Anti-Poverty Organizer and Activist Willie Baptist to speak in Portland this Thursday

Sisters Of The Road and the Portland Chapter of the Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA) are hosting a presentation with Willie Baptist of the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary on Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 7:00 pm at Sisters, 133 NW 6th Avenue.  This event is free and open to the public.

During his visit to Portland, Baptist will present on his work with the Poverty Initiative and the University of the Poor on building the broad based movement to end poverty.  After the presentation, he will host an informal dialogue with local antipoverty activists on their efforts at building leadership within the organized poor.

Baptist, a formerly homeless father who has been organizing amongst the poor for almost 40 years, has served as the Scholar in Residence at the Poverty Initiative since its inception in 2003.  Prior to his involvement with the Poverty Initiative, Baptist has been active in Philadelphia’s Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

To find out more about Baptist and the Poverty Initiative, go to http://www.povertyinitiative.org/.  Also, the current issue of street roots has an article about Baptist on page 4 (while it’s better to buy the paper, you can see this issue online at http://www.streetroots.org/past_issues/2008/10_02/10-17-2008.pdf)

To find out more information about this event, email SWAA at [email protected].