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by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven/León Sister City Project
The New Haven/Le?n Sister City Project (NHLSCP) has just completed design and construction of the One World House exhibit as part of ongoing efforts to educate the public about climate change. The exhibit features a full size model of a house typical in rural communities around the world and banners that describe the impact of climate change on vulnerable rural communities, the science of climate change, and what we can do to mitigate the impacts. The 8-foot square wood and sheet metal House will be available to schools, churches and organizations.
NHLSCP partners in education and development projects with Goyena, a community outside of León, Nicaragua. Goyena has a population of 2,500, where its residents earn an average of less than $4 a day. FIfty percent are agricultural workers. In 1998, one of the hottest years on record, Goyena fell victim to Hurricane Mitch, and the entire village was destroyed. Residents of Goyena were forced to relocate 2 kilometers away from their land, and were unable to resume farming because the land was ruined.
The One World House focuses on impacted specific communities in Nicaragua, Bangladesh and Peru, and raises concerns about the challenges rural communities around the world face because of climate change.
Stated the World Bank, “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change – a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared.” And Dr. RK Pachauri, Chair of the International Panel on Climate Change stated, “The impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor, within all countries.”
The House has been developed by members of NHLSCP, the Risk Reduction, Adaptation and Disaster Student Interest Group at Yale FES, Quinnipiac University, Yale Student Environmental Coalition, and Fairfield University.
NHLSCP is a progressive, bi-national, grassroots organization that fosters a partnership between the communities of Greater New Haven and León, Nicaragua. Our mission is to promote social justice. We work to form fair and respectful relationships between the people of our two cities. Through delegations and other exchanges, we strive to understand and celebrate our respective cultures. In León, we engage in sustainable economic, human, and community development projects. In New Haven, we educate our neighbors about Nicaragua and about local and global effects of policies of the U.S. government and international economic institutions.
New Haven/León Sister City Project
608 Whitney Ave., New Haven, CT 06511
ph: (203) 562-1607, www.newhavenleon.org, e-mail nh@newhavenleon.org.
by Joan Cavanagh, Archivist/ Director, Greater New Haven Labor History Association
“Peter McGuire is often called the father of May Day. Congress had passed an 8-hour law in 1868, but President Chester A. Arthur refused to enforce it, and employers largely ignored it. McGuire concluded that there was only one way for workers to get an effective 8-hour law: [McGuire]: “…an enactment by the workingmen themselves that on a given day eight hours shall constitute a day’s work. And they ought to enforce it themselves.”
— Excerpt from “Voices of Working People’s History,”
by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice
The Greater New Haven Labor History Association will present a dramatic reading of “Voices of Working People’s History,” a 30-minute script about the origins of International Workers’ Day developed by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 1st on the New Haven Green. The reading will help to kick off the annual celebration of May Day and begin Labor History Month.
The narrators are Tony Rosso and Frank Panzarella, with remaining speaking parts filled by other members of the Association. The “Greater New Haven Labor History Players” will reprise the reading at the Association’s annual membership meeting on Sunday, May 16th from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 267 Chapel Street.
Joe Dimow and Mary Altieri are this year’s recipients of the Augusta Lewis Pass It On Award, given at the annual meeting to individuals or organizations who have contributed to local labor history and/or its preservation. Irm Wessel will present the award to Dimow, a veteran community activist who was a union steward in the United Auto Workers Union in the late 1930s. Anthony Riccio will give the award to Altieri, who was fired from Siegman Tie Company in the early 1930s for refusing to cross a picket line.
Finally, throughout the months of May and June, the Labor History Association’s exhibit, “New Haven’s Garment Workers: An Elm City Story” returns to New Haven from a successful tour around the state. It will be shown at Wachovia Bank, located at the corner of Church and Elm Streets, during the bank’s regular hours of 8:30 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
For more information, e-mail info@laborhistory.org, visit www.laborhistory.org, or call (203) 777-2756, Ext. 2.
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