From Poverty to Opportunity Campaign: Realizing Human Rights in Illinois

"Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them."

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Endorse the campaign online or download the endorsement form
and fax or mail it to Doug Schenkelberg

Freedom from poverty is a human right, and the realizatin of this freedom requires a comprehensive vision and plan. To that end, Heartland Alliance has created the From Poverty to Opportunity Campaign: Realizing Human Rights in Illinois, an initiative of the Illinois Poverty Summit, that works to bring together a broad range of residents from the most affected communities throughout the state as well as advocates and policy leaders to develop and advocate for a poverty elimination strategy anchored to human rights standards that will reduce extreme poverty in Illinois by half by the year 2015.

The campaign holds these core beliefs and principles:

Freedom from poverty is a human right.
Education on human rights and access to opportunity is necessary component to removing existing barriers.
All human rights – civil, political, economic, social, and cultural - are indivisible, interrelated, and interdependent.
Inequality and discrimination play a central role in the existence of extreme poverty.
Those living in extreme poverty must be engaged in the development, adoption, and enforcement of policies that grant freedom from poverty.
Poverty elimination will be progressively realized and is subject to the availability of resources.
Poverty elimination requires specific, measurable plans and policies.

To learn more about the campaign or to get involved , explore the links on the left, or contact:

Doug Schenkelberg
4411 N. Ravenswood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60640
773.336.6084
773.506-6649 (fax)
dschenkelberg@heartlandalliance.org

This project is made possible by the generous support of The Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Libra Foundation, and The Woods Fund of Chicago.