Contact: Holly Foster
(315) 859-4068 [email protected]
From Welfare to Meaningful Work Through Education" Conference slated at Hamilton College
Is an 18-month employment training program enough to help a welfare recipient get a job? Or, should welfare recipients be entitled to receive a liberal arts education if they prove their motivation?
Welfare advocates and activists will meet to address these issues of poverty and education and more during a two-day conference, "From Welfare to Meaningful Work Through Education," at Hamilton College, Oct. 15-16.
The conference will bring together scholars, activists and citizens from the business, social services, academic and welfare community.
A co-organizer of the conference is Vivyan Adair, Hamilton assistant professor of women's studies and herself a former welfare recipient. She says her own life "is evidence of the power of liberal arts education to move the poor from lives of desperation to lives filled with meaningful connections to work, family and community."
This conference is unique because it will include panels comprised of six women -- all former AFDC recipients -- who are now Ph.D.-holding professors, physicians and lawyers. Participants will meet in workshops to discuss, on a practical level, the long-term consequences of cyclical poverty and possible solutions.
Representatives from regional and local social services organizations and governmental bodies have been invited to attend.
The conference is sponsored by The Arthur Levitt Center for Public Affairs, the Freauhoff Foundation, The Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture, Hamilton's dean of faculty, women's studies program and department of economics.
For more information or to make arrangements to attend, call Sharon Gormley at 315-859-4615.
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