Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco
Issue: Environmental and Social Justice
Program Topic: Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Radio Consciencia; Rally of Unity speakers on University and State Fossil Fuel Divestment, Climate Change, South Portland Tar Sands Pipeline
Key Discussion Points:
a) The work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida based tomato farm workers association, has revolutionized a system which has held workers in abusive conditions, without a voice,and dismissed growers and retailers from responsibility or repercussions. One of the organizing tools for the CIW is their low power FM Station, Radio Consciencia.
b) We hear from some of the speakers of last month’s Rally of Unity, organized through the Alliance for the Common Good. Topics include the South Portland struggle to keep tar sands from being piped through Maine, and the student and state level efforts to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
c) Unity College was the first in the nation to begin the process of divestment from the fossil fuel industry. College of the Atlantic was the first to complete the process.
Guests:
A) Silvia Perez, farm worker and organizer with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers www.ciw-online.org
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/nov/17/radio_conciencia/?neapolitan
B) Jake Ratner, Just Harvest USA
C) Maria Giraurd, member of Penobscot Nation and Penobscot Tribal Council
D) Iris SanGiovanni, Maine Students for Climate Justice; student at University of Southern Maine
http://gofossilfree.org/maine-students-unite-against-climate-change/ http://www.350maine.org/divestment_campaign
http://www.workingwaterfront.com/articles/College-of-the-Atlantic-divests-of-fossil-fuels/15425/
E) Maine State Representative, Brian Jones, from Freedom