
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990                   TAG: 9006170214
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO                                LENGTH: Short

'THIRD WORLD' GUIDES HOPE TO SPUR ACTIVISM

Betty Ellis, a 64-year-old Minneapolis housewife, says "intellectual curiosity" drew her to join nine others Sunday on a 10-day journey billed as "Appalachia: Third World in the United States."

Global Exchange, a non-profit research, education and action center in San Francisco that arranged the "reality tour," hopes it will lead Ellis and her fellow travelers on a path to political activism.

The $500-per-person Appalachian tour, for example, will go to Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia to visit a child-care center, agricultural, food and housing projects, the Mountain Women's Exchange and the Highlander Center in New Market, Tenn., which has fought poverty, racism, sexism and environmental destruction since the 1930s.

Poverty can be found in every state - Global Exchange is planning other U.S. trips that may include the San Francisco Bay area - but the group chose Appalachia because of "its inspiring example and rich history of organizing," said Laurie Adams, a tour coordinator.

"Of course, not all of Appalachia resembles the Third World," Adams said. "But some of the characteristics are the same.

"The resources, such as coal, are extracted for the benefit of rich outsiders . . . A lot of the control is in the hands of distant politicians and corporate boards, not in the hands of local people. Environmental destruction is wrought by things such as the coal mining industry."

by CNB