At Elders for Social Justice (ESJ) we create an inclusive education and advocacy environment for social and environmental justice. We work with other EAN groups, external organizations, elder activists, youth and visionary leaders as we act on behalf of Earth and all life.
We gather twice monthly to focus on a current social justice issue so we can take informed collective and local actions.
Our Follow the Money $$ Campaign
We recognize that money is at the core of the many social injustices that plague our society and that we need to think and act differently about money to create a more just world.
Our initial focus, under the framework of Follow the Money $$ is to address how our retirement savings is being invested and how we can leverage our power as elder investor activists on investment companies and banks so that our savings align with our values. We want our savings to not only provide for our retirement but to create a thriving future for those we love. More information is available HERE.
Join us for our webinar series, FixMyFunds: Leveraging Our Retirement Savings to Demand Climate-Safe Investments. For more information and to register, click here. Interested in helping? Contact Lynne Iser at lynnei@eldersaction.org
Confronting Authoritarianism Campaign
We recognize that this is a pivotal moment for our country. America’s great experiment in electoral self-government is teetering on the brink, slouching toward authoritarianism. If we want to keep our republic, we can’t wait for someone else to do it for us. We must take vigorous action ourselves.
Elders for Social Justice Community Meeting
Third Thursday of each month
9:00 – 10:30 am PT / 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET
REGISTER
ESJ has developed three working groups to focus on the following areas. If you are interested in working on any of these teams, please contact Teri Whitehair at btwhitehair@gmail.com.
Building Bridges
We address one of the most troublesome problems in our democracy today: our people are deeply divided and don’t know how to communicate with one another. This group teaches a conversational model to build understanding across divides like politics, gender, race, age and more – to help heal our nation and transform our communities through listening-to-understand and conversing together.
Right To Learn
We work to educate and take action so every person has the right to learn, grow and pursue their dreams. Censorship actions are a step towards authoritarianism and run counter to the shared value of free speech that has informed generations of American progress.
Voter Re-enfranchisement
We work with Elders for Sound Democracy around felony disenfranchisement, or the restriction of voting rights for individuals with a felony conviction, which dates back to Jim Crow-era laws as states aimed to prevent people of color from voting. An estimated 5.2 million Americans are unable to vote because of their criminal records. This project is temporarily paused.
Below are some of the collective actions we have taken:
- A successful letter writing campaign to urge the New Mexico Education Retirement Board to divest pension funds monies away from for-profit prisons
- Studied the ACLU course: Racism in Policing
- Supported & participated in the Poor People’s Campaign
- Organized Elders Stand for Democracy Spring, Washington DC, 2016, to get money out of politics
- Seeing Systems, a workshop
- Webinar with George Monbiot, “Capitalism is Killing Us. It’s Time We Stopped Buying into Our Own Destruction”
- Me and White Supremacy, a workshop
See our social and climate justice Resource Lists here
resource listIt’s 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake, because my great, great grandchildren…ask me in dreams, “What did you do while the planet was plundered?”
~ Drew Dellinger