CAV’s Ms. Marna fights to make Wisconsin streets more safe!

Marna Winbush, aka Ms. Marna, is an elder in the Milwaukee community and she is a leader in the Campaign Against Violence (WI-Affiliate of LYVEF). When Ms. Marna isn’t teaching CAV leaders how to garden or mentoring young people, she leads a group called Mothers Against Gun Violence (MAGV). The group is made up primarily of women who have lost their children to homicide.

Over the years, Ms. Marna and her brave band of mothers have worked tirelessly for the Responsible Gun Ownership Bill, an effort to restrict person to person guns sales by requiring background checks on all guns sold in the state of WI. While the opposition is well funded, MAGV refuses to give up.

This week, there were a series of hearings in Madison about the bill. Ms. Marna was in attendance along with other community groups including Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort and Urban Underground .

Watch the video and check out Ms. Marna’s testimony. All we can say is she is one powerful “mama.”

Posted by:

Jayme Montgomery

COP15: Fasting for Survival?

Follow all of Jayme’s and Marcia’s copenhagen coverage at http://youngvoter.org/cop15

Fasting today and my stomach hurts. Not because of fasting but because if we don’t get a deal, we should not have children. It is a matter of survival.

Heard yesterday that the negotiations are going to go at least through the weekend. We HAVE to keep on pushing! Contact your Congress person NOW!

~Marcia Lee

I really don’t like to miss meals i.e. fast. But when we, meaning the U.S., are making a conscious decision to not take all the steps to stop global climate change I have NO CHOICE but to turn my fork down. Join the movement before it really is too late.

~Jayme Montgomery-Baker

From the folks at Climate Justice Fast…

We, the participants of Climate Justice Fast!, are undertaking our international hunger strike in order to call upon world leaders – and all people, everywhere – to act with courage and good faith for our common, global good, by implementing the most rapid possible transition to stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases below 350ppm CO2-e, and by committing to deliver justice for the global poor and future generations – who are the least responsible for causing climate change, yet who suffer the most from its effects.

Climate Justice for the poor and for future generations can be delivered by funding climate adaptation and mitigation activities in
developing nations with at least US$195 billion per year; by reducing and rejecting over-consumption, wherever it exists, and by phasing out both deforestation and fossil fuels completely – starting with the elimination of developed countries’ fossil fuel subsidies, shifting them
 wholly to renewable energy and international climate finance.

We urge all people, everywhere, to make a commitment to join the movement for climate justice, and to not to give up until we succeed in these demands being met.

Fasting today and my stomach hurts. Not because of fasting but because if we don’t get a deal, we should not have children. It is a matter of survival.

Posted by:

Jayme Montgomery

Battle of the Bella (#COP15)

Follow all of Jayme’s copenhagen coverage at http://youngvoter.org/cop15

Cold, Snowing, 100′s of police, 1000′s of marchers, banners, Amerie on the radio…

Angry, frustrated, trains shut down, young, old, global climate movement.

All words used to describe my experience at the Reclaim Power protest. While folks in the U.S. were safely tucked in their beds, thousands of young people from around the world gathered in the streets of Copenhagen to demand access to the Bella (convention) Center. To demand real policies that will reverse climate change and save planet earth.

It saddened me to see a man, eyes fire-red from being peppered sprayed, snot hanging from his nose, talking about how all he wanted was to have his voice heard. It was at that moment that reality set in. There are millions of people around the world already suffering from climate change. Their frustration is not unlike the thousands of displaced workers in Milwaukee looking for something to put them back to work. These protesters were just trying to express what they know to be right, but don’t have access to do so.

From my viewpoint, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Global warming, increasing unemployment, and escalating wars all the while people around the world are crying, “enough!” And our leaders can’t let go long enough to listen and figure out a way to push the stop button. This, like so many other similar experiences, come down to the same thing…POWER.

No matter how disempowered I might feel right now, I will be up tomorrow to do it all again.

Posted by:

Jayme Montgomery