More on services at Services/Forums.
More on forums at Forums and Past Forum Topics and Speakers.
July/August 2010 Schedule of Services and Forums:
Sunday, July 4
10am Forum
No Forum due to 4th of July holiday.
10am Forum
No Forum due to 4th of July holiday.
Sunday, July 11
10am Forum
"Is Population Connection's Stance Still Progressive?"
John Seager, President and CEO of the Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth) , speaking
This organization has long been respected by many progressives for its focus on sustainability and family planning. In recent years, however, it has also taken what some see as an anti-immigration stance as a part of its opposition to population growth in this country. Many of us at TUC have been members in the past. Now what do we think? Our speaker, John Seager, was formerly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and also served as Chief of Staff, Communications Director and District Director for U.S. Representative Peter H. Kostmayer (D). Mr. Seager was formerly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and also served as Chief of Staff, Communications Director and District Director for U.S. Representative Peter H. Kostmayer. He holds a BA in Political Science from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Population Connection has been America's voice for population stabilization since 1968. It is the largest grassroots population organization in the United States, with over 30,000 individual members (donors); 45,000 email activists; and 450 volunteer teacher trainers who bring its workshops to 12,000 teachers each year. It educates young people about unsustainable population growth through K-12 lesson plans that reach 3 million students a year. It informs constituents across the country about their congressional representatives' stances on population growth and family planning. And it works directly with Congress and the White House to inform family planning policy.
10am Forum
"Is Population Connection's Stance Still Progressive?"
John Seager, President and CEO of the Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth) , speaking
This organization has long been respected by many progressives for its focus on sustainability and family planning. In recent years, however, it has also taken what some see as an anti-immigration stance as a part of its opposition to population growth in this country. Many of us at TUC have been members in the past. Now what do we think? Our speaker, John Seager, was formerly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and also served as Chief of Staff, Communications Director and District Director for U.S. Representative Peter H. Kostmayer (D). Mr. Seager was formerly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and also served as Chief of Staff, Communications Director and District Director for U.S. Representative Peter H. Kostmayer. He holds a BA in Political Science from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Population Connection has been America's voice for population stabilization since 1968. It is the largest grassroots population organization in the United States, with over 30,000 individual members (donors); 45,000 email activists; and 450 volunteer teacher trainers who bring its workshops to 12,000 teachers each year. It educates young people about unsustainable population growth through K-12 lesson plans that reach 3 million students a year. It informs constituents across the country about their congressional representatives' stances on population growth and family planning. And it works directly with Congress and the White House to inform family planning policy.
Sunday, July 18
10am Forum
"Immigration Reform and SB1070"
Jorge Mujica, speaking
10am Forum
"Immigration Reform and SB1070"
Jorge Mujica, speaking
Jorge Mujica is a long time journalist, teacher, translator, union activist, community organizer, and lobbyist for immigration reform who ran for Congress against Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary in February, garnering 22,000 votes or 23% of those cast. Originally from Mexico, he worked with the Independent Labor Union Front and National FCE Labor Union where he also helped to found the Centro de Salud Laboral (Labor's Health Center) serving as President until 1987.
He immigrated to the US from Mexico in 1988 first working with OSHA, translating and helping to set up its first help line in Spanish. Jorge Mujica came to the Chicago area in 1989. Here has worked with Sin Fronteras, the Midwest Hispanic AIDS Coalition and the Hispanic Health Alliance where he was the first elected president. He then worked with Univision, "La Raza," and, since 2003, publishes an opinion column titled "México del Norte", covering immigration issues. On March 10, 2006, Mújica was elected as spokesperson of the Movimiento 10 de Marzo, coalition of over a hundred organizations collaborating in the immigrant's demonstrations since that year and into 2009.
Sunday, July 25
10am Forum
"Women, War and the Congo,"
Tracy Ronzio, speaking
Tracy Ronzio, an Arlington Heights wife and mother, organizes a run in Chicago every fall to raise money for the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The event has turned into a festival where Congolese women in this country show off their crafts and foods. Ronzio believes that women and children are tools of war and that 5 million people have died--mostly of malnutrition and disease--in the 12-year war. She will talk about how Western corporations are complicit because they enjoy getting raw materials from the Congo at low prices. And she will talk about the women around the world who have joined the movement and hold annual fund raisers for the Congolese. The money they raise goes to a group called Women to Women International. Here is a link to the story Deb Donovan did about her: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=362011
10am Forum
"Women, War and the Congo,"
Tracy Ronzio, speaking
Tracy Ronzio, an Arlington Heights wife and mother, organizes a run in Chicago every fall to raise money for the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The event has turned into a festival where Congolese women in this country show off their crafts and foods. Ronzio believes that women and children are tools of war and that 5 million people have died--mostly of malnutrition and disease--in the 12-year war. She will talk about how Western corporations are complicit because they enjoy getting raw materials from the Congo at low prices. And she will talk about the women around the world who have joined the movement and hold annual fund raisers for the Congolese. The money they raise goes to a group called Women to Women International. Here is a link to the story Deb Donovan did about her: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=362011
Sunday, August 1
10am Forum
"The Industrial Areas Foundation and what it is doing now in Chicagoland,"
Jim Schwarber of Ascension Church in Oak Park, speaking
10am Forum
"The Industrial Areas Foundation and what it is doing now in Chicagoland,"
Jim Schwarber of Ascension Church in Oak Park, speaking
Is Alinsky-style organizing working in Chicago? in Austin? In Oak Park? Jim Schwarber is one of Ascension’s leaders in its United Power effort. He will discuss how Ascension works with United Power’s methods, and it has been able to accomplish with these methods, both within the church and within the larger community. What can TUC learn from this? How can we be involved? Do we want to be? United Power for Action and Justice represents an attempt by thousands of leaders in diverse communities to reverse generations of division and decline in the Chicago metropolitan area. The region had been divided deliberately and deeply by race, by class, by immigration status, by city and suburban boundaries, and by faith. The United Power effort began rebuilding of respectful public relationships across all of these boundaries. Today, ten years later, this rebuilding is still at an early stage. United Power provides training and development opportunities for the current and emerging generation of leaders in the region, often working through church communities. Various forms of training – targeted for younger organizers, for professional religious leaders of congregations, for new neighborhood leaders seeking to understand the power dynamics of the city and the county -- take place on a regular basis. Experienced leaders and staff attend the intensive IAF training sessions held several times each year. IAF's "iron rule of organizing" ("Never do for others what they can do for themselves")[20] emphasizes developing new leaders from within local organizations. Finally, the organization seeks to build power systematically and wield power effectively. This power – the ability to act – enables the member institutions of United Power and the organization as a whole to operate with more impact and success with other power figures and power institutions in the private and public sectors. Sue Lodgen will facilitate.
Sunday, August 8
10am Forum
"Abolishing the Death Penalty: Where Are We Now?"
Tom Broderick, speaking
Tom is on the board of directors of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and is a former visitor to death row at Pontiac Correctional Center. He has lobbied in Springfield on behalf of abolition of the death penalty and spoken at various locations on the subject.
10am Forum
"Abolishing the Death Penalty: Where Are We Now?"
Tom Broderick, speaking
Sunday, August 15
10am Forum
"The Continuing Stigma of AIDS,"
Ann Fisher, speaking
10am Forum
"The Continuing Stigma of AIDS,"
Ann Fisher, speaking
Ann Fisher, the Executive Director of the Aids Legal Council, will speak on the continuing prevalence of stigma and discrimination concerning HIV and AIDS - still now, in the second decade of the third millennium. Ann joined AIDS Legal Council of Chicago as the Executive Director in 1997, after serving three years as supervisor of the HIV/AIDS Law Project of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University Law School, Ann completed a clerkship with the Hon. Judge Fairchild of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit before joining the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, when she worked as a neighborhood attorney and as a senior attorney with the Disability Law Project before assuming the HIV position. In addition to client representation and counseling, outreach and training to community groups, and impact litigation and advocacy, Ann is responsible for the overall administration of ALCC's annual budget and staff. Ann has concentrated in representing people with disabilities for the last 20 years. She is a member of the American Bar Association AIDS Coordinating Committee and in 2001 received the Lawyers Trust Fund's Ester R. Rothstein Award for her leadership, integrity and commitment to ensuring access to justice. Most recently she was honored by the Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Bar Foundation with the 2007 Thomas H. Morsch Public Service Award, which honors exemplary lawyers who choose public service work as a career.
Sunday, August 22
10am Forum
"Why Does Haiti Not Develop?"
Kim Lamberty, speaking
Our speaker has been involved with Haiti for a number of years, since long before the recent earthquake, and has lost all confidence in charitable aid as any kind of solution. She believes that aid often is based on the agenda of the giver, rather than the receiver, and fosters a dependency that over time becomes hard to overcome. She has come to see that human dignity requires us to be able to take care of ourselves: to enjoy the fruits of our own labor, to pay for our own school fees and health care, to provide food, shelter and clothing for our families, and to form communities with the structures that sustain life. She has come to believe only in capacity-building and income-producing projects led by and benefitting the communities they are in. She will talk with us about how she has come to this conclusion, how she is implementing it, and what implications this may have for our own work in our Chicago neighborhood. http://muchapaz.blogspot.com.
Sunday, August 29
10am Forum
"The Books to Prisoners Project"
Kim Lamberty, speaking
10am Forum
"The Books to Prisoners Project"
Kim Lamberty, speaking
Barbara Kessel will speak on the Books to Prisoners Project and her work in the prison reform movement. Barbara Kessel retired from teaching at Truman College in Chicago in 2004, moved to Urbana , and became involved with Quakers Peace and Service committee and with the newly forming Books to Prisoners group. Through BtP she became committed to working with the program in the county jails and to dealing directly with Illinois Department of Corrections about state prisons, concerning mail, prison libraries and reform of Tamms C.C. (our own Guantanamo on the Mississippi, with solitary confinement 24/7). Through CU Citizens for Peace and Justice, she grew interested in what goes on in our county courtrooms, the use of tasers, and the police (mis)use of force. Through the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, of which Quakers are members, she has been instrumental in getting them to expand their mission from the international front to include torture in our jails and prisons in the U.S.
