welfareQUEENS is a collective of poor women creating art with the goal of resisting and reclaiming the racist and classist mythologies about poverty and the criminalization of poor people in America by sharing their own stories of barely surviving and thriving on welfare. The QUEENS latest endeavor is a two-hour play featuring the voices of six poor, women of color and their personal stories of resistance and survival. From these women's voices we hope to create a powerful performance segment for the social forum sharing glimpses into these women's rarely revealed lives. The QUEENS will read poetry, share stories and perform spoken word art; music will be included as well.

We hope that the auidence is not only moved by these women's powerful stories, but also educated about the damage that myths, stereotypes and judgements have on struggling, poor mamas and papas. We feel that this performance is just one of the many possible ways to raise the social concsciousness of people and to educate them about the root causes of poverty. From this we hope to begin the conversation about real solutions to poverty in America by breaking down and reclaiming the notion of "welfare queen."

This will be conducted in English and audience members will see and hear these women's real stories through a variety of different engaging performance pieces, such as poetry, spoken word and story telling. Auidence members will then be asked for feedback and ideas after the performance. This performance is not only a piece of engaging art, but a serious educational tool as well. Handouts will be provided.

At POOR Magazine, we are already imposing many of our own solutions to fighting poverty, such as our Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute in which we train low and no income youth and adults to become investigative journalists on issues of race, poverty and disability. We believe that people struggling with race, disability and poverty must be the ones discovering solutions to these issues. We feel that this performance is just one of the many ways that these poor mamas can reclaim thier voice and identity and through this they can educate and create long-term solutions to help poor families. One of our own long-term solutions is the Homefulness Project, a sweat-equity housing unit for three to five families with a site for POOR Magazine, a multigenerational social justice cafe and a community education site. We are just in the begining stages of this project and feel that it is a real, long-term solution to houselessness.