What are the challenges facing low-income women during the recession and how should law makers help them overcome the obstacles to accessing education and job training? These questions are the focus of part one of Spotlight’s two-part webcast with members of the Women’s Economic Security Campaign (WESC).
In this first installment, Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat, interim co-president and vice president of programs for Washington Area Women’sFoundation, and Shelley A. Davis,vice president of programs and advocacy for Chicago Foundation for Women, discuss findings from WESC’s latest report, Aiming Higher: Removing Barriers to Education, Training and Jobs for Low-Income Women (pdf). The guests examine how low-education attainment and lack of access to transportation, high quality child care and health care coverage are impeding low-income women from moving ahead.
The interview explores the needfor policymakers to strengthen the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF) program and the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to provide greater support for low-income women seeking training and education that will lead to good jobs. Lockwood-Shabat and Davis also discuss efforts by the Obama Administration to reduce the challenges facing vulnerable women and their families, and the actions that communities can take to promote policies that support low-income women.
WESC is a joint effort of four regionally diverse funds -- Chicago Foundation for Women, Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the Women’s Foundation of California and the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis. Working in collaboration with the Women’s Funding Network, WESC seeks to harness the voice and power of women’s foundations nationwide to improve the lives of low-income women.
To read the latest WESC report, Aiming Higher: Removing Barriers to Education, Training and Jobs for Low-Income Women, click here (pdf).
To learn more about WESC, click here.
For more news, commentaries and research on the issues affecting low-income women, visit Spotlight’s Women and Poverty section.