Peacework's Annual Pat Farren Lecture

Peacework's Annual Pat Farren Lecture

Each year, PeaceWork Magazine celebrates our founding editor, Pat Farren, by sponsoring a talk or reading by a writer or writers who use words as the medium for celebrating and promoting nonviolent social change. Proceeds from the event help support the continued publication of Peacework, and the Patricia Watson Activist Journalism Internship for Young Writers of Color.

Pat Farren Lecture Invitation

Pat Farren Lecture 2008 - Frances Moore Lappé

Frances Moore Lappé is the author or coauthor of sixteen books. Her 1971 three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet continues to awaken readers to the human-made causes of hunger and the power of our everyday choices to create the world we want. Together, Lappé and her daughter Anna Lappé lead the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education to bring democracy to life. With her daughter, she is also co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, channeling resources to democratic social movements worldwide. In September of 2007, the Institute’s publishing arm released Lappé’s newest book, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, & Courage in a World Gone Mad, reviewed in Peacework by Betty Zisk. Frances Moore Lappé will be introduced by Jill Stein, the founder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. The 2008 event will be held

Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 7 pm (6 pm reception)

at

Cambridge Friends Meetinghouse, 5 Longfellow Park (off Brattle St.)

$35 with sliding scale

With a donation of $50 or more you'll receive a copy of Getting a Grip

To support this event, please make checks payable to AFSC-Peacework-Pat Faren Fund and mail to Peacework, AFSC, 2161 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge MA 02140.

Reserve seats with a credit card or for more information call 617-661-6130 or email sburke@afsc.org.

To pay online via PayPal, choose your sliding-scale payment amount below:

I wish to pay $50 (reserve my copy of Getting a Grip.:

I wish to pay $35:

I wish to pay $5 (high school-age rate)

Understanding Hunger

"Understanding hunger begins here: In our world where the bottom 40 percent of us have to survive on just over three percent of world income and eight in ten live in societies where inequalities are worsening, the real “hoarding” is done by those with [disproportionately high] income: Their market demand diverts 37 percent of the world’s grain and about a third of the world fish catch to livestock, and now almost a third of US corn to ethanol.

How could this extreme and worsening inequality happen? Because of our thin concept of democracy — that elected government plus a one-rule economy (highest return to existing wealth) are all we need to meet human needs. As a result, economic and political power concentrate in such a way that policies emerge which defy the values and common-sense of most citizens.

Thus, our hunger crisis is actually a democracy crisis. Hunger can be eliminated only as we remove the influence of concentrated wealth over public choices and ensure the ongoing, healthy distribution of power. The sooner we start recasting the crisis thusly, the sooner we'll all be able to thrive." — Frances Moore Lappé, Just Who's Doing the Hoarding? Food Independence and Real Democracy Huffington Post, July 1, 2008

The Pat Farren Fund

The Pat Farren Fund for Peacework was established in 1998 to honor the memory of Pat Farren, the magazine’s founding editor. The son of members of the Rochester, NY Catholic Worker Movement, Pat began his career as an activist with an eye-opening teaching stint in the Peace Corps. He turned his 1968 trial for resisting the draft into an educational opportunity, drawing hundreds to the courtroom. Throughout his life, he put his beliefs into practice, writing and organizing for peace and justice, and standing in sustained opposition to racism, militarism, and imperialism. Pat believed in the written word as a tool for social change and served the American Friends Service Committee for 25 years as editor of Peacework, where he and others practiced what he liked to call “empowerment journalism.”

The Pat Farren Memorial Lecture is an annual event which each year features a different activist whose medium, like Pat’s, is words. Proceeds from the Lectures are used to honor Pat’s wish that Peacework continue to serve as a catalyst for social transformation.

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of many faiths committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service. Its work is based on Friends’ belief in the worth of every person and their faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.

Pat Farren Lecture Honorees

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