I hope this finds you all well. It was great seeing many of you at the recent Poverty Scholars Program Leadership School in West Virginia this summer. The School was such an important event in our work to reignite The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign. I’m sending you a few updates coming out of the Leadership School and planning for the Poverty Scholars Program’s coming year.

DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE FROM THE LEADERSHIP SCHOOL
First, I want to let you know that over the next month and in the coming months we will be working to update the Poverty Initiative’s website to have many of the materials, powerpoints and photos, and other documentation of the School up on the web — available for your use. The School’s documentation team did an incredible job ensuring a photo/audio/and video record throughout the School. We hope that many of these will be useful for you for work you are doing back in your organizations, congregations, and communities. We will not be posting all of the audio and video recordings, but if/when there are specific sessions or workshops that you want, please let us know, and we will work on getting you a copy of those to you. I do believe they are very helpful in thinking about our pedagogy — how and what we are teaching — and in developing our curriculum for the emerging leaders around us.

UPCOMING POVERTY SCHOLARS PROGRAM EVENTS
Second, I want to let you and your organizations know about two upcoming events this year that the Poverty Scholars Program will be hosting. I hope that you will save the dates for these gatherings.

- This Fall on November 6th – 9th, we will host a small gathering for a key leader (or possibly two leaders) from organizations that have participated in the Poverty Scholars Program over the past year of programming, to come to New York to take part in thinking about the next steps of the Poverty Scholars Program, to discuss how to best move forward, to grow, to consolidate and expand. In particular, we will: evaluate the past year of programming; reflect on the strengths and struggles of the growing core of organizations in the Poverty Scholars Program network; summarize the core areas of curriculum and organizing models we are developing and have to offer; and think together about what role the Poverty Scholars Program should play at this stage in Reigniting the Poor People’s Campaign and in building a broad movement to end poverty led by the poor. We will also think about how best, with our limited resources, to stay in touch, to strengthen this important network, and to continue learning and sharing lessons between the times that we are together. This event will take place at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

- In the Spring, on April 8th – 11th, the Poverty Scholars Program will host two simultaneous Strategic Dialogue Gatherings. One of the gatherings will focus on the role of Media and Communications in Reigniting The Poor People’s Campaign. The other will focus on the role of Religion in Reigniting The Poor People’s Campaign. Participants in both dialogues will also all be invited to participate in a film festival on “Building an Economic and Social Rights Movement in the U.S.” that NESRI and other groups will be holding that weekend. (All are invited to submit videos and films to be a part of this Festival). These events will take place at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. The Film Festival site is TBD.

We hope that leaders in your organization whose work involves either of these strategic focuses: Media and Communications and/or Religion and Organizing will be able to participate in these gatherings!

Other events and gatherings are in the works. More info coming as they take shape! In the meantime, I hope that we will stay in touch, continue to share the lessons from our daily experiences and our knowledge with one another.

Wishing you all strength, health, and courage in these times.

Sincerely,

Willie Baptist

Este pedazo audio fue producido por Angelica Hernández de las Trabajadoras de Casa Unidas. Angélica habla con Luis Larin de la Asociación de Trabajadores Unidos  sobre como organizar entre generaciones.

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This piece was produced by Angelica Hernandez of Domestic Workers United. In this piece, Angelica speaks to Luis Larin of United Workers Association about intergenerational organizing.

Nely Rodriguez de la Coalición de los Trabajadores de Immokalee y de Radio Consencia, le entrevista a Angélica Hernández de Trabajadoras de Casa Unidas sobre su trabajo y cómo eso es parte de el movimiento para terminar la pobreza.

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Nely Rodriguez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Radio Consencia, interviewed Angelica Hernandez of Domestic Workers United about their work and how it is part of ending poverty.

En este pedazo audio, Yraim Leyte y Luis De Jesús García les hablan a Erika Almiron sobre sus reflexiones después de visitar Matewan, West Virginia. Erika trabaja con el Sindicato Estudiantil de Philadelphia  y Projecto de Medios en Movimientos y da sus ideas de porqué la historia de los mineros de carbón del West Virginia es tan importante para nosotros hoy. Yraim Leyte y Luis De Jesús García son productores de Radio Tlacuache.

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In this audio piece, Yraim Leyte and Luis De Jesus Garcia speak to Erika Almiron about her reflections after visiting Matewan. Erika, who works with Philadelphia Student Union and Media Mobilizing Project, gives insight on why the history of West Virginian coal miners is so important for us to today.

How did you end up coming to the Leadership School?
I work for the church of Scotland and my minister wanted me to do more work.  I’ve been working there and I even went to Africa.

Tell me about the work you’ve done in Africa.
There are 60 suburbs within Glasglow that are really poor.  These are called “priority areas.”  As one of the poorest areas, we were partnered up with the poorest area of Malawi.  The program is called Together for a Change.  Baula is the area in Malawi where we visited.  They don’t have running water or electricity, and it’s a 5-hour drive to the nearest town.  It’s quite an isolated village.  They set us up to have a partnership to see if we could help one another.  Not financially, but through discussions.  We were set up by the church, but the people who attended the trip were not church people.  I was primarily a community person.  I was volunteering at the church.    We exchanged a lot of different ideas.  The young people we took from Scotland gained a lot from realizing how lucky we really are.  We don’t have to fetch water, and we have free education. These are things our young folk took for granted.  We gained a lot of spiritual wealth.  We realized that these people were poor and very happy.  I’m envious of them now.  They don’t have the burdens that we have now.  They work really hard.  The young people that we took with us are now really focused.  Before the trip, they had no idea of what they were going to do with their lives.  We realized how much they achieved through working with one another by talking to one another.  We learned that by believing that if we want something done, we have to do it ourselves.

When they came to Scotland for the exchange, they learned how to make manure.  They learned much more about hygiene, how to work with children, and women’s rights.  They learned how to be better to their women.  We also taught them how to have an AA meeting.

You’re doing this great work for the church, but when did you decide to join the church?
Well, my partner died about two or three months before we left for Malawi.  I felt sad about that, but we had been planning to go on this trip.  My minister strongly encouraged me to go on the trip.  I had a spiritual awakening while I was on the trip.  I was depressed and in a bad space.  When I got there people greeted us with such warmth.  We were the first white folks who had come to their village and stayed there.  They were amazed by that.

No matter what they did, whether they were cleaning the fields or working, they were happy.  They didn’t have the worries that we did.  They didn’t have the day-to-day stress that we do.   Since we’ve established this relationship, their church community has grown.  My minister realized that I had a gift around people.  I have a way of relating to people.  They couldn’t understand anybody else in the group but they could understand me.   Nobody else in the group was a great talker.  They saw my minister as too high up to approach.  When they danced, I danced.  I did everything they did.

My minister realized that I could help the church.  He asked me for suggestions on bringing people back to the church.  I suggested alternative therapies.  I realized that people weren’t spiritually well.  We need to make people chill out.  We need to reach them in some other way.  How about a café, a base for people to meet up?  If we had these things we’d be able to access the colleges better.  We’d have more people coming and less isolation.

Everbody I knew was tough.  I just needed to meet good people.  I was brought up in a healthy home.  I just needed to know more people like my family.  I wanted to meet people who were spiritually well.  I’ve been aware of God my entire life.
The church people decided they wanted somebody to help the minister.  My minister got funding from various groups to hire me part-time.  So then I could get family tax care.  Once I was there the church gave me another 10 hours.  I’ve been there three years.  This is my fourth year.

Tell me about the how you got started working against poverty.
Paul Chapman helped organize the Truth Commission at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and when Paul Chapman and his wife moved to Scotland, they brought the idea with them.  Martin Johnston asked Paul to organize a Truth Commission and 15 months later, we had the Truth Commission.  I was asked to be a testifier at the commission.  Other than me being a testifier, I thought that the young people who went to Malawi should also be testifiers.  My nephew, William Barrowcliffe and his girlfriend were also testifiers.  William is still involved and he’s done more than any of the other adults who were involved.  I think he’s going to be a minister some day.

Being a testifier has changed things in my community.  I used to apply for monies and the community was never recognized.  The older, m ore established community in Ruchazie received funding, but the community where I lived did not receive any funding.  After I testified at the truth commission, I applied for monies and got them.  I know it’s because I testified at the truth commission that we got  more funds.  An organization called Action for Children came to the church and asked if we could get a number of youth involved in their program and I got these 11 boys and 1 girl involved in the program.  These youth had troubled backgrounds, never went to school, were in trouble with the law and now they’re either in college or they have jobs.
My main job now is with alternative therapies and recruiting volunteers to help with everything that the church does.

How did you end up here in West Virginia at the Leadership School?
Tricia and I were invited by Martin, Paul and the Poverty Initiative.

What will you take back with you to your community?
A new strength, you know?  Now, I’m like, “I’ve got nothing to lose.”  I’m going to ask a lot more people in my community and outside agencies to take part in our Poverty Truth Commission.   This has fired me up, you know?  And like, the strength in working with other people, the empowerment.  Being a part of the Poverty Truth Commission and being with you has strengthened me.  I feel empowered and more able to do the job and task.   I have an understanding of how it works.  I will keep in touch with what you all are doing.  You know, follow what you all are doing.  I will follow the website and check out what you’re doing.  I really feel fortunate that we had the opportunity to sit with commissioners and policy makers.  We sat with people and we are changing things.  We just appreciate the opportunity that we have.  The people in charge of decision making don’t come to these things (Leadership School).  I realize how lucky we are in Glasglow to have the decision makers around the table with us, and not to be afraid to talk with them, to grab that opportunity.  I’ve learned loads and loads from being here. I’ve learned how to use a blog, and I have learned the benefits of using the internet.  Not just for the Poverty Commission but for my church base as well.  I think it’s great if we do make this an international movement.  I think it would be great to make this stronger.

Meeting all of you preachers, you all are really effective.  You have a strong word.  You don’t look like a preacher.  Derrick doesn’t look like a preacher, but if you came to my church, people would sit up and listen to you.

Erika Almiron
Philadelphia Student Union
Media Mobilizing Project
We need to be aware of the multilingual/racial characteristics of this movement.

Willie Baptist
Poverty Initiative
This is not about pity; this is about power.

Ernest “Bear” Lindsay
United Workers
Yes, we do need a social movement.  It’s time for a change and we here are at the beginnings of an international army to wake up the world and do what’s right.  Not just for the world but for the future generations.  It’s like the song, “people get ready, there’s a change a coming.  We need to get ready.

Amendu Evans
Labor Justice Radio / MMP
Basically, we’re being screwed by the democrats and Republicans.  They’re so busy ripping about which party s the best for us that they forgot about the people.  They’re not worried about the people.  They’re worried about how to stay in power and they don’t have time for us.  I love this.  This is unprecedented.  It’s never ben done before.  It’s not a civil rights movement.  It’s a social rights movement.  No longer do we go by that theme to make it happen for everybody.  We have to be more broadminded about things.  We need to be more supportive about what we need for everyody.  What benefits all the people we work for?  We need to be centralized about how we can help everybody.  it’s about the little people.  We’re the people who carry everything.  We have to learn how to make sure that we work for everybody.

Mica Root
Media Mobilizing Project (Philly)
One thing we’ve been seeing in Philly is how connected the people are who make the policies.  The people who keep the taxi drivers down are the same people who are privatizing schools.  Those people are connected and they talking to each other.  WE need to talk to each other too!

Charlene Sinclair
Poverty Initiative
One of my favorite Bob Marley songs is Redemption Song and I’m going to share a line with you: Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds. None of us can free ourselves.  We are not just the problems in our communities or the problem that we face.  A social movement is not just our own locale.  It means that we will develop the power to be visible across the world, not just the country.  We are not just the make up of our problems.  We are leaders, social beings who carry the ability to emancipate minds.

Ron Blount
Philadelphia Taxi Workers Alliance
As cab drivers, we are isolated.  We started by seeing things a little different.  One of the things we did was we started getting in touch with taxi drivers in NY, and even on the West Coast.
We need people to help us with our financing.  All together, we have to start with our partners.

Joycelyn Gill-Campbell
Domestic Workers United
How many people are willing to take two days to go to Washington DC, please stand?  You need to be willing to make sacrifices.  We at DWU are not just interested in our own issues.  We are interested in housing, etc.  We analyzed our issues to determine the causes.  Then we knew we needed a vehicle to press our issues.  So we strategized and decided to form a national DWU. Unity is strength.  And that’s what we need to build a movement.

Kymberly McNair
Poverty Initiative
What’s missing is the voice of the faith community.  I am not a domestic worker.  I am not a Welfare Queen.  I am not a Taxi Driver from Philadelphia.  What I am is one women with a big mouth in my church. What I am is a preacher who has the opportunity to speak truth to the people who sit in the pews on Sunday morning.  What I am is somebody who is able to bring you, and you and you into my church so you can connect with people who need to start living out the gospel.  When Rabbi Abraham Heschel marched with King, he said that he felt as if he was praying with his feet.  I am somebody who might be able to move the people in my community to pray with their feet.

Rev. Mavuso Mbhekiseni and Mazwi Nzimande, from the Shack Dwellers movement, were invited to speak to the school about the development of their social movement in South Africa.  Rev. Mavuso energized the group with some rousing chants before showing a short video exposition of the work the Shack Dwellers are doing.  Mazwi Nzimande shared his thoughts about the Shack Dwellers Movement.

Shackdwellers
If I say down with something, you say down.
If I say forward with something, you say forward.

Down with discrimination!  Down!
Down with exploitation! Down!
Down with the oppression of the poor!  Down!
Down with capitalism!  Down!
Forward with justice!  Forward!
The constitution that is now guiding South Africa has human rights.  Section 26 speaks about the rights.  It says that you will not be evicted even if you stay there for three months.  If a person is to be evicted, the case must go to court.  If you are evicted, the landlord must make sure you have all basic needs and services.

Following Dear Mandela, Mazwi Nzimande spoke:
Brothers and sisters I want to stress that everything you have just seen is true.  Last year we lost a baby who was about 6 months.  People are dying in Africa.  I am an African, but I am not proud to say I am an African.  When Mandela was released, some of us were not even born.  There is money to build houses, but that money is used to build stadiums.  We are hosting the 2010 World Cup, but we are not going to see it.  The soccer match is not for us, but we are the host.  The government of the country entertains international guests, but it does not entertain its
own people.  Today, I stand in front of you and I am not proud to say that I am not proud to be a South African.  We need to dust [off] the constitution and start using it.  The people should come first and the stadium should come last.

Patrick Crowley
Classlines
It was really intense.  I wasn’t completely ignorant, so it wasn’t a big shock that what was happening was happening.  The emotional impact of being there and seeing what happens and being with people who have been there…the first moment I had alone I felt like I broke open.  I had a knot in my throat the rest of the time.  I felt a real intense love and connection to the people.  Julian, I felt really connected to him.  It was devastating.

Peter Kinoy
Skylight Pictures
One of the things that was particularly powerful was the realization that I was completely in the heart of coal country and that it was surrounding me in e very way from these huge coal trucks passing all day long to the memories of these guys and their grandparents and those who had been involved in these coal wars.  Then up to the physicality of this tiny peninsula of forests that was left, surrounded by the monstrosity…To be in the heart of it and to be confronted with it on that scale for me, triggered these very strong feelings I did not really expect.  I almost got into a meaningless argument on the van ride back to camp.  I was trying to figure out a way to move forward with those feelings.

Owen Rogers
Picture the Homeless
I was responding to it on two levels.  The first one to me was visceral and religious.  The other was in terms of politics and activism.  Little man vs. big corporation.  What should we do?  When Larry said that people have to come up to the mountain and we have to talk about it.  The religious piece was seeing the hand of God created beauty and the hand of man destroyed it and made this ugly scene.

Jean Rice
Picture the Homeless
As I went with you guys today and bore witness to this atrocity, I find myself wishing it was as simplistic as one struggle that our brother Larry is waging with the coal mining magnates.  I submit that the struggle is vastly more complex than that.  Twenty-five years ago, there were only 5 metropolises that boasted over 1 million citizens.  Today there are 11.  According to population projections, by 2025 there will be 25 such metropolises.  Accordingly, we have to ask who controls the land and who controls the resources?  Who determines how that power is disseminated is the crucial issue of our time.

Dr. Mazwi Nzimande
Abahlii baseMjondolo
Shackdwellers
I once said to myself about the roles and responsibilities to protect our communities and our people… who protects us?  Who leads the leaders?  From that little guy I learned that we as leaders we need to lead ourselves.  We as leaders we don’t need to only protect people, we need to protect mountains.  We need to be proud of our precious things.  We need to speak out and say this is wrong.  He said, “No I will keep on pushing until the very last end.”  That says [something] to us young people.  We want to be like that guy.  For me, it was like I was in a classroom learning how to struggle.

John Fields
Teen DAWG
I grew up in Crosslanes my whole life, 22 years.  This is my first time going to Kayford Mountain.  I visted the Seneca Rock, which is beautiful.  Look at what God has created.  Then I went to see this place and thought…look what man has created.  God has created beautiful things.  We’ve created ugliness.  I thought it was scary up there.  I’m fortunate to have electricity, but look at those who don’t have electricity.  It makes you feel weird and kinda awful because you’re blessed with all the things you want.  Power, hot water and all this. Some people have a five gallon bucket on top of their head in a outhouse taking showers with a sunbeam.  We have hot water.  I hope we can put a stop to this mountaintop removal.  That will make verything a lot better and safer.

Adrienne Colleen
Mayday New Orleans
I guess the thing that goes with that is the question of where does the power for the electricity come from.  We get the majority of our energy from coal.  We overconsume.  Wind power is a great power.  How many people have been killed by windpower and how many by mining?  The fact is we don’t consume at a rate where wind power can provide our energies.  We need a multi-prong solution.  I think if we look a little deeper at how we consume, we may find a way to move to what is a more feasible energy source.

Tricia McConalogue
Church of Scotland
The question of the environment and how we live in an intricate way, we have to think systematically and in the long-term.  We have to take this into consideration.  We don’t want jobs that impact human health.  Justice with sustainability somehow has to be part of the thinking.  In my world, never having visited before, this was like a known place.  I think what struck me when I went there today was this feeling that he was very alone.  We came with these buses of people and then we drove away.  There he was.  I thought there were a lot of people, and there probably are.  I felt like he felt discouraged and struggling alone and wondering when the next group will come by.

Mitchell Watson
When we were listening to the talk in the rain was, “What can we do to help Larry?”  I came back to talk to people on the staff and said we need to get Larry into the Union Quarterly magazine and mobilize the Union community.  He has obvious ties with Union.  He loves Derrick.  So, we’re going to try to get some pictures on Friday.

The closing moment was one of the most spectacular moments I’ve encountered with the poverty initiative .  Derrick sang.  Charon sang and everybody hugged.  That’s really something.  I don’t think any of us should lose that moment.  It won’t happen again for a while in any other environment.  It was something special that happened with us.  My other reaction is that the state sold itself to the devil.  If they had dams on these two big rivers there’s no teloing what would happen in that state.  Most people don’t recognize that it exists.

Mavuso Mbhekiseni
Abahlii baseMjondolo
Shack Dwellers
I felt very very angry.  I’m not going to talk about my anger now.  I also felt that maybe one day we need to sign what we call a record of understanding of some kind or a memorandum of some kind stating that 40 organizations meet and will take a decision to fight this until the end in West Virginia.  Capitalism doesn’t care about justice or humanity.  When do we say something is a sin or is a sin against humanity? Those are my questions.  I felt that the leader has a peace with the world because he is trying to protect the environment.  But sometimes in my heart I feel guilty because I am one of the people who betrayed him.  Maybe I know who is consuming those coals.  Maybe if I can take action now to boycott the coals, that might stop this sin against humanity.  This coal is full of blood.  We need to take action.  The time to take action, if it is that, the time is now.

Sam King
Poverty Poet
I really resonate with that because I felt like there really only a couple of other things that were as ugly as that terrible, gouging gaping hole.  I just wondered how am I contributing to this.  What do I do everyday in a mindless way that is allowing this to happen?  How am I connect to it and what can I do about it?  We’ve become so inured to the ways we’re used to having hot water and heat and electricity…so… and there is so much inertia around that.  I’m not strong enough  to live off the grid completely.  I do’tn hink I can do that.  The other level I have is when did we stop believing and feeling that the earth is sacred that human lives are sacred to be treated with tenderness and gratitude.  Each living thing is a miracle…instead of mindlessly grabbing it.  To me to feel reverence for human life is a deeper need than having stuff. Why, as a culture, do we seem to choose to ignore reverence for creation and each other?  When did we start?

Gayle Irvin
Church of Scotland
I’ve seen mountain top removal couple of years ago and then I saw it again today.  Interestingly, I had a different reaction today than I had the last time.  It’s not that I don’t agree with what y’all said here today.  I’m coming from a place in thinking about how do we at the same time resist what is going on and join with the people who are doing this in trying to get to some resolution?  It’s a hard place for me to sit because I can feel the anger and I can feel everything that has been expressed here about what’s going on.  There is a part of me that wants to fight and sign something and take some kind of action and at the same time how do we invite the people in power that we say are the “enemy” into the conversation about how to stop it?  It’s interesting that we all come from different areas and we all have different issues we’re working on, but this one issue that we as a collective can work on.

Aaron Scott
Poverty Initiative
There was a lot of hard stuff to think through today but one thing that felt sustaining was that I had a great conversation with Sage (Christian for the Mountains)  He said that in terms for church support, they got a lot of support from the most backwoods, rural, conservative, Pentecostal churches.  When we think about who is at the core of the movement and who is the base, it’s very often the communities who are either visible by mainstream media or vilified by mainstream media.  They found strong solidarity from populations who alienate themselves from communities or are pushed out from the national discourse.  That was real crucial for me to be reminded of that again.  We have to not forget people and leave people behind when we’re talking about what our next steps are and our strategies.  Everybody should be paid attention to.

Tricia Maconologue
Church of Scotland
For me, the most important thing is leaving a man standing alone is his safety.  How do we make sure this man is safe?  The anger will not get us anywhere.  It’s a bit trying to get people to the table.  How do we support that man to make sure he’s safe?  Small steps big successes.  Let’s look for people who have influence who can support this man.  His life is the most important thing in this present time.

Anu Yadav
Classlines
By the sharing of the stories, he said his safety depends on people continuously coming to see the mountain.  He’s not as vulnerable.  Sharing stories is a powerful and tangible thing.  I’m going to put it on facebook.  I’m going to share it with my network.  I’m going to send it out on my listserve.  I’m going to tell the story.

Sam Jackson
Mayday New Orleans
This guy here was very very strong to be there and take all that abuse.  His heart is real, real big to be such a short guy.  My heart went out to him and I could feel what he was going through. He’s just like the Katriona survivors.  He’s there to conquer whatever is going on there.  I felt for him.  I wanted to tell him, “I’m gonna stay here with you Larry.”

Debra Frazier
We have met a MLK kind of person.  We have met somebody who we all are in some ways and who we will be in some ways in our own effort.

Luis Larin was willing to do anything — cleaning, trash collection, demolition work — to earn enough money to support himself and send money home to his mother and sister in Guatemala. After paying for his transportation to and from work sites, the former day laborer said through an interpreter that he was lucky to earn $20 a day, just enough for him to afford a one-meal-a-day diet of Ramen noodles.

Renee Wolf Koubiadis said it took her years to overcome the feelings of shame and isolation she felt growing up in New Jersey, the daughter of a single mom on welfare.

As unemployment and poverty rates rise, health care becomes less accessible and more Americans become homeless and hungry, Hough, Larin, Koubiadis and about 150 others from across the globe are in West Virginia this week to discuss ways to re-ignite the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s war on poverty.

Representatives of more than 40 organizations from across the globe, including Justicia Global in the Dominican Republic, the Shack Dwellers Movement in South Africa and the Church of Scotland’s Priority Areas Project in Glasgow, are attending the Poverty Scholars Program Leadership School at Camp Virgil Tate outside Charleston.

On Monday, the group heard some some sobering statistics:

– Roughly 6.5 million jobs disappeared between January 2008 and June 2009.

– Home foreclosures in the United States average 10,000 a day.

– The number of Americans living in poverty jumped by 5.7 million between 2000 and 2007 to 37.3 million.

– 47 million Americans don’t have health care coverage, including 8.7 million children. The fastest growing group of people without health insurance earn between $50,000 and $75,000 a year.

– The number of Americans who relied on soup kitchens for meals has increase 9 percent since 2001 to 25 million; 36 percent of them were from households where at least one person worked.

– Of the estimated 3.5 million people who are likely to experience homelessness this year, the fastest growing segments include families with children and veterans.

– On average, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies make as much in one day as the average worker earns in a year.

That’s a difficult pill for many to swallow, including Hough who says he’s forced to choose between time with his family and earning enough money to support his family. He is a member of the United Taxi Workers Alliance in Pennsylvania.

“It not only affects my pocket, but it affects my family,” he said.

Larin said it wasn’t uncommon for him to wait two to three hours for transportation to and from work sites, a service for which he was charged $5 for every three miles traveled. The low wages, combined with being forced to eat lunch in a dirty bathroom and paying to live in company housing finally led him to join United Workers in Baltimore, where he met his wife and now works.

Koubiadis said she became a social worker and joined Poor Voices United after watching her mother struggle to support her and her brother after a divorce.

“She got so beaten down by the system,” Koubiadis said of her mother. “It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t a bad person just because I was poor.”

While Monday’s sessions focused on poverty and the economic crisis, Tuesday’s sessions will include tours of Matewan, the site of a violent coal miners’ strike in 1920 in southern West Virginia, and Kayford Mountain 35 miles east of Charleston, where miners have been blasting the mountaintop for more than 20 years to reveal multiple coal seams.

The sessions, which continue through Saturday, will eventually focus on solutions.

John Wessel McCoy holds his 1-year-old son, Myles, on his shoulder as his wife Colleen looks on during the first day of a leadership conference Sunday at Camp Virgil Tate.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — John Wessel-McCoy likens the effort needed to pull millions of people out of poverty to the 19th century’s fight to abolish slavery and the coalfield battles in rural West Virginia in the 1920s.

Better conditions would not have been possible unless the coal miners were at the “forefront of that struggle to get ahead,” he said. Likewise, the poor need to be at the front of a new worldwide social movement to end world poverty, he said.

Wessel-McCoy, a student at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a member of the seminary’s Poverty Initiative, will join about 160 other community and religious leaders from around the world at a weeklong leadership school at Camp Virgil Tate.

The Poverty Initiative is sponsoring the school, which is hosted locally by the Direct Action Welfare Group, a statewide organization composed of people who receive public assistance, work low-wage jobs or live in poverty.

The global economic crisis has pushed more people into poverty, as the concentration of wealth is more exclusive, Wessel-McCoy said. He and his wife, Colleen, say the Policy Initiative’s goal is to build a coalition and change the direction we’re heading.

“It’s not necessarily happening yet,” she said.

The couple joined with domestic workers, restaurant workers, faith-based leaders, local advocates and others to weigh strategies to build the coalition.

Angelica Hernandez, a member of the New York-based organization Domestic Workers United, said it is important that women’s leadership be part of the weeklong school. The group is comprised of nannies, housekeepers and elderly caregivers in the New York City metropolitan area.

“As domestic workers, our labor is invisible,” she said in Spanish. Priscilla Gonzalez, also with Domestic Workers United, translated.

“The majority of us are heads of household, so we know firsthand what poverty is,” Hernandez said.

Joycelyn Gill-Campbell, an organizer with Domestic Workers United, said the group is working toward a statewide domestic workers’ bill of rights. New York Gov. David Paterson has pledged his support, she said.

The bill of rights goes beyond fair labor practices to include basic respect and an end to exploitation, she said.

“The work of domestic workers is very difficult because there’s a lot of abuse — even sexual and physical abuse,” Hernandez said.

William Cerf, also of New York, works with the Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York, whose goal is to fight discrimination and poor treatment of restaurant workers such as dishwashers and food preparers.

Donna Barrowcliffe is taking ideas from the leadership school back to the Church of Scotland. A resident of Glasgow, she said the city has high rates of smoking, drinking and drug abuse and the church is trying to reach people who live in poverty through new means, such as Internet media.

Locally, Beth Dortch of the Teen Direct Action Welfare Group said she wants to attend a media workshop this week so she can develop online video compilations, dubbed “My Life,” where teens will interview people in their community and share their own stories of struggling with poverty.

On Thursday at 5:30 p.m., the Direct Action Welfare Group will welcome the public to a picnic with food and entertainment, said Evelyn Dortch, the group’s executive director. For those interested in donating or volunteering, contact the Direct Action Welfare Group at 304-720-0260.

@tag:Reach Davin White at davinwh…@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1254