Poverty Scholars Program: Leadership School

The 2011 Poverty Scholars Program Wilkes-Barre Regional Leadership School in Wilkes-Barre, PA, hosted by Northeastern Pennsylvania Organizing Center (NEPA), brought together over 100 leaders in the Poverty Scholars Program who are beginning to focus on a statewide organizing strategy. As part of a year long educational plan for the Poverty Scholars Program, the school's curriculum paid particular attention to two core themes of our work: the study of Economics and History.  

The Leadership School offered an opportunity for leaders to come together and commit themselves to developing the competence, clarity, and connections that are necessary to unite the poor across lines that traditionally divide us -- race, religious, gender, and geography -- to build a movement to abolish poverty. Leaders talked about how we must learn to teach as we fight, to learn as we lead, and educate as we organize. How, without education, organizing is reduced to mobilization. “We cannot afford to just mobilize bodies – we must move minds... Simply mobilizing bodies, moving from one event to another, is not enough to counter the sophisticated and dangerous forces arrayed against us” (Pedagogy of the Poor). To unite and organize a New and Unsettling Force, we must equip ourselves with knowledge and thereby challenge the structures that continue to produce “the cruelly unjust society” in which we live (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

• Leadership School Overview
• Agenda
• Session Descriptions
• Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and The Northeastern Pennsylvania Organizing Center

Press:

Putting the priority on the poor: Poverty Program Event at King’s to analyze the problems that create and maintain poverty
by Matt Hughes
The Times Leader
July 9, 2011

Community organizers get lesson in economics through Northeastern Pa. tour: Poverty Scholars Program aims to abolish poverty by having leaders study the past and present.
By Jerry Lynott
The Times Leader
July 10, 2011

2009 Leadership School a huge success!  On August 9th -15th, 2009 more than 160 leaders from across the country and around the world gathered for a week in Charleston West Virginia to study together, teach one another, and to work towards Reigniting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign today. 

The Poverty Scholars Program Leadership School was hosted in Charleston, WV by the Direct Action Welfare Group (DAWG). Applicants from more than forty grassroots organizations were selected to attend the Leadership School. 

• Information Packet (PDF)
• Goals
• Schedule (PDF)
  
• Participating Organizations (PDF)
• Core Curriculum Sessions (or download printable version as a PDF)
• Skills and Organizing Workshops (or download printable version as a PDF)
• Pre-Leadership School Study Materials

Press:

National Anti-Poverty Groups Convene in W.Va., Associated Press, August 6, 2009: CNBC, Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston Gazette, Forbes, Herald Dispatch (West Virginia), WSAZ TV (Charleston), WTAP TV (West Virginia), WVVA TV (West Virginia), Yahoo Finance

Organizers Gather to Fight Poverty, The Charleston Gazette, August 9, 2009

Anti-Poverty Groups in W.Va. to Discuss Strategy, August 10, 2009: WCHS-TV, WSAZ-TV

Anti-Poverty Groups Target Job Loss, Homelessness, The Associated Press, August 10, 2009: Charleston Daily Mail, Daily Press (Virginia), Examiner (Indianapolis), Forbes, Herald Star (Ohio), Philadelphia Inquirer, PressConnects (Alabama), Times Leader (Pennsylvania), Truthout,  Washington Examiner

A New and Unsettling Force: Poverty Scholars Meet in West Virginia, Lisa Gray-Garcia, Examiner, August 14, 2009.

The Poverty Scholars Program, Change.org, August 15, 2009.

Partnerships to End Poverty, Led by the Poor by Kymberly McNair. God's Politics Blog, Sojourners. September 4, 2009.

Press Releases:

• July 30, 2009 (or download printable version as a PDF)
• August 15, 2009 (or download printable version as a PDF)
  

Blog:
Read the Leadership School blog for multimedia reports from the school

Photos:
Blair Hyatt: Kayford, Matewan Friday, Graduation, Friday Night
Amy Hendrick photos
NESRI photos
Patrick Grugan: Poverty Scholars Wall of Leaders, school photos

Sermons:
“From the Ashes of Our Hopelessness Rises the Flame of New Hope” - a sermon by H. Mitchell Watson
"Space for Grace" - notes for a sermon by Mary Ellen Kris at Park Avenue United Methodist Church, New York City, Sunday, August 16th.

For more on the Leadership School:
Radio Interviews
Materials - including PowerPoints from core curriculum sessions