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There is an organization in Vancouver Washington that is working on these issues.  My teenage daughter and I took their videos to her school to educate kids there. "The Defenders" is their program to get men and boys to pledge to stop buying sex.  They also have an educational program that gets the word out about changing laws and sentences for pimps. 

Thanks for making this issue more public! 

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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We need more non-Latinos listening and advocating.

I feel that it's important to get non-Latino individuals who are equal rights advocates involved in summits like this one.  Latinos definitely need to gather to set a vision for their social and political future in the region, but I think that the other concientious citizens of our state (like myself) need to be there listening and learning so that we can advocate better for this group of neighbors who are more and more targeted by some of our other neighbors.  I am a white anglo saxon protestant, and I plan to be there, just to listen and learn. 

I also want to thank OPB for covering the story about the young man who was the senior class president at Rex Putnum getting deported--this is an important story that has not been given enough media attention.  Keep talking about this please! 

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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I don't get to listen very often, but what I like about the premise of this show that none of the other shows mentioned here offers, is dialogue with our neighbors about topics that are different here in Oregon than they are for the rest of the world. Fixing foster care looks different in our town and State, for example, than it would in London.

Another thing that I like, is that this show allows people to tell about their own personal experiences and stories--local stories that are relevant to the rest of us because we're neighbors. THAT is engaging. Hearing the stories of my neighbors is one of my favorite past times, if they are respectful, insightful and candid. Maybe those three things are hard to find, but it's worth a shot.

Topics about the future, about how are kids are going to deal with the growing social, economic, and environmental problems that are rising now, are of interest to me. I like that others are interested in talking about natural disaster preparedness, peak oil and farms, healthcare and schools. Lets keep revisiting these discussions as things improve or decline! As a parent, it is always so encouraging to hear that I am not the only one disappointed in the way we do school and healthcare these days, and the way we do them both differently for different economic classes.

Similarly, I'd like to hear and talk about the state of housing facilities that are available to our aging parents in Portland and other places in Oregon. What are people doing, how are they being creative about finding more caring options than your average assisted living facility with underpaid staff and very little to stimulate the minds and engage the hearts of our loved ones? Two years ago I took a second job in a very expensive Portland facility and I was horrified. I'll never put my parents in a place like that.

Speaking of housing facilities, I'd love to hear more about all of these "shared living" communities popping up all over Portland and Oregon, where kids play in a central common area and meals and yardwork and other things are shared with neighbors... and variations on this theme.

posted 5 years ago
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I thought my lifestyle was pretty recession proof, because I live less than a mile from my work and walk to buy groceries and to eat out at frugal ethnic vegetarian restaurants... but I am definitely affected by the rise in heating costs for my small home. The price of heating my home has nearly tripled in the five years since I bought it, and it now seems just ridiculous to spend as much money as I do just to keep a single family residence going for me and my daughter, in light of what it takes to sustain the typical family across the rest of the globe. I'm considering selling and living in a bigger house with more people to share costs, but I'm not sure that my house will sell in this market. And as it is being funded by fluxuating government contracts, is my job really secure? I'm not sure. In any case, there will be more and more work to do and less time/money to do it all in/with.

But I am still very fortunate comparitively--the families in poverty that I work with are really stuggling right now. The food bank is stopping its focus on education and just putting energy on getting more food these days, because there is so much need. Schools in outer SE are desperate to get financial help for their families, so much so that academic help for their kids is being turned down for sheer lack of time to focus on making the referrals. Schools didn't have enough staff to adequately meet the needs of the students even before this economic downturn happened--now they are drowning for lack of time and staff to meet the needs of families. God bless them for trying.

There is something terribly wrong with the way we have shaped our society. The poor are completely geographically cut off from middle class America--there is no intermingling of the two, except in retail stores and restaurants where one set is serving the other, so there is no relationship other than a subservient one. I think that there will soon be a lot of anger toward the rich and the comfortable, expressed by the poor. Up until now I have seen that the working poor have been pretty content to be exploited by corporations for what little they get, but that time may be coming to an end. Honestly, I'm looking forward to seeing that happen. Somthing needs to stop the exploitation going on here and abroad, against honest laborers. (Happy May Day!)

posted 5 years ago
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