I Come from a People Who… is a series of events that weaves together the themes of the 2021 Humanity Festival and the 40th Anniversary of IRTF: identity, memory and resistance. Focusing on the extraordinary contributions to Native literature of playwright and poet Marcie Rendon--and her advocacy for Native American artists and writers--the series will include a community conversation, an intimate virtual gathering for Cleveland’s Indigenous community, and an interactive poetry workshop.
Event
February 24, 2021 to February 25, 2021
Event
March 1, 2021 to March 22, 2021
Join us Mondays in March for the IRTF-hosted Labor Solidarity Series featuring service workers, farm workers, and industrial workers. We will be amplifying worker stories and pushing organizational initiatives to support our local and international workers during these economic and health crises. We'll feature workers and union organizers from Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the US. See you there!
Event
February 28, 2021
Join us at 3pm Eastern Time on Sunday Feb 28. Nicaraguans are hard at work on a multi-faceted approach to ensure people's freedom from hunger and adequate nutrition. The speakers in this webinar will discuss Nicaragua's efforts toward food sovereignty, including farmer associations like the ATC, agroecology projects, and government programs such as Zero Hunger and school meals.
Event
February 26, 2021
With the help of experts and activists from Ohio, we will be exploring the institutional biases and racism that impact the health of Black mothers. Presented by Black Lives Matter-Cleveland, Black United Students-Kent State, IRTF Cleveland, and Planned Parenthood Generation Action-Kent State University.
Register for event: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqcOqgqj8uGNKHmRnUQzzvOn53Iic3B9Bv
News Article
February 21, 2021
Corporal Pierre Jean responds to the call of a disturbance in Farmworker Village, gets out of his patrol car seemingly bent on imposing his will on a man who is clearly not well — though, equally clearly, not a real threat — and, within seconds of arriving, rushes him, boxes him in, and shoots him dead. A bad thing — a horrible, preventable, violent death at the hands of the police — has happened. That much doesn’t change.
News Article
February 19, 2021
It is with great sadness that we share this news. Sister Dianna Ortiz passed away this morning (Feb 19 2021). Sister Dianna was well-known in the Latin America solidarity movement for the past 30 years. "In 1989, while working as a missionary in Guatemala, Sister Dianna Ortiz, an American Ursuline, was abducted by security forces and brutally tortured. Her case attracted international attention-- not because it was so unusual, but because of the explosive charge that the man who intervened with her captors, a mysterious "Alejandro," may have had connections with the US Embassy." (From the book jacket of her autobiography, which she wrote with Patricia Davis, The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth)
Content Page
February 10, 2021 to February 18, 2021
On December 1st, 2020, the City of Cleveland lifted the utility shutoff moratorium on Cleveland Public Power (CPP) and Cleveland Water. Although Cleveland City Council has expressed a verbal commitment to halting CPP and Cleveland Water shutoffs through April 1, there is nothing in writing requiring CPP and Cleveland Water to abide by this policy. Northeast Ohioans need a formal written moratorium on electricity and water shutoffs due to underpayment to CPP and Cleveland Water, respectively, through the end of the pandemic and the following six months.
RRN Letter
February 15, 2021
Twenty-six year-old nursing student Keyla Martínez died in police custody on February 7. Arrested the night before for an alleged violation of a COVID-restriction curfew, an autopsy found that she had died from “mechanical asphyxiation” in her jail cell. While police initially reported her death as a suicide, the former director of forensic medicine reports that she suffered torture, strangulation, and possible sexual abuse at the hands of police in jail. The Center for Women’s Rights in Honduras stated, “The femicide of Keyla Martínez is added to the history of abuse of power and disproportionate use of force, that with or without the curfew, are exercised by public functionaries, above all police and military, against the population.” Honduras consistently ranks among the top five nations in the world in femicide. Equally alarming is the high rate of impunity for those who commit these murders. We demand justice for Keyla Martínez. #JusticiaParaKeyla
Event
February 14, 2021
This weekend, we honor the Colombian laborers who make many sacrifices to supply the US with 2 out of every 3 flowers. We ask you to take action to show your solidarity with flower workers this weekend. Flower workers, who are largely women in economically vulnerable situations, have reported health issues, mistreatment by management and grueling work hours- up to 22 hours a shift between the Valentine’s and Mother’s Day months. With the signing of the 2011 Labor Action Plan following the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, the United States committed to protecting the rights of flower workers. Yet, almost 10 years later, the promises to workers have been left unfulfilled. Hear from workers about strategies they are implementing to promote their cause of labor rights and justice.
RRN Letter
February 14, 2021
Death threats to María Eugenia Mosquera Riascos are part of a larger context of illegal armed groups intimidating members of the human rights community in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department. These armed groups, responsible for forced recruitment of youth, are trying to impose their control in the city through fear, various extortionist tactics, and advertising what they call a “social cleansing” in the city. Maria Eugenia Mosquera Riascos is the legal representative of CONPAZCOL (Association of Communities Building Peace in Colombia) and member of the Roundtable for Access to Justice, Victims, Protection and Memory), which participates in the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee. On January 7, again on January 29 and 30, she received a series of threatening messages on her mobile phone. One threat read: “you have three guys watching you,” and “we are the ones who kill informant toads of those other people.”
