Honoring Ali El-Issa: A Legacy of Justice, Peace, and Sovereignty.” 6-8 p.m. Friday Sept. 29, 2023, SCSU

After our September newsletter was printed, we received notice from the Women’s and Gender Studies Department of SCSU of this event honoring Ali El-Issa. We want to make sure you know about this.
Best wishes, the PAR Planning Committee

Please save the date and join us for a special event “Honoring Ali El-Issa: A Legacy of Justice, Peace, and Sovereignty.” 6-8 p.m. Friday Sept. 29, 2023 in ASC Rm 301.

RSVP here: bit.ly/RSVPHonoringAli   or scan QR code on flyer.

Co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – New Haven, Middle East Crisis Committee, Peace Development Fund, and the Women’s & Gender Studies Department at Southern Connecticut State University.

Title: Honoring Ali El-Issa: A Legacy of Justice, Peace, and Sovereignty
Date: Friday, 9/29/2023
Time: 6-8 p.m.
Location: Adanti Student Center, 3rd Floor, Rm 301. Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515

The Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) Department at Southern Connecticut State University invites you to join us as we celebrate and honor our long-time friend, Ali Saleh El-Issa (1952-2022), who passed to the spirit world early on the morning of September 27th, 2022, at home after a brief illness.

Leaders and Elders from a multitude of Indigenous communities will be in attendance, as well as family, with speakers from American Indian Community House, Jewish Voice for Peace – New Haven, Middle East Crisis Committee, the Palestinian community, Peace Development Fund, and members of the WGS community.

A proud son of Palestine, born in exile and educated in Lebanon, East Germany, and Cuba, Ali was active in the Palestinian liberation movement locally and internationally, as well as all struggles for liberation and sovereignty in Indigenous communities around the world. Many, including WGS members, consider Ali a member of their communities working towards justice and peace. Following the death of his wife Ingrid in 1999, Ali founded and became the President and C.E.O. of the Flying Eagle Woman Fund for Peace, Justice, and Sovereignty, to honor Ingrid’s life and carry on her work on behalf of the Indigenous Peoples of the world as well as her home community, the Menominee Nation, in the state of Wisconsin. WGS established a student service award in Ingrid’s name in 2004. Ali never failed to show up and support our student recipients of the Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa Service Award.

Upon his first anniversary, WGS shares the resolve as articulated in the tribute published after his death to do our best to carry on with and honor his legacy of peace and justice: ‘The world mourns the tremendous loss of a fierce and fiercely loving leader/brother/mentor in Ali, now a warrior ancestor. His global community will miss him profoundly, and we will do our best to carry on with his legacy and his work, and to hold his and Ingrid’s memories in the light. They were always in service of the people, from all walks of life, in grief and in hope.’

We hope you can join us for this special event honoring Ali’s life and legacy.

Contact WGS Dept. with any questions via email at [email protected] or call our office at 203-392-6133.

The Yale Cross Campus Occupation Oct. 22-24

Facebook Yale Endowment Justice Coalition

The Yale Endowment Justice Coalition demands Yale’s complete divestment from fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt! They held an in-person COVID-safe occupation on Cross Campus from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day on October 22, 23, and 24. There were speakers and events throughout, and time designated for calling University President Peter Salovey, Chief Investments Officer David Swensen, and other members of the Yale Corporation to demand that they divest. They ended on International Divestment Day—Oct. 24—when hundreds of youth organizations around the world call on their institutions to stop profiting from climate change.

For years, Yale students and New Haven community members have demanded that Yale listen to scientists, stop profiting from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and cancel its holdings in exploitative and imperialist Puerto Rican debt. Last year hundreds of students and community members stormed the field at the Harvard/Yale game in support of those demands. Yet our administration still refuses to listen to student voices. Now, as New Haven struggles with the worst public health crisis and the worst economic downturn in living memory, it could not be more important that Yale invest its $30 billion endowment in the New Haven community, not fossil fuel companies or predatory debt collectors. Join us as we continue to demand that our university curb the violence of their financial practices and become a more equitable, accountable institution. (See up-dates at: yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/10/23/endowment-justice-student-protesters-occupy-cross-campus.