CSSW ELECTION SERIES: “Let My People Vote” Film Screening & Panel

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC; REGISTRATION REQUIRED; LIVESTREAM AVAILABLE; 1.5 CE HOURS AVAILABLE FOR A FEE

Screening of
Let My People Vote

Followed by a panel discussion
introduced by
MELISSA BEGG
Dean and Professor, School of Social Work
Featuring
JAIME ESTADES
Founder and President, Latino Leadership Institute

Cosponsored by

• Voting Is Social Work
• Latino Leadership Institute
• Columbia School of Social Work Field Department
• Columbia School of Social Work Office of Professional Excellence

About the Event
The event, which marks the first in the School of Social Work’s 2020 Election Series (see below), kicks off with a screening of Let My People Vote, a verité short covering a day-in-the-life of Desmond Meade, a formerly homeless returning Florida resident who overcame many obstacles to eventually become the president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a grassroots membership organization dedicated to ending the disenfranchisement of and discrimination against people with convictions. (The FRRC played a major role in successful passage of Amendment 4 in 2018, which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions.) The film was shot in Tampa, Florida, two days before the 2016 presidential election.

After the screening, Dean Melissa Begg (bio) will introduce the panel, which will feature Jaime Estades Esq., MSW (LinkedIn page), founding president of the Latino Leadership Institute, which has been active for over twenty years in resisting voter suppression and bringing out the vote for the Caribbean and Latinx populations of New York City and vicinity. Discussion will focus on the barriers to getting to the polls and the strategies social workers have developed to overcome them.

For more information about the event, and to find out about learning objectives for CE credits, please go to the registration page.

NOTE: Livestream attenders will be given a link for watching the film. The Livestream of the panel will take place from 12:45 to 1:45 p.m. at this link:
https://livestream.com/accounts/3727021/events/8884998

About CSSW’s 2020 Election Series
In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, the Columbia School of Social Work is partnering with a number of organizations to offer a series of events calling on social workers to become more informed about the issues affecting the lives of ordinary people and to take the lead in empowering members of marginalized populations to vote.