Press Announcement: International and Community Gathering in Philadelphia, June 9-11

End Women’s Poverty: A Care Income, A Movement Whose Time Has Come

What: International and Community Gathering: End Women’s Poverty – A Guaranteed Care Income for All Caregivers of People & Planet
When: June 9-11, 2023
Where: Crossroads Women’s Center, 5011 Wayne Ave, Philadelphia PA 19144, and online

The Global Women’s Strike and the new Crossroads Women’s Center in Philadelphia will be hosting a multi-racial history-making gathering on June 9-11, 2023. This is a rare and exciting opportunity for women and all genders from Philadelphia and across the US, including Indigenous nations, as well as from Canada, England, India, Ireland, Haiti, Malaysia, Peru, Scotland, Thailand and more, to come together to build and consolidate the movement against poverty which in the US and around the world disproportionately impacts women and children. Panels and workshop range across movements, including on the climate crisis, child welfare system abuses, criminalization, international solidarity and unity in autonomy. 

Friday, June 9, will feature a workshop: How nature regulates the climate and how natural farming can help, with author and soil strategist Didi Pershouse, founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative based in Vermont. Also, the experiences of women farmers in self-help groups in Andra Pradesh, India, and the work and challenges of urban farmers in Philadelphia and elsewhere, other defenders of the natural world, and lessons we can learn from their work.

Friday evening will be the grand opening of Crossroads Women’s Center in Philadelphia. It will also celebrate 51 years of organizing of the Wages for Housework Campaign which coordinates the Global Women’s Strike, featuring London based founder and coordinator Selma James. Also featured will be Margaret Prescod, immigrant to the US from Barbados and host of “Sojourner Truth” a national broadcast on Pacifica radio, co-founder of Black Women for Wages for Housework, and coordinator of Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike.

Saturday and Sunday June 10-11 will include presentations by Congresswoman Gwen Moore as well as Madame Aristide, former first lady of Haiti. 

There will be four panels followed by in depth workshops:

• Take Away Our Poverty Not Our Children on organizing to stop child welfare abuses
• End the Criminalization of Poverty and Protest
• Autonomy: central to organizing and unity
• A Care Income, a movement whose time has come, on valuing the work of raising children, caring for others and for the natural world and paying caregivers for that work.

Panelists will include speakers organizing in England, Scotland, Peru, Thailand, the US including Indigenous communities, formerly incarcerated women and men and more, to end poverty, sexism, racism, violence against and criminalization of women; separation of children from families by child welfare; fighting discrimination including against people of color, immigrants, queer/trans people and people with disabilities; food sovereignty; and for financial recognition for unpaid caregiving work, accomplished overwhelmingly by women.

The following featured speakers including the countries or cities where they are based (to help you sort time zones) are available for pre-interviews:

• Phoebe Jones – co-coordinates the Global Women’s Strike US and coordinates the Crossroads Women’s Center in Philadelphia.
• Theresa Muldrow – based in Philadelphia and active with Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike. She’s also with Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration.
• Selma James -based in UK, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign and coordinator of Global Women’s Strike, author of numerous feminist classics including Sex, Race and Class and Our Times is Now (Vol II).
• Didi Pershouse, Vermont – author of The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities. She founded the Land Leadership Initiative.
• Lisa Longstaff, UK – Women Against Rape
• Pranom Somwong (Bee), Thailand – Protection International, provides security to human rights defenders, founding member oftheCommunity Women Human Rights Defenders Collective in Thailand.
• Margaret Prescod, California – co-founder of International Black Women for Wages for Housework and coordinator of Women of Color/GWS, author of Black Women Bringing It All Back Home and host/producer of the Sojourner Truth program out of KPFK.
• Niki Adams, UK –  spokesperson for the English Collective of Prostitutes and the International Prostitutes Collective.
• Charles Hector, Malaysia – lawyer and human rights advocate, instrumental in establishing legal aid for all, and involved in a wide range of issues including ending the death penalty.

Crossroads Women’s Center, based in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, will host this exciting Gathering. The Center has been an organizing hub for over two decades and celebrates moving into its new larger space at 5011 Wayne Avenue. 

This event will be both live and online; participants can register at https://globalwomenstrike.net/end-womens-poverty-2023/