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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210117T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210401T070000
DTSTAMP:20210712T162307Z
CREATED:20210418T230040Z
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UID:10001198-1610884800-1617260400@www.mediasanctuary.org
SUMMARY:Memorial Altar: “Emerging from Darkness”
DESCRIPTION:An installation to honor personal\, community\, national and global loss\n\n\n\nWe welcome you to visit Freedom Square\, at the corner of 101st St. (where 6th Ave. turns into 5th Ave.) in socially distanced and masked groups of 10 or less\, any time(s) between 1/17-1/20\, to add the names of your beloved dead and/or leave offerings on the Altar in their honor. Please come with your hearts open\, make sure to wear your mask and let’s love each other via this community Altar space. This too is a form of resistance and protest!! \n\n\n\nCheck out this latest television story! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs we continue working to create the more just and equitable world we know is possible\, we recognize the deep need to grieve collectively.  Join us  as we transform Freedom Square to create a community space to express grief\, loss\, generosity and resilience. This participatory installation began in conjunction with our MLK day event “Rise Up: The Struggle Continues…”  and the Nationwide Covid Memorial (1/19/21 at 5:30 pm) for those who have died of Covid\, and is being continued because of popular demand. Community participants continue to visit the altar\, leave messages\, honor loved ones\, and share gifts of food (wrapped for safety) and clothing. \n\n\n\nThe installation includes an Altar for our Ancestors Known and Unknown and for all those who have died longing for justice and freedom.  Stop by to Say their Names\, Share their/your Stories\, Honor your Ancestors/Beloved Dead. Remember to visit in socially distanced and masked groups of 10 or less\,  to add the names of your beloved dead and/or leave offerings on the Altar in their honor.* \n\n\n\n*Altars are sacred spaces formed with intention. A few ideas of what to place on an Altar include: \n\n\n\n      Prayers & wishes      Natural materials (rocks\, leaves\, flowers\, water\, dirt from your motherland)      Pictures (copies are suggested to minimize loss of original precious mementos)      Art\, poetry\, songs\, letters (consider weather-proofing or bring messages and names to write on our flags)      Some BIPOC cultures offer food/ fruits/bread/liquor/tobacco\n\n\n\n(Please individually wrap offerings for safety. Recognizing the reality/impact of addiction\, please leave only small amounts of alcohol.) \n\n\n\nWe would deeply appreciate support of this community altar! \n\n\n\nContact us if you’d like to volunteer or contribute in any way. \n\n\n\nPlease recognize that as you come in and out the area of Freedom Square\, know that many of our neighbors have and continue to experience over-policing and gun violence and might even feel a sense of shame or dissonance from such a visible community holding space. We ask that each of you respect the right of our neighbors to stop and stare\, to ask questions and engage or simply walk by. Regardless\, this is a vibrant and beautiful community\, so please come with your hearts open\, make sure to wear your mask and let us love on each other via this community altar space. This too is a form of resistance and protest! In the honoring is the healing. \n\n\n\n*For many of us\, these times have been challenging\, reminding us of loved ones who are absent and reinforcing experiences of social and economic marginality amidst a culture of consumption.  This was particularly true in 2020\, a year of unbearable loss amplified by COVID\, the state sanctioned killings of Black bodies globally\, the climate crisis and most recently\, insurrection in our Capitol. Let us make space and honor our right to grieve collectively. \n\n\n\nAltar for the Ancestors\, original creation by Nancy Weber. \n\n\n\nCo-created by the People’s Health Sanctuary program of NATURE Lab\, Media Sanctuary. \n\n\n\nCo-sponsored by Urban Grief\, Troy 4 Black Lives\, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Capital District\, NAACP\, North Central Little League\, Team H.E.R.O.\, Troy Bike Rescue and NATURE Lab’s People’s Health Sanctuary. \n\n\n\nCheck out this tv story\, 2/22/21https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/capital-region/news/2021/02/21/freedom-square-installation-bringing-community-together
URL:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/memorial-altar-emerging-from-darkness/
LOCATION:Freedom Square\, 35 5th Ave\, Troy\, NY\, 12180\, United States
CATEGORIES:Community Event
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210421T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210421T203000
DTSTAMP:20230213T195954Z
CREATED:20210417T180545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230213T195954Z
UID:10001191-1619031600-1619037000@www.mediasanctuary.org
SUMMARY:Local Voices / Local Media: The Struggle for Clean Air in the Hudson Mohawk Region
DESCRIPTION:You will receive links to the videos prior to the panel\, and then can join in for a conversation with the media makers and local activists. \n\n\n\nIn the Shadows of Norlite\, photo by Catherine Rafferty\n\n\n\nOn Earth Day\, we celebrate our local voices in their eloquent calls for environmental justice and clean air in the Hudson Mohawk region. We focus on local media makers who are creating media as an organizing tool\, whose work shines light on the power of personal voice. \n\n\n\nOur “mini-media festival” features a conversation with local Capital Region media makers Sonja Stark with “Albany Alert\,” Dave Publow with “We Care About Our Kids: Voices of the Victims of Norlite\,” and Catherine Rafferty with “In the Shadow of Norlite\,” along with the powerful voices featured in their films\, Joe Ritchie\, Judith Enck and Barbara Heinzen. \n\n\n\nOur featured local media makers focus their lenses on two grassroots environmental action groups: Lights Out Norlite\, who are raising awareness about the Norlite toxic waste incinerator located in Cohoes\, and Clean Air Coalition Of Greater Ravena-Coeymans\, who are addressing waste incineration and tire burning at the Lafarge/Holcim Ravena cement plant located next to the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk middle and high schools in Coeymans. \n\n\n\nSponsored by iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities\, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer\, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. \n\n\n\n\nRegister Here\n\n\n\n\n\nEVENT SCHEDULE\n\n\n\n7:00-7:10 Opening Welcome/ Thanks & Acknowledgements \n\n\n\n7:10-7:40  Panel 1 Media as an Organizing Tool \n\n\n\n\n7:10 Sonya Stark\n\n\n\n7:20 Dave Publow\n\n\n\n7:30 “In the Shadows of Norlite\,” photojournalism essay by Catherine Rafferty\n\n\n\n\n7:40- 8:10  Panel 2  Power of the Personal Voice \n\n\n\nDiscussion with subjects of the films: Joe Ritchie\, Barbara Heinzen\, Judith Enck \n\n\n\n8:10 Final conversation/ Moving into action! \n\n\n\n8:30pm  End \n\n\n\n\nMEDIA MAKERS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSonja  Stark \n\n\n\nSonja Stark began her freelance DP career in 2005.  Prior to that she was employed as an Emmy award-winning news videographer for the local CBS news affiliate WRGB for over a decade.   She has honed her craft shooting and editing footage in over 72 countries for documentaries about history\, environment\, music and social causes as well as episodic programming about travel for broadcast on cable channels and PBS.  She calls her one-woman business PilotGirl Productions. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDave Publow \n\n\n\nDave Publow is an environmental activist\, radio journalist\, printmaker\, and videographer. He is also a resident of Troy\, NY\, one of the many communities directly affected by the Norlite hazardous waste incinerator. His focus is to use the tools at his disposal to spread awareness of environmental injustice\, and to help galvanize the community to find the powers within themselves to meet the challenge. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCatherine Rafferty \n\n\n\nCatherine Rafferty is a freelance photojournalist and documentary filmmaker from upstate New York whose work explores intimate\, complex themes with concern for social justice. She recently worked in Phoenix\, AZ at The Arizona Republic\, part of the USA Today network\, as a Pulliam Fellow covering the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for racial justice. She’s previously interned at the Times Union in Albany\, NY and The Sanctuary\, where she documented Uptown Summer in the Roots for Resilience solo exhibition. She graduated with a BFA in photojournalism from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020. Rafferty produces the “Birth Justice” podcast on WOOC 105.3 FM and is currently media mentor to the Water Justice Lab Fellows at The Sanctuary. She’s excited to continue working with the fellows to tell the story of their community and its relationship to the river. \n\n\n\nFEATURING\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJoseph Ritchie is an environmental justice advocate and the Executive Director of Saratoga Sites Against Norlite Emissions. He is a student at Syracuse University studying Environmental Policy. Joe grew up in the shadows of Norlite. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnvironmental Policy Expert Judith Enck founded Beyond Plastics in 2019 to end plastic pollution through education\, advocacy\, and institutional change. Passionate about protecting public health and the environment\, she teaches classes on plastic pollution as a Senior Fellow and visiting faculty member at Bennington College\, and was recently a Visiting Scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. \n\n\n\nJudith has held top influential positions in state and federal government. Appointed by President Obama\, she served as the Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency\, overseeing environmental protections in NY\, NJ\, eight Indian Nations\, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands – in addition to managing a staff of 800 and a $700M budget. Previously\, Judith served as Deputy Secretary for the Environment in the New York Governor’s Office\, and Policy Advisor to the New York State Attorney General. She was Senior Environmental Associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group\, served as Executive Director for Environmental Advocates of New York and the Non-Profit Resource Center\, and is a past President of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Judith appears on a weekly public affairs radio show on a local NPR affiliate\, the Roundtable on WAMC in Albany\, NY. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBarbara Heinzen is a long-term strategist and scenario planner with a successful 35-year practice working with companies and civil society\, usually in non-Western countries in Africa\, Asia and Latin America.  Recent assignments have been with two multi-stakeholder projects concerning the future of energy: one in East Africa and the other in Pennsylvania\, USA.  In 2011\, Barbara Heinzen returned to the USA from central London\, UK after buying 20 acres of land along the Hudson River in upstate New York.  This property is part of the Barbets Duet partnership. Individuals in East Africa\, England and the USA are working with their own land and communities to learn how to manage land for environmental benefit while improving local livelihoods. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\nRegister Here
URL:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/local-voices-local-media-the-struggle-for-clean-air-in-the-hudson-mohawk-region/
CATEGORIES:Panel Discussion,Screening
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LOCATION:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/local-voices-local-media-the-struggle-for-clean-air-in-the-hudson-mohawk-region/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210425T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210425T153000
DTSTAMP:20230213T195739Z
CREATED:20210425T182300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230213T195739Z
UID:10001209-1619359200-1619364600@www.mediasanctuary.org
SUMMARY:Arica: A Toxic Waste Scandal with "Our Soil" Panel
DESCRIPTION:View a special Northern Hemisphere sneak preview of the documentary Arica\, then join us for a panel discussion with directors\, Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén\, plus local “Our Soil” project leader Professor Abby Kinchy and Professor Sebastian Ureta (Chile) and Rodrigo Pino (Chile). \n\n\n\nRegister to screen the Arica documentary by Lars Edman\, William Johansson Kalén plus join us for the  “Our Soil” Panel!  You will be sent a link once you register\, with a 24 hour window to view the film.  The panel will meet at 2 pm. Please view the film before or after the panel! \n\n\n\n[Please note: because this is a sneak preview\, we have agreed to close registration at 100 people\, so be sure to register!] \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nArica tells the story of a Swedish mining giant who dumped hazardous waste in Arica in northern Chile. Subsequently thousands of inhabitants are damaged. Now the survivors are seeking justice in a groundbreaking transnational corporate accountability trial. \n\n\n\nA Swedish mining company exports 20\,000 tonnes of toxic waste to the Chilean desert town of Arica. Thousands of people become sick\, many die from cancer. ARICA plunges us into the groundbreaking corporate accountability trial which begins after Lars Edman – born in Chile and raised in Boliden – exposes the scandal. \n\n\n\nAlongside his co-director William Johansson\, Lars follows the story for 15 years\, exposing how decisions made decades ago in Europe continue to affect people in South America.  Part personal journey\, part courtroom drama\, ARICA is the story of an afflicted community fighting for justice against a multinational company desperate to clear their name. \n\n\n\nToxic Colonialism – the export of waste material from rich to poor countries – is on trial.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos” \n\n\n\nThe city of Arica is a sister city with our local city of Troy\, NY\, in the project “Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos.” \n\n\n\nFunded from a National Science Foundation grant\,  Our Soil involves community-engaged environmental research (“citizen science”). The Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos teams have been developing a Community Soil Study Toolkit to test soils for three heavy metals (lead\, arsenic\, and copper) that may be found in urban soils. One of our partners is in Chile\, Dr. Sebastian Ureta\, has done work with these DIY kits in Arica\, Chile. \n\n\n\nThe research involves The Sanctuary for Independent Media as a community partner\, bringing to the project strong record of involving neighborhood youth in environmental projects\, such as water testing and urban gardening.  Our plan is to hold a series of hands-on workshops with North Troy neighborhood residents\, to teach them how to sample and analyze soil from yards and gardens. It is important to note a distinguishing element of the project: unlike soil testing projects that exist elsewhere\, NSF has funded us to develop and evaluate a method of collaborative\, community-based soil research. It is not merely “soil testing” but a package of interdisciplinary education and collective action\, conducted and analyzed by an interdisciplinary research team. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMore about the Panelists\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLars Edman\n\n\n\nBorn in Chile and raised in Sweden\, Lars returned to South America to attend the Valparaiso Film School. Toxic Playground was Lars’ first film which went on to win 6 international awards\, screening in over 30 international festivals and being broadcast on TV across Europe. \n\n\n\nSince completing Toxic Playground\, Lars has retrained as a speech and language therapist and now lives in the north of Norway. Arica will be his second feature documentary. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWilliam Johansson Kalén\n\n\n\nWilliam Johansson Kalén has worked as a Director\, Editor in chief\, DoP and Film editor since 2006 and has been working with a number of documentaries\, documentary series and TV-programs. He co-directed the award-winning documentary Toxic Playground in 2009 and started as a film producer in 2015 when he also became a shareholder of Laika Film & Television. He is currently producing an artistic documentary about architecture that will premiere in early 2021 and producing a couple of Laika’s projects in development. He has worked as assistant producer on the documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld and the fiction Beauty And The Dogs and The Man Who Sold His Skin. He is also the Swedish producer in the fiction Jordanian film Farha that premiere in spring 2021. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbby Kinchy\n\n\n\nAbby Kinchy is a sociologist\, working in the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). Her research examines the politics of pollution\, in order to illuminate the relationship between science and democracy. \n\n\n\nMost recently\, her research has focused on “citizen science”–public participation in environmental monitoring. Her goal is to bring concepts of power and social justice into sharper focus in popular and professional discussions of citizen science. What kind of citizenship is implied in citizen science? How can participatory environmental research enhance struggles for social change beyond merely generating data? Her book on this topic\, co-authored with Aya H. Kimura\, is Science by the People: Participation\, Power\, and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge (Rutgers\, 2019). Kinchy’s newest NSF-funded project\, Nuestros Suelos/Our Soil\, explores how citizen science could help urban communities to identify heavy metal contamination in soil and to advocate for solutions. \n\n\n\nProfessor Kinchy is the author of Seeds\, Science\, and Struggle: The Global Politics of Transgenic Crops (MIT\, 2012).  She was the PI on the NSF-funded Watershed Knowledge Mapping Project\, which examined the practices and politics of environmental monitoring in the context of shale gas development\, or “fracking.” She is also a co-organizer of STS Underground\, a research network that advances social science research on the technoscientific dimensions of mining\, burial\, and other forms of subterranean exploration. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSebastian Ureta\n\n\n\nSebastián Ureta is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago\, Chile). He trained as a sociologist\, with a focus on science and technology studies. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in sociology from the Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago and completed his PhD in 2006 in the media and communications department at the London School of Economics (UK). Subsequently\, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Instituto de Sociología\, Universidad Católica de Chile. From November 2007 to March 2008 he was also a British Academy visiting fellow in the sociology department at Lancaster University (UK). From May 2009 to March 2012 he was a Marie Curie International incoming fellow at the Center for Technology and Society (ZTG)\, Technische Universität Berlin. Currently he is working on a research project focused on the government of industrial waste in Chile\, in particular the massive waste produced by the country’s booming mining industry. In March 2015 he became the PI of the Millennium Nucleus for Energy and Society Research (NUMIES)\, a new research group studying the interrelations between energy issues and society in Chile. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRodrigo Pino\n\n\n\nRodrigo Pino is from Arica. Since the beginning of the controversy regarding Boliden’s waste more than 10 years ago\, Rodrigo has been quite probably the most important spokesperson of the affected communities. \n\n\n\n— \n\n\n\nToxic justice is a platform where we discuss waste trade\, corporate responsibility and ways to legally challenge human rights abuse by big corporations in the west. The platform is inspired by the case of Arica Victims KB vs. Boliden and the documentary film ARICA\, which describes the case. Our goals are prevention\, accountability and reparation. And justice for those of us who are affected. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSponsored by iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities\, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer\, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
URL:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/arica-a-toxic-waste-scandal-with-our-soil-panel/
CATEGORIES:Panel Discussion,Screening
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LOCATION:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/arica-a-toxic-waste-scandal-with-our-soil-panel/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210430T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210430T235959
DTSTAMP:20230213T195348Z
CREATED:20210417T183107Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230213T195348Z
UID:10001192-1619740800-1619827199@www.mediasanctuary.org
SUMMARY:Echoes from Lock One
DESCRIPTION:“Echoes from Lock One” is an evocative call for environmental and water justice from the eyes and voices of youth in Troy\, NY. \n\n\n\nPersonally screen this video and listen to a Q&A podcast with co-creators! \n\n\n\nDuring the Sanctuary’s “Uptown Summer” program\, media makers\, artists and scientists worked with teens in camera\, audio production\, script writing\, music production\, dance\, historical research as well as scientific testing\, to create this experimental\, participatory documentary with a message for change: \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“We live along the shores of the Hudson River at the beginning of the Erie Canal\, Lock One\, the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. The history of the Erie Canal and the devastating effects of industrialization are mostly unknown… even to the people of Troy\, who live right next to it.  Our river and our neighborhood have been poisoned by a legacy of pollution. This is our call to action. For justice and for our future. No more waiting!” \n\n\n\n\nFeatured in: \n\n\n\n\nEnvironmental Film Festival of the Capital\n\n\n\nNorth Dakota Environmental Film Festival\n\n\n\nKansas City Environmental Film Festival\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMistah Jayohcee is an Artist\, Activist\, Performer\, songwriter\, producer\, engineer\, and promoter – a jack of all trades. He is a First Nations Mohawk Warrior who is also a hip-hop artist. Jayohcee is featured in Echoes from Lock One\, teaching youth how to write and perform hip hop for their video\, and offering a private performance for them.\n\n\n\nCo-created by Youth Media Sanctuary/Uptown Summer Youth and Mentors in collaboration with The Sanctuary for Independent Media\, Executive Producer Branda Miller.  \n\n\n\nThe Sanctuary for Independent Media is a place for community-engaged interdisciplinary experimentation\, with the overarching goal of shedding light on the intersectional role of media\, science and art in the process of building a democratic society. Uptown Summer is a media arts and environmental education summer employment program for local youth to share homegrown stories of hope and justice.
URL:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/echoes-from-lock-one/
CATEGORIES:Screening
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Milan_North_Central.jpg
LOCATION:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/echoes-from-lock-one/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210430T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210430T170000
DTSTAMP:20210712T170242Z
CREATED:20210430T220436Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210712T170242Z
UID:10001218-1619769600-1619802000@www.mediasanctuary.org
SUMMARY:Community Forum to Address Capital Region Health System Merger
DESCRIPTION:This event is over but\, thanks to the magic of Sanctuary TV\, you can watch the video here.   \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Zoom chat window is here. \n\n\n\nIn October 2020\, the Albany Times Union reported a planned merger between Ellis Medicine in Schenectady and St. Peter’s Health Partners. Mergers between Catholic Health Systems and secular hospitals have raised concern in communities across the country and they have for many years as evidenced by this 1995 article in the New York Times about Leonard and St. Mary’s Hospitals in Troy. \n\n\n\nAccording to the national group MergerWatch\, Catholic hospitals follow a set of ethical guidelines that prohibit the provision of certain kinds of patient care\, most often\, reproductive\, LGBTQ+-inclusive\, and end-of-life care. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nConcerns about the financial stability of Ellis Medicine and its importance to the community reportedly drive the need for a partnership between two of the largest health systems in the region\, a solution that is the result of years of planning. \n\n\n\nBut religious restrictions and forces of healthcare economics threaten to have a disparate impact on residents who already face barriers in our healthcare system. A knowledgeable panel will discuss\, answer questions\, and hear comments from the community about: \n\n\n\n• How religious restrictions will affect (and how religious biases may affect) equitable access to healthcare services• Possible solutions to eliminating gaps in services through other local healthcare providers• Potential community benefits resulting from the partnership.• History of SPHS’s aggressive medical bill collection• Process required for partnership approval by the NYS Department of Health• The importance of memorializing the community’s priorities in the application for certificate of need\, including an effective enforcement mechanism• Opportunities for advocacy and continuing dialogue \n\n\n\nSpeakers:\n\n\n\nMichelle Ostrelich is a Schenectady County Legislator and Chair of the Legislature’s Health & Human Services Committee. \n\n\n\nLois Uttley\, MPP\, is Women’s Health Program Director for Community Catalyst\, a national consumer health advocacy organization. She has worked for more than 20 years to protect access \n\n\n\nto comprehensive reproductive health services\, LGBTQ-inclusive care and end-of-life options when community hospitals propose to merge with nearby Catholic hospitals.  She has published research about the growth of large Catholic health systems and\, as Founder/Director of the MergerWatch Project\, advised community coalitions in 38 states\, including several in NYS. Now based in Manhattan\, Lois serves on the steering committee of the statewide Health Care for All New York coalition and coordinators the work of Community Voices for Health System Accountability. Formerly a Capital District resident\, she served as Vice President of Family Planning Advocates of NYS\, Director of Public Affairs for the NYS Department of Health and an award-winning reporter and editor covering New York State government for the Albany Times Union. \n\n\n\nArthur Butler is the executive director of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission. Butler helped found the Capital District African American Coalition on AIDS\, serving as their executive director for 17 years. He also worked for Hunger Solutions New York and as the national project coordinator of the Framework for Dialogue – USA. \n\n\n\nNikita Hardy\, MPA\, is the Affirmative Action Manager for Schenectady County She is a well-respected\, highly recommended political strategist and community engager with over 14 years of progressive experience\, including having held dynamic roles within legislative\, state and local government. She recently has taken on several endeavors to further causes impacting marginalized communities.  Most notably her passion for birth justice and breastfeeding advocacy led her to organize the Capital Region Black Breastfeeding Empowerment Network\, as well as her committed research on Maternal Mortality of Black Women in America. She is an advocate\, an educator\, a public speaker\, full-spectrum Doula and policy enthusiast. \n\n\n\nDr. Debbie Stulberg is a long-time colleague in the work trying to protect reproductive health care from Catholic health restrictions. She was a family medicine resident at West Suburban Hospital in Illinois when it was taken over by the Catholic Resurrection Health System. Since then\, she has become one of the nation’s leading researchers on the impact of religious restrictions on patients and doctors. \n\n\n\nGlenn Northern leads and implements Catholics for Choice US activities\, including advocacy\, outreach\, policymaker education\, legislative analysis and collegial relationships. He directs CFC’s Catholics in Public Life project\, a nonpartisan public education initiative that helps Catholic policy makers in the US clearly articulate prochoice positions grounded in progressive Catholicism and sound public policy. He oversees CFC’s strategic relationships with pro-choice Catholics\, policymakers\, reproductive health providers\, religious and secular activists and collegial organizations to inform and influence debates on sexual and reproductive health and rights\, social justice and religious liberty. Before joining CFC\, Mr. Northern led constituency building and advocacy efforts at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. He holds a degree in political science and women’s studies from Williams College in Williamstown\, Massachusetts. \n\n\n\nThis People’s Health Sanctuary event is sponsored by The Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access. The Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access was formed to educate the administrations and the public about the risks of losses to our community from Ellis’ partnership with SPHP. In addition to education\, members of the Coalition seek to advocate equitable access to evidence-based\, inclusive\, and comprehensive patient-centered care\, including comprehensive reproductive care\, infertility care\, LGBTQ+-inclusive care\, gender affirming care and end-of-life care within our local community. www.schdy.org \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCommunity partners include:Local Care Midwifery\, PLLCNew York Civil Liberties UnionRosemarie Pérez Jaquith\, Niskayuna Town Board MemberProClergy.comProgressive Schenectady
URL:https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/community-forum-to-address-capital-region-health-system-merger/
LOCATION:The Sanctuary\, 3361 6th Ave\, Troy\, 12180\, United States
CATEGORIES:Community Event,Panel Discussion
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