OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBLE!
Another World is Possible!

Report from the World Social Forum VI

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign would like to extend our thanks to the Venezuelan Facilitating Group of the World Social Forum (WSF), the Hemispheric Council of the WSF and in particular Zuraima Martinez and COMPA (the Convergence of Movements of the Peoples in the Americas) for their willingness to support and advocate for our movement here in the United States. Without their support, our delegation to the World Social Forum in Caracas would not have been possible. Participating in this year's Forum allowed us to shine a light on the real conditions and struggles that we face in this country before hundreds of other social movements and thousands of leaders from throughout the world. Our presence at the Forum allowed us incredible visibility and now our mission is becoming more well-known across the world, as we are uniting internationally with the vision of economic human rights for all.

Another world is possible. In the United States, millions of people are denied access to food, housing, healthcare, employment, and other basic human rights. Despite these serious and growing problems, we are told there is no real alternative to the present system. Policy elites insist that we need more of the same: more cuts in social services, more tax cuts for the wealthy, more supposedly 'free' markets. This same neoliberal ideology that devastates our communities has been exported around the world, causing tremendous suffering. However, poor people in the United States are beginning to come together, to build organization, and to demand an end to these economic human rights violations. When there is more than enough housing, food, and medicine to go around, we know that there are alternatives to being homeless, hungry, and sick.

These economic human rights violations have been largely invisible. Poor people in the United States are routinely isolated, marginalized from the political process, and stigmatized. To attempt to break this silence, grassroots organizations of farmworkers, public housing tenants, labor unions, homeless mothers, and many more have joined to form the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Through gatherings like the World Social Forum, we hope to tell our stories and bring international attention to the conditions of poverty in the United States. An expansive, predatory, and increasingly unstable global economy is birthing a global movement of the oppressed across race, nation, culture and language; as our movement struggles for breath, we believe that only through the strength of an international movement of poor and oppressed people can we hope to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism. We refuse to die quietly, and we believe that another world is possible.

Faces of the Campaign Delegates

The Poor People's Economic Human Right's Campaign is committed to uniting the poor across national boundaries as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. They work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights named in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights- such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.

Cheri Honkala is the National Coordinator of the Poor People`s Economic Human Rights Campaign and is a formerly homeless mother of two. For the past two decades, Cheri has worked to bring visibility to poor and homeless families and everyone suffering from economic human rights violations in the richest country in the world.

Galen Tyler is the Executive Director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and a formerly homeless father of five. The KWRU works to organize welfare recipients and homeless families in the city of Philadelphia.

Geoffrey Millard is an Iraq War veteran. While in Iraq, Geoff was injured and Iraqi doctors recommended he be sent home, but his commander refused. He finally returned home two months ago, and two days later he began actively speaking out against the war.

Lori Smith suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and Lupus. She, along with 500,000 other sick and poor individuals, was cut off of Medicaid this past summer.

Khalilah is a poor single mother in the U.S. South. She and her son Khalil work to ensure that other families do not have to suffer like theirs.

Julie Cosme is a homeless mother of four. When Julie became homeless, the Department of Public Safety took her children away from her, not because she was an unfit mother but because she did not have adequate housing. Their family has been separated for five years.

Luis Rodriguez is a famous Latino author and a former gang member from the streets of LA. His son is currently serving time in prison.

Pedro Jesus is an immigrant farm worker in the richest country of the world. He receives slave wager for his long hard hours in the field.

Bonnie is a poor mother of ten. Bonnie works to reunite mothers with their children who have been removed from them by the state simply because they are poor.

Kent Nemeth is a a deaf man from Ohio. Kent fights for the economic rights of deaf people, such as the right to communication, to a liveable wage job, and to accessible healthcare.

Jose Silva has been a factory worker for 12 years.

Wilfredo has grown up poor his whole life. Nearly his entire family is serving time in prison.

Jennifer is a poor woman in the US South . Her son Jason has grown up poor and works to organize other poor families to fight for their basic needs.