Lobby Training
On Sunday, Stacie Murphy led an interactive lobby training, in which participants had the opportunity to ask questions, role-play, and prepare for their meetings with samestate peers.
Clockwise from top left: Peggy Alpert and Victoria Young following along during lobby training; Lester Brown giving his keynote address; longtime member Jacqueline Fincher; Steve Brown asking a question about his representative; Mona Mohamad and Jade Boswell participating in a mock lobby visit with Stacie Murphy.
The event culminated on Monday and Tuesday when participants headed to Capitol Hill to meet with their members of Congress. Jade Boswell and Stephen Webber, graduate students from New Mexico, had a noteworthy meeting at Senator Tom Udall’s office. Toward the end of the meeting with the legislative assistant, Senator Udall joined our citizen lobbyists and expressed his full support for increasing family planning assistance. Capitol Hill Days 2009 reaffirmed our grassroots commitment to achieving global reproductive justice. With lots of new advocates trained and 37 congressional offices visited, Population Connection is that much closer to “doubling the money” for international family planning. Seattle University student Kraig Cook enthusiastically summed up his experience, “I came into Capitol Hill Days passionate and interested in a wide variety of global development issues, but I learned so much at the conference about international family planning that I really feel like my interest in global issues now has a clear and distinct focus.”
www.popconnect.org
June 2009 — The Reporter
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