THE INNER-CITY NEWS - May 03, 2023 - May 09, 2023
Kali Akuno to Receive Gandhi Peace Award at New Haven's Q-House On Saturday May 13 Kali Akuno, cofounder of Cooperation Jackson, will be given the Gandhi Peace Award in a ceremony at the Q-House in New Haven (197 Dixwell Avenue) at 2 p.m. The Gandhi Peace Award has been presented since 1960 by the Connecticut-based organization Promoting Enduring Peace (PEP). Cooperation Jackson was created in Jackson, Mississippi in 2013 to foster a solidarity economy in Jackson anchored by a network of cooperatives and workerowned, democratically self-managed enterprises. Michael Mills' "Rhythm's from the Heart" will provide music. There will be no admission fee to the ceremony and there will be free refreshments. Register at PEPeace.org to attend or to view online. Laura Schleifer Program and Development Officer of the Promoting Enduring Peace said. “Kali Akuno of his fellow members of Cooperation Jackson are creating a model for how we might be able to transform our communities on the local level and then linking them together to create a new system that both provides for human and ecological needs, and also
recognizes the interdependence between the two.” Stanley Heller, PEP Administrator said, “We also admire Akuno’s writings, how he developed ideas on worker self-management and strategy on how to move the cooperative movement forward. He wrote ‘Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black SelfDetermination in Jackson, Mississippi’ in 2017 and this month released a book he co-edited ‘Jackson Rising Redux’. We also admire his bold ideas on the climate crisis and his call for ecosocialism”. The Gandhi Peace Award has been given since 1960 by the Connecticut-based organization Promoting Enduring Peace. The peace and environmental organization was founded in 1952. Recent laureates of the award are: Syrian-American Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Syrian rescue worker Mayson Al-Misri, musician and activist Jackson Browne, Ralph Nader, Omar Barghouti and Tom Goldtooth and Kathy Kelly. Well-known laureates in the past include Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Ellsberg, Dorothy Day and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Kali Akuno, co-founder of Cooperation
Immigrant Activists Rally for Health Care, Stable Scheduling by Hugh McQuaid
New Haven Independent
A group of immigrant activists marched Monday to the state Capitol where they rallied for passage of legislation including an expansion of Medicaid eligibility for undocumented children and stable scheduling requirements for service industry workers. Dozens of people gathered to mark International Workers Day in Hartford’s Bushnell Park. They shouted, alternatively in Spanish and English, slogans of solidarity for the state’s immigrant workforce and demands for state policymakers as they marched from the muddy turf of the park, across Trinity Street and assembled in front of the Capitol’s south-facing portico. “We are here as organizations, residents of Connecticut, and elected officials to demand better policies that guarantee the basic human rights of Black, brown, immigrant and working class communities,” said Veronica Ubaldo, a Mexican immigrant and member of the advocacy group Make the Road Connecticut. On the group’s agenda were legislative proposals requiring many larger employers to publish work schedules two weeks in advance and compensate employees if their shifts are changed on short notice. Another bill attempts to ensure access to translation services for English language learner students and their families. The group pushed for affordable housing and rent cap policies that have since been defeated. They also called on legislators to expand Medicaid eligibility to otherwise
Advocates march to the state Capitol on May 1, 2023 Credit: Hugh McQuaid / CTNewsJunkie
eligible undocumented immigrants beyond the state’s current threshold at 12 years old. The immigrant workers’ push comes at a critical time for the legislature, where leaders are in the midst of negotiating a state budget for the next two years. The success or failure of most bills depends on whether a concept can secure funding
in that eventual budget document, which despite an expected surplus, will be tightly constrained by fiscal constraints. One of the final pieces of the budget picture, updates on the state’s projected revenues, was expected to fall into place later Monday. Some of the proposals sought by the advocates seem unlikely to make much
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headway in the remaining five weeks of the legislative session. For instance, policies capping increases in rent amounts already failed to advance out of the legislature’s Housing Committee this year. Other bills remain in play. The legislature’s spending committee was expected to consider a version of the predictable scheduling requirements as one of 95 items up for review during an afternoon meeting. If advanced by the Appropriations Committee, the bill would return to the House, where lawmakers declined to vote on a similar proposal last year. The House will also consider the “English Learners’ Bill of Rights,” which was proposed this year by Gov. Ned Lamont. Meanwhile, a version of the expansion of Medicaid for undocumented people has already been included in the Appropriations Committee’s spending recommendations. The panel called for spending $3 million to increase eligibility for otherwise eligible children from the age of 12 to 15. Leaders of the panel argued the state had not yet been able to gauge the fiscal impact of the last expansion, which went into effect earlier this year. During Monday’s rally, advocates said the contemplated expansion did not go far enough. As parents, we want it expanded for all ages, but we learned that they only want to expand to age 15 this year. For shame,” said Guadalupe Escamilla, a 37 yearold mother from Mexico who is now a resident of Hartford. “For us, who have worked so hard, to be given this news at this point with all that we have fought.”
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