Student Organizing Fellowship with #PoorPeoplesArmy

Posted by Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign on February 18, 2020

As a student interested in social justice, class struggle, and fighting oppression, you can gain hands-on experience through this fellowship working alongside poor and homeless leaders in the Poor People’s Army and members of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

We are a movement that has 30+ years of experience organizing for power not pity.

We have launched a POOR PEOPLE’S ARMY in an effort to save our lives. (http://economichumanrights.org/poor-peoples-army/)More people in the U.S. die from the drug crisis each year than U.S. soldiers died in the Vietnam War. Our children continue to go to bed hungry and go to inadequate schools, and are the victims of violence.

Our families are not surviving, and in order for us to fight for a future for our children and the planet, we are getting organized.

We want to create a new system to end poverty forever, not manage it. But we also need to keep our soldiers alive here and now, with food, clothing, and housing. We are against the professionalization of poverty-management that comes from running after corporate foundation money. We are against the non-profit industrial complex full of anti-poverty organizations led by people who are not poor, full of anti-homelessness organizations with leaders who are not homeless. We are for a multiracial, multi-experienced movement led by the poor, homeless, and formerly homeless. But we also recognize that most people are one crisis away from homelessness and poverty, even in “the richest country in the world.”

We recognize that we are moving more and more towards a jobless economy, and the only jobs remaining don’t allow enough to cover basic necessities of life.

STUDENTS have to navigate a changing world where work is disappearing, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and we have few models of genuine resistance and people power. This fellowship will allow students to work with a tried and true method of grassroots organizing that models itself after (and has worked with) peasant movements across the world. We also are especially interested in linking organized homeless and jobless people with organized labor— we are part of the same larger struggle against the rich and powerful who don’t give a damn about us.

STUDENT FELLOWS will work on projects in three major categories:

1. PROJECTS OF SURVIVAL on the “New Underground Railroad” – we do what we need to do to keep people alive.

2. MOVEMENT BUILDING – Fighting poverty through demonstrations, housing takeovers, bus tours, marches, and truth commissions. A major project of ours each election year is planning major demonstrations outside the DNC and RNC.

3. EDUCATIONAL – raising consciousness and developing leaders amongst the ranks of the poor.

Apply for the Student Organizing Fellowship: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7kLelnwYwyhjj09KVQzY9-zXoQDbH8IzqZmv39KNwlzl75w/viewform