Hello all- Thought many of you would be interested in hearing Jim Keady's and Leslie Kretzu's informative talk this week at Monmouth Univ. See below for details. Kerri ----------------------------------------------------------- ASBURY RESIDENTS TO LECTURE ON NIKE SWEATSHOPS AT MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY (Monday, April 09, 2007 Asbury Park) The debate about sweatshops has been raging for nearly a decade on U.S. college campuses and Asbury Park residents, Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu have been right in the middle of it from the start. In the summer of 2000, Keady and Kretzu gained international attention for spending one month in an Indonesian factory workers slum living on $1.25 a day, a typical wage paid to Nikes subcontracted workers in an attempt to raise awareness about the inadequate wages paid to people producing apparel and footwear for corporations like Nike. Since then, they have conducted multiple research trips to Indonesia, have engaged Nike at shareholders meetings, have been invited to Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress about Nikes labor practices and are in the midst of producing a documentary film about Nike sweatshops. This Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 4:30pm in the Wilson Hall Auditorium on Monmouth Universitys campus, Keady and Kretzu will present their nationally recognized program, Behind the Swoosh: Sweatshops and Social Justice. We are very excited to bring this program so close to home, said Keady. We have spoken all over the country in the past seven years and this is the first time we will be speaking at Monmouth University. Several years ago, we spoke at Brookdale Community College to a packed audience and we are hopeful that well get a similar reception at Monmouth. The interactive event includes a short documentary film, role playing, and multimedia technology that immerses students in the situations that people making Nike products deal with on a regular basis. It includes research collected over the past 10 years from EFJ and their colleagues, as well as clear actions that everyday citizens can take to get involved in solving the global sweatshop problem. In the past 7 years, Keady and Kretzu have lectured at more than 300 colleges and high schools, in 34 states. They have presented to students from grade 3 to graduate school on the topic of sweatshops. They have become regular guest lecturers at Temple Universitys Fox School of Business in their Business Ethics courses, have presented at national and international business school conferences, and they have worked with deans and professors to re-focus teachings on business ethics and socially responsible ventures. The program has gotten solid reviews, even from those who may not agree with Keady and Kretzu at the outset. This presentation is powerful and thought provoking. It provides students with a virtual immersion into a dimension of the globalized market that many are certainly unaware of and others can barely imagine. This story is instructive even to someone like myself, who sees the world more from a market fundamentalist than a moral perspective, and it invites debate and discussion that contrasts the two views, commented Dr. Nancy Fox, a Professor of Economics at St. Josephs University (PA) and a former teacher of Keadys. Keady and Kretzu have found most students and faculty are open to the information they present and are eager to get involved. What we have found on every campus is that people agree that sweatshops are unfair, said Kretzu. Overwhelmingly students at these schools have said three things: This is wrong. We have to stop it. I want to get involved. So, we invite them get on board and help transform these factories into places where people make a good living and are treated with respect. The lecture is free and open to the public. To learn more about the program and EFJ, please visit www.educatingforjustice.org.
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