Waterford Anti War Meeting - Military Families Against the War

waterford | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Sunday February 01, 2004 15:26 by Roy Hassey - Irish Anti War Movement royhassey at eircom dot net 086-3274015

Monday 16th February

The Waterford branch of the Irish Anti War Movement are holding a public meeting with Stephen Cleghorn, spokeperson of the American organisation - Military Families Against the War.

The meeting will take place in Connolly Hall, Summerhill, Waterford on Monday February 16th at 8.00pm. All welcome.

J. Stephen Cleghorn, PhD
Military Families Speak Out

J. Stephen Cleghorn, PhD is Deputy Executive Director of the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness in Washington, D.C., a private nonprofit agency. Since 1989 the Community Partnership has been working both to alleviate homelessness through various forms of intervention programs and to prevent homelessness through community-based prevention strategies. For the past ten years Dr. Cleghorn has been responsible for planning, implementing, securing funds for, and procuring a multitude of programs and services that taken together comprise a “continuum of care” system for homeless people.

Dr. Cleghorn has a history of dealing with homelessness that dates back to 1973 when he was a member of the Community for Creative Nonviolence, working at Zacchaeus Free Kitchen and opening a “hospitality house” for elderly mentally ill women. Since then he has been involved in several cities at various levels of programs and services: establishing the first homeless women’s shelter in Birmingham, Alabama; creating an organization in Atlanta that developed units of SRO permanent housing for the homeless; directing a program for homeless families in Baltimore; and directing a jobs program for homeless people in the District. He has been an advocate and provider, a researcher and teacher on homelessness, a presenter at national conferences, and participant in mayoral homeless advisory boards in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

Dr. Cleghorn has also been a peace activist throughout his life, beginning with organizing against the Vietnam war while in college in 1970, being drafted into the US Army in 1971 as a conscientious objector and later being court martialed for protesting the war while in ranks, organizing demonstrations to protest the United State’s nuclear weapons program, hosting the World Peace March in Alabama, and participating in numerous peace demonstrations including some that put him in jail for nonviolent civil disobedience, the latest being a protest at the White House against the US invasion of Iraq. He is currently active with Military Families Speak Out in opposing the US occupation of Iraq. Dr. Cleghorn’s father was a 20-year career Army officer, as is his stepson who is in the 17th year of an Army career and is currently deployed to Iraq.

In 1995 Dr. Cleghorn received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Emory University.