You have received this email because you have indicated an interest  
in (or someone suggested you might like) receiving news from WE LEARN.

July News and Notes from WE LEARN -- Women Expanding Literacy  
Education Action Resource Network

Topics in this issue:
1) WE LEARN  Anniversary Celebration Calendar for 2008-2009 - NOW  
AVAILABLE
2) 2009 Conference - SAVE the DATE - Planning Committee members wanted
3) 2009 Women's Perspectives Selection Committee and Leadership Team  
now forming
4) NEW BOOK - Laboring to Learn: Women's Literacy and Poverty in the  
Post-Welfare Era
5) Call to WE LEARN members for news items, articles, reviews,  
artwork for Fall 2008 newsletter
--------------------------------

1) WE LEARN Anniversary Celebration Calendar for 2008-2009
Celebrate WE LEARN's 5th anniversary of promoting and supporting  
adult basic/literacy education for women! This academic 16-month wall  
calendar (Aug 2008 - Dec. 2009) features pictures from WE LEARN  
events, reflections by students and educators on effects of WE  
LEARN’s work, student writings, resource suggestions, tips for women- 
centered curriculum and lesson planning, and more. Calendar pages  
includes important holidays and dates from multiple cultures with  
days and months in English, Spanish, and French. Price discount for  
current WE LEARN members and Bulk Rates for classrooms are available.
To see sample pages and to download the order form, go to:  
www.litwomen.org/08CalOrdFormv2.pdf

2) 2009 Conference - SAVE the DATE - and - Planning Committee  
volunteers wanted
** March 5-7, 2009, Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence Campus,  
Providence, RI **
Conference Theme: Women's Leadership through Literacy
Have you attended past WE LEARN Conferences? Don't the committees and  
volunteers look like they're having a great time? Do you have skills  
and talents you'd like to bring to the conference? Please join the  
planning committee! We meet by phone and or in person at least once a  
month until the conference. Planners help to create the call for  
proposals, read and select workshops, design the program schedule,  
organize volunteers and translators, organize and decorate the space,  
help with fundraising and promotion -- and all kinds of fun  
organizational details. Our work begins in late August / early  
September. This is a volunteer position open to current and past WE  
LEARN members, and committee members receive a discount on the  
conference registration price. Students and teachers are especially  
welcome to participate. If interested, please contact Mev Miller,  
welearn at litwomen.org or 401-383-4374.

3) 2009 Women's Perspectives Selection Committee and Leadership Team  
now forming
Are you a student who likes to read other students' writings? Are you  
a teacher who enjoys supporting student writing publications? Are you  
a writer, editor, or designer who likes to see writings go from  
pieces of paper into quality published work? Do you have experience  
with marketing? promotion? fundraising? Do you value and support  
student leadership? We have plans to expand the Women's Perspectives  
in the coming years. In the short-term, we need committee members to  
help prepare the 2009 issue of Women's Perspectives. More  
importantly, though, we also seek energetic people to join Leadership  
Team. This team will guide the vision-making and planning to support  
Women's Perspectives as an on-going cornerstone of WE LEARN's work.  
We especially encourage ABE alums, students and student-teacher  
partners to participate. If interested, please contact Mev Miller,  
welearn at litwomen.org or 401-383-4374.

4) NEW BOOK - Laboring to Learn: Women's Literacy and Poverty in the  
Post-Welfare Era
Lorna Rivera -- one of the founding board members of WE LEARN -- has  
a new book that will be available in the coming weeks. Laboring to  
Learn: Women's Literacy and Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era is  
available for purchase from WE LEARN. Description: The American adult  
education system has become an alternative for school dropouts, with  
some state welfare policies requiring teen mothers and women without  
high school diplomas to participate in adult education programs to  
receive aid. Very little has been published about women’s experiences  
in these mandatory programs and whether the programs reproduce the  
conditions that forced women to drop out in the first place. Lorna  
Rivera bridges the gap with this important study, the product of ten  
years’ active ethnographic research with formerly homeless women who  
participated in adult literacy education classes before and after  
welfare reform. Analyzing the web of ideological contradictions  
regarding “work first” welfare reform policies, Rivera argues that  
poverty is produced and reproduced when women with low literacy  
skills are pushed into welfare-to-work programs and denied education.  
To download an order form, go to: www.litwomen.org/08orderflyer.pdf

5) Call to WE LEARN members for news items, articles, reviews,  
artwork for Fall 2008 newsletter
News? Women-Centered lesson plans? Material reviews? Creative writing  
about women in literacy? Research we should know about? Please send  
us items for the newsletter... The writing doesn't need to be long -  
but we'd like your input, including pictures or artwork....
If you would like to be a regular columnist, or column editor, or  
take an active part in creating the bi-annual WE LEARN newsletter --  
we welcome your energy and participation. If interested, please  
contact Mev Miller, welearn at litwomen.org or 401-383-4374.
DEADLINE for submissions to  the Fall newsletter  - September 15, 2008

For more details on all our events and activities, please visit our  
website: www.litwomen.org/welearn.html

-----------------
WE LEARN promotes women's literacy as a tool for personal growth and  
social change through networking, education, action, and resource  
development. WE LEARN (Women Expanding Literacy Education Action  
Resource Network) is a participatory organization guided by feminist/ 
womanist principles, formally incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)3  
organization in November 2003 in Providence, RI. Through conferences,  
publications, research, special projects and a website of resources,  
WE LEARN works to increase awareness and support of women's literacy  
issues, assists adult literacy teachers to support women's learning,  
and provides opportunities and resources for literacy learners to  
engage with women-centered materials.
--------------------

Mev Miller, Ed.D., Director
welearn at litwomen.org

WE LEARN
Women Expanding: Literacy Education Action Resource Network
www.litwomen.org/welearn.html

182 Riverside Ave.
Cranston, RI 02910
401-383-4374

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/diversity/attachments/20080723/5b57675d/attachment.html