organized labor, having worked for four years at the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters and for two years with the AFL-CIO. She holds an undergraduate degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Advocacy and Political Leadership at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Contact Information:
jlettween@citizenstrade.org
Coffee Hour: Human Rights in Colombia 10/30
Saturday, October 30th
10:00am-11:45am
At the Resource Center of the Americas
Presented in Spanish (translated to english)
Description:
Padre Alberto has been a featured speaker for the World Council of Churches in front of the UN in NYC 2009, as well as a featured speaker at the 2009 School of the Americas Watch protest. In 207 and 2008, he lobbied in Brussels in front of the European Parliament and the European Commission. Also in 2008, he testified at the Alternative Network Against Impunity and Market Globalization in Spain, the Public Hearing of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes and a session for the Ethics Commission for Truth in France regarding exiled Colombians.
For his extensive human rights work, Padre Alberto has received multiple death threats, which to him illustrates that repressive powers are threatened by his work and symbolizes that he is doing something right. Although he has been receiving threats for years, starting in 2008 they began to intensify, popping up in pages all over the internet and in graffiti all around the capital. Those responsible for most of the threats are the people with business interests in the Curvarado and Jiguamiando River Basins. Despite all the danger he faces to defend the rights of the communities, death threats do not faze him. He stresses the importance of recognizing it is not just his personal safety that is being jeopardized through these threats, rather it is the Commission as a whole that is targeted.
The Inter-church Justice and Peace Commission, founded in 1988, is a leading NGO for community organizing and human rights in Colombian. It provides accompaniment to Afro-Colombian, Indigenous, and mixed race communities who have been victimized and affirms their rights without the use of violence in zones of armed conflict. It supports concrete processes that seek truth, justice, and reparation, and favors political negotiations that seek to end the internal armed conflict. It has an inter-discipline approach focused on the psycho-social, judicial, environmental, and theological preservation of memory and gender aspects of the community processes, to help communities rebuild their social fabric.
Speaker:
Padre Jesús Alberto Franco is a renowned leader in the Colombian human rights movement. He is a Colombian missionary priest, as well as the executive secretary of the Colombian human rights NGO Inter-church Commission for Justice and Peace (Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz). He has spent the last 3 years in his current role accompanying the resistance processes of Afro-Colombian, Indigenous and mixed race farmers, overseeing the operations of the commission, and coordinating and overseeing the work of the teams that accompany the processes of the community. He has been part of the commission for over 21 years and helped to support the NGO’s founders in the creation of the commission. He was born and raised in Aranzazu, Caldas in Colombia. His work as a missionary brings him all over Colombia.
Contact Information:
Witness for Peace – Upper Midwest
Coffee Hour: The Legacy of International Influence in El Salvador 11/6
Saturday, November 6/2010
10:00am-11:45am
At the Resource Center of the Americas
Presented in English
Description:
Don Rigo Aguirre is a community organizer from Potrerillos, El Salvador. Potrerillos is a rural hillside village near a large reservoir created by one of the country’s oldest hydroelectric dams on the Lempa River. Despite the possibility of development in the region as a result of the dam, the area has remained largely underdeveloped.
Mr. Aguirre will be speaking about challenges Salvadoran people face today - water accessibility, heath care and mining among others. He will also be telling about the successes he has seen through community organizing and partnerships of solidarity with international communities and organizations including Sister Parish.
Speaker:
Don Rigoberto Aguirre is a community leader and organizer from the community of Potrerillos, El Salvador. Don Rigo is President of the Community Development Association in Potrerillos and a member of the county Municipal Council to promote social and economic rights. He has also served in the Association of Communities for the Development of Chalatenango (CCR), a network of over 100 communities to support organizing as well as sistering relationships in the region. Don Rigo is a key member of the Sister Parish relationship between Potrerillos and the First United Methodist Church of Decorah, Iowa.
Contact Information:
Christine Haider, US Regional Coordinator, Sister Parish Inc.
usoffice@sisterparish.org Phone: (612) 326-4361
