This week in progressive entertainment...

Everyone who lives here knows, there is no shortage of great progressive events in Pittsburgh. This weekend (and the upcoming week) is no exception. Today marks the opening of the 24th Annual Pittsburgh International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and despite its international title, there are several great films made locally about local issues.
Personally, I am so happy to see Out In The Silence on the schedule (and for free no less!).
Check out the synopsis here. The film will be playing this Tuesday, October 20th at CMU in the McConomy Auditorium.

Another homestate film, Training Rules, about student Jennifer Harris and her suit against Penn State and women's basketball coach Rene Portland will be airing on Saturday October 24th at SouthSide Cinema Works.

Training Rules (trailer for the documentary) from Woman Vision on Vimeo.

For the full schedule and details visit www.pilgff.org

Have a great weekend!

PPWP loves Glee!

Glee is hands down my favorite show on TV right now. In fact, Rebecca and I have both been swept off our feet by this charming tale of show choir woes and triumphs. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we were both choir nerds in high school.) Thursday mornings we usually chat about the previous evening's episode. Not only are we delighted by the awesome song and dance numbers but unexpectedly, by the super positive messaging. Planned Parenthood got a shoutout in "Preggers" and who can forget the episode when Kurt comes out to his dad AND in a rare occurrence said dad doesn't freak out. Word to the wise network executives: Not every high school coming out experience is traumatic because you know what, it's not the worst thing in the world to be gay!

Anyway, so as Rebecca and I were gushing over Glee we thought, "We really should blog about this!" So...we are! Check back here every Thursday for a re-cap of each new episode. Make sure to post your thoughts if you too can't get enough of Glee! In the meantime, enjoy these videos of "Somebody to Love" and "Single Ladies"!

Advocacy in the Sun: Summer Internship Re-Cap

Summer is the perfect time for advocacy! The weather is great which makes canvassing and outreach a breeze. There seem to be a plethora of festivals and health fairs to table at. The mood is positive and optimistic. Most importantly, students are looking for meaningful ways to spend their summers. Knowing this, Planned Parenthood of PA Advocates conducts a 10 week Grassroots Organizing internship every summer.
Planned Parenthood of PA Advocates is a force to be reckoned with in PA. It is made up of the public policy staffs of Pennsylvania’s five Planned Parenthood affiliates including mine: Planned Parenthood of Western PA. Together we recruit, hire, train and supervise our interns. We started recruiting in January, interviewed potential interns in February and March, made offers in April, and kicked it all off with a three day Action Camp in late May!
Action Camp is a crucial part of a major summer internship initiative. This year we gathered our 12 interns and 8 staff members under one roof for three days of training. It wasn’t all work though! We had plenty of time to include a reception/barbeque, a pool party, and a canvassing trial run. The time and effort to put on the Action Camp was well worth it. Our interns in their exit interviews said that they felt well prepared for the 10 weeks ahead of them after the training. They learned about our issues inside and out. They even lobbied to state representatives on the last day of the Action Camp!
This year we focused on advocating for comprehensive sex education. This was the perfect goal as we currently have two pieces of legislation in the PA state house that we are working on: HB 1163 and HB 1162. HB 1163 (The Healthy Youth Act) would mandate comprehensive medically accurate sex education in all Pennsylvania public schools. HB 1162 (The Notice Home Act) would require a “notice home” to be sent to parents of children who are not receiving comprehensive sex education in their schools. The bills will not be receiving a committee vote until this fall so we took the summer to lobby, canvass, phone bank and educate around the issue.
I’m pleased to say it was a successful venture and we will absolutely be doing it again next year. Advocacy is a volatile field to work in and predictably, things didn’t always run smoothly. In late July, we obviously had to shift some of our focus to health care reform issues which we had not prepared for. Our interns and staff fell right in step though and in the end, we met our goals on both issues. The numbers don’t lie. We knocked on 3,393 doors, dialed 5,563 numbers, identified 1, 627 new supporters, and obtained 821 new emails and 889 new c4 opt-ins. Most importantly, our interns had fun while doing work they care about. They will walk away from their internships with valuable on the ground organizing experience that will help them in their professional development. And maybe, just maybe…we’ll spot them at a Planned Parenthood Policy Summit one day. Here’s hopin’!

Volunteer Spotlight: Why I chose PPWP for my internship...

As a senior Women ’s Studies major at Chatham University, PPWP seemed like an obvious internship choice for me.I didn’t want an internship that felt meaningless. I wanted to feel like I was doing something important. And believe me, PPWP is important.

We are currently living in a social climate where access to reproductive care is growing slimmer and slimmer by the minute. Oklahoma just passed a law that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Many women don’t have health insurance, and even if they do, most plans do not cover basic things like birth control. And it’s not just access to the actual reproductive care that is lacking. There is also a huge failure to educate young people about birth control options and STI care. Sometimes the questions I get asked when representing PPWP at events highlight the failure of our abstinence based sex ed programs.

Interning at PPWP helps me take my frustration at the injustices of our current situations and turn it into something productive. PPWP gives me access to a network allows my small part to help make a big difference.

- Libbi
Outreach Intern, Fall 2009

Volunteer Spotlight: Why I chose PPw

The wheels on the bus!

Organizing for America's Reform NOW bus rolled into Pittsburgh today and parked on Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park. It was the first health care event I've been to this summer that wasn't completely out of control so congrats OFA! There was a small congregation of dissenters outside the caution tape but they were pretty subdued. The real action was happening inside the caution tape! A diverse crowd of health care reform supporters waved their red white and blue OFA signs as impassioned voices boomed from the American flag draped podium. A clergyman explained how health care reform reflects the principles of all major religions. A physician assured the crowd that the AMA endorses reform. Congressman Doyle continued to extol the virtues of single payer health insurance which was refreshing to a crowd that is hoping for a "robust" public option at best. Finally, everyone joined in a throwback "Yes we can!" chant. As I looked around at the men and women, young and old who still proudly display their old Obama election t-shirts, I realized just how much hope we as a progressive community have left and how much is on the line if health care reform fails. We still have Obama's back. I hope he still has ours.

Anna in Ireland...

Submitted by Anna Donohoe, PPWP Grassroots Organizing Intern

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist over sex education” says Ireland’s Sunday Independent columnist Carol Hunt. This is not the attitude I expected before I got here, I must admit. I was imagining a very socially conservative and mostly Catholic society; and therefore I assumed everyone would be tight-lipped and prudish about sex education. Some background: I am in central Ireland visiting my relatives at the moment (all of my father’s family lives here), and that is why I decided to focus on sex ed in Ireland for this blog entry.

I asked two of my cousins about sex education (sex ed is called Relationship and Sexuality Education or RSE here) and what they were taught in school—one said that at his school it’s really up to the teacher’s discretion whether you get a comprehensive curriculum or an embarrassed abstinence-only approach. His sister agreed, saying her class at the same school got much less in-depth information than his. I’ve also been doing online research, and following day-to-day leads such as a television ad campaign.

There are two different TV ads by the same organization geared to teens and young adults that really put birth control in the spotlight—my favorite was aired during prime time on one of the most popular channels a few days ago. The ad starts with a passionate embrace in a fast food restaurant. As the cashier offers the couple their food, she asks “Do you want condoms with that?” Several more intimate scenes are similarly interrupted, then a voiceover says “You have 350 million chances of becoming pregnant after unprotected sex” and ends with the slogan “Nobody else is going to do the thinking for you—www.thinkcontraception.ie” The Think Contraception website is hip, professional, and very informative: male and female contraceptive choices listed separately, reproductive health & STI information, a 10 question quiz, a list of external resources and more. It was encouraging to see the ad on television, and to find out that it came from reliable and helpful source.

Emergency contraception (EC) is also a hot topic here- the Irish Family Planning Association has been working to make EC available over-the-counter for years now, but as yet women in Ireland must go to their doctor or a family planning clinic to get EC. One of the reasons EC is such a contentious issue here is that Ireland is a very anti-abortion country. According to Positive Options Crisis Pregnancy Services, “Abortion is illegal in Ireland except where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother.” It is however legal for Irish women to travel abroad in order to get abortions (though they will only be told about this option by their doctors under very select circumstances because of the particulars of the abortion law).

I hope to visit the Irish Family Planning Association’s Dublin clinic to do some more digging while I’m here. I’m very glad to have been positively surprised by the attitudes of Irish people towards sex education and contraception; and I wish the IFPA all the best in its battle to get over-the-counter EC!

For more information on sex education and related issues in Ireland go to:

http://www.thinkcontraception.ie/

http://www.ifpa.ie/

http://www.positiveoptions.ie/abortion_and_the_law/

http://www.crisispregnancy.ie/newsletter/newsletterv4_i2.htm