SueKirby

Name: SueKirby Location: Salem, MA I am a life-long labor and community Activist. I just turned 60 and plan to spend the time I have left in the trenches.

A little about me

While unemployed I started working part-time for Promise the Children - a Unitarian Universalist group that organizes in the churches to recruit children advocates. I decided to take the time while out of work to organize others who are unemployed. It is long overdue! See www.UnemployedPeopleUnited.com
For the past 10 years I have worked as organizing director and executive director for Mass Senior Action Council - a senior citizens action oriented group. It was awesome but not we did not use the internet because our member didn't. I need to catch up!

I would describe myself as a

offline activitst

Why I deserve a Netroots Nation Scholarship

I have spent my life organizing, first on the shop floor in factories and then in community organizations with parents and seniors. I was a single mom so I don't have a lot of savings. What I had saved for retirement mostly was used last year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer while unemployed.

I'm back on my feet and raring to go. I hope to raise funds to support Unemployed People United and live off of my part time work but I need help learning how to use the internet to reach and mobilize the unemployed and their supporters. I think this conference would be a big boost.

I manage these blogs

Sue Kirby

What first inspired me to get involved

I was a college student during the 60's and early 70's. I watched people get beaten for trying to stop army recruiters at Boston University. I listened to people like Howard Zinn talk about the Vietnam war and it's connection to US imperialism, opened my eyes, became an activist, and have spent my whole life working for change.

How I've gotten others involved

I Spent the 70's and 80's working in factories including a garment factory in Philadelphia, Sylvania in Chicago, and GE in Lynn Ma. We fought the good fight and kept our wages and rate from being cut, our dignity maintained and our working condition safe (safer)
In the 90's I worked with women being thrown off of welfare as part of "welfare reform" and started organizing parent to fight for child care with Parents United for Child Care. The internet wasn't used back then to organize.
I worked with seniors from 2001 to 2009 - a fiesy bunch of union retirees and civil rights activists. Afain we didn't use the internet much because the members were not on-line
Now I work with Unitarian Universalists we have a blog and an on-line action alert program. I have a website for Unemployed People United and it has attracted some great traffic but I need more understanding and skills to be able to take action on line.

Why I think participation in the blogosphere is important

I can see from my work that blogging connects people and helps to deepen the activity and understanding. We don't have to "recreate the wheel"

More about my involvement with DFA and local work

I have signed petitions but have not connected up on the local level yet.

More about my volunteer work

I am creating a group called Unemployed People United. I also work for the environment with Salem activists (S.A.F.E.org, Green Peace and the Sierra Club to shut down the coal-fired Salem Plant. I helped to dig up asphalt with 350.org on 10/10/10.

My Twitter manifesto on online activism

Combined with person to person connections online activism allows us to reach thousands more and spread the inspirations far beyond our geographic and cultural sphere.

My suggested bumper sticker slogan

Out of Work But Not Out of My Mind - Time for a National Jobs Program

My idea for a cool new online action

See! I never thought of that. I need more training. Off line.... Seniors dressed up like colonialists and threw pills over the side of a paper boat as part of the Boston Pill Party to keep Massachusetts from cutting 50,000 seniors off their pharmacy benefits. (Front Page Boston Herald)