NESRI's Podcast

Take Back the Land organized a panel entitled "Social Movements and Left Transformative Organizing" at the Left Forum at Pace University in New York City in June, 2013. This podcast features highlights from the panel of organizers and activists discussing the challenges and successes they've had in securing the fundamental human right to housing through Take Back the Land. Panelists include Rob Robinson and Max Rameau from Take Back the Land and Willie J.R. Fleming and Toussaint Losier from the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign. To learn more about the Take Back the Land movement, visit TBTL.org. To learn more about the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, visit Chicagoantieviction.org. To learn more about our work here at NESRI, visit NESRI.org. To learn more about the Left Forum, visit LeftForum.org. All music was provided by the Adam Ezra Group: http://adamezra.com. This podcast was created by Jason Fernandes, a NESRI Summer 2013 communications intern and student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Brittany Scott of NESRI's Human Right to Housing Program presents a short introduction to 3 Interim Proposals for how the housing movement might lock-in models of land transformation during the 2012 Spring Offensive (a co-production with Take Back the Land & Movement Catalyst). An introductory presentation on Community Land Trusts as a specific legal tool for this radical transformation follows, led by Sam Miller and Kendall Jackman of Picture the Homeless. 2 powerpoints were used. The first is available at: http://bit.ly/xp8ibx. The second at:

Host Traven Leyshon, of Equal Time radio, features Anja Rudiger and Peg Franzen to discuss findings of the Vermont Workers’ Center's People's Budget Project.

On March 29, 2010, the Opportunity Agenda organized a National Telebriefing on the Human Right to Health Care in collaboration with NESRI and Amnesty International. In the one hour briefing Anja Rudiger, Human Right to Health Program Director at NESRI, Rachel Ward of Amnesty International and Julie Rowe of the Opportunity Agenda, analyzed the recent health reform law through a human rights lens, focusing on the impact of the law, including on maternal health, and on how to communicate health reform issues within a human rights framework. The following podcast is one hour long. Anja Rudiger speaks from minute 4 to minute 26:40. Rachel Ward speaks from minute 26:46 to minute 43:40. The last section of the recording is dedicated to Julie Rowe of the Opportunity Agenda. She speaks from minute 44:00 till the end. For additional information about this podcast and NESRI’s ongoing activities please visit www.nesri.org.

Host Theresa Edwards featured the Dignity in Schools Campaign on the Justice4Children Radio Program to discuss the National Resolution for Ending School Pushout and concrete policy reforms to end pushout. Guest speakers included Benetta Standly from the ACLU of Florida, a high school student member of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) in New York City, and Liz Sullivan of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. You can also access the show at www.blogtalkradio.com/wakeupcallshow.

On November 18, 2009, WRFG's (Radio Free Georgia - http://wrfg.org) Class Chronicles hosted a live interview with Anita Beaty, the Executive Director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing and the Chicago Independent Human Rights Council, and Tiffany Gardner, the Human Right to Housing Director at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. They discussed the human right to housing, the national housing crisis, the recent UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing's First Official Mission to the United States, and the homelessness and public housing situations in Atlanta and Chicago.

In August, NESRI’s Human Right to Health Director, Anja Rudiger, interviewed Christine Kaufmann, Montana State Senator and long-time Director of the Montana Human Rights Network, about her experience of developing Montana’s increasingly influential human right to health care campaign. In the interview Senator Kaufmann also argues that local and state-based activists need not wait for federal action on health care reform, reflects on her dual role as politician and advocate, and explains why politicians can be much more progressive if pushed by concerted pressure from the grassroots.

This August, NESRI’s Human Right to Health Director, Anja Rudiger, visited our partner organization, the Montana Human Rights Network, which is based in Helena, Montana. Together, the Network and NESRI held a series of focus group discussions on community health needs in Lewis and Clark County. Last December, the county adopted a resolution declaring health care a human right and setting up a task force to identify ways for making access to health care universal. While in Montana Anja interviewed Alan Peura, the Helena City Commissioner who was instrumental in drafting the county’s right to health care resolution.

In an E-Alert released Friday, June 19, AI USA stated that current draft health care reform legislation falls far short of fulfilling a human rights vision. AI USA suggests that one reason for this is that single-payer advocates, a crucial human rights constituency, have been largely excluded from the reform process. Here NESRI’s Human Right to Health Program Director Anja Rudiger interviews Sameer Dossani, Campaign Director for Amnesty International’s Demand Dignity Campaign. She asks him about why Amnesty turned out in force to the Single Payer Right Now! Rally for the Right to Health Care on Friday, June 26th, in Washington DC.

On Friday, May 1, an estimated over 1000 people from across Vermont, including nurses and other healthcare workers, descended on the State Capital building in Montpelier for a "Healthcare is a Human Right" rally. The historic rally, organized by NESRI ally the Vermont Workers' Center, was aimed at changing not only what is "politically possible" with respect to healthcare reform, but at making the establishment of the human right to healthcare as a basic right "politically inescapable." Anja Rudiger, of the Human Right to Health Program at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), was there to document the historic event. This piece was produced by NESRI's Phil Wider and aired on Philadelphia's Labor Justice Radio (an initiative of the Media Mobilizing Project) May 2009 show.

On Friday, May 1, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) addressed NESRI ally the Vermont Workers' Center's Human Right to Healthcare Rally at the State Capital in Montpelier, VT. Estimates are that over 1000 Vermonters turned out for the rally.

Lucas Benitez of NESRI partner the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) presented at the United Nations’ launch of World Social Justice Day.

NESRI Executive Director Cathy Albisa presented on a panel entitled “Health Care is a Human Right: Realizing the Right to Health in the United States,” at Seizing the Moment, Building the Movement, the 2009 Amnesty International USA Annual General Meeting.

Cathy Albisa and Maisie Chin address the Opening Plenary of the US Human Rights Fund Convening. The plenary was entitled "Strategy for Social Change: Success Stories, Challenges & Cautionary Tales." Photo taken by Jim Belfon.

NESRI Human Right to Housing Director Tiffany M. Gardner and John Derek Norvell of Concerned Citizens of Greater Harlem presented on a panel entitled "Poverty Scholars and Religious Leaders Roundtable" at the January 2009 Immersion Course of the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary.

A special evening with Dr. Paul Farmer, founding NESRI Board Member, Co-Founder of Partners In Health, MacArthur Foundation Genius Award winner, human rights activist, and subject of Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains. You will hear from Dr. Farmer and our staff about how we are working with our partners and networks to shape their agendas and hopes in the face of a new administration.