Kari Lydersen, Author at Toward Freedom

Youth Sex Workers Organize for Their Rights

Kari Lydersen June 20, 2012 Kari Lydersen

When youth who live on the streets and work in the sex trade or other informal economies are victimized or abused, often the institutions that are supposed to help them—the police, hospitals and clinics, social service and non-profit agencies, homeless shelters—do more harm than good.

A recent report by the Young Women’s Empowerment Project in Chicago quantifies and analyzes this problem and describes and promotes a two-pronged solution wherein youth develop their own systems and networks for self-help and healing while also working with institutions to provide better services. read more

US and Mexico: North American Solidarity Agreement

Kari Lydersen July 20, 2011 Kari Lydersen

Steelworkers in the United States and Canada forge ties with Los Mineros in Mexico.

The Future of Latin America’s Leftist Movements

Kari Lydersen November 9, 2010 Kari Lydersen

What happens after you win? That is, as fearless grassroots social movements have brought leftist, pro-worker parties to power in one after another Latin American country during the past decade, how do these movements maintain true democracy and commitment to the rights of the marginalized once faced with the challenge of a neoliberal global economy?

Fired for Opposing Coup, Honduran Educators Go on Hunger Strike

Kari Lydersen July 6, 2010 Kari Lydersen

Source: In These Times

As thousands of marchers converged on the plaza outside the national Congress building on the anniversary of the coup in Honduras June 28, a handful of famished, exhausted but determined educators looked on from tents—on the 35th day of a hunger strike.

The educators are just one of the many faces of the Honduran resistance movement that has blossomed in the past year, uniting unionists, indigenous people, feminists, LGBT activists, campesinos and other factions who previously had little contact. (Read Jeremy Kryt’s reporting from Honduras for In These Times here.) read more

The Legacy of the Chicago Factory Occupation Lives On

Kari Lydersen July 22, 2009 Kari Lydersen

On December 5, 2008, 250 laid-off workers occupied Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors factory, refusing to leave until paid for accrued vacation time and two months of federally-mandated severance. These demands, which might have been ignored by media in more stable economic times, thrust the unionized workers onto the national stage as the country's financial system and economy unraveled.

Alaska Natives Watch Traditions Melting Away

Kari Lydersen August 29, 2008 Kari Lydersen

Bobby Koezuna Holds Tusks

Hunting walrus is an age-old tradition for the Inupiat Eskimo Native people of King Island, a tiny rugged piece of land jutting out of the Bering Sea off Alaska. The walrus provides meat for the long, dark, frigid winters, and its tusks, skin, blubber, intestines and other body parts serve other crucial functions, including making watertight parkas and "pokes" to store berries. Watching the sky and sea for signs of the coming walrus migration is an art still passed on from elders to the young generation. Now, indigenous people across the Arctic region say, due to the effects of climate change, they can no longer predict important climactic changes and events like they used to, leading some to freeze to death caught in storms or stranded on ice; or face privation as their traditional hunts are interrupted.