We’d love to see you Wednesday, October 17, at the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards reception and ceremony at the Carnegie Institution. It will be an uplifting evening, with generations of social justice activists on hand to enjoy the artistry of DC’s most powerful and visionary youth poets and the music of Patricio Zamorano and his band as we celebrate national and international voices for justice.

Tickets may sell out soon, so purchase yours now or support this important event even if you can’t attend.

We are thrilled to honor two amazing organizations in 2012 with much in common. Just as the Chilean Students Movement is challenging Augusto Pinochet’s legacy and free-market ideology, City Life/Vida Urbana is standing up to Ronald Reagan’s legacy and ideology. These struggles are also united in building a better world rooted in the rights to education, housing, and other core needs. And they are planting the seeds of transformative change.

Both groups remind us of what so many of you know so well: Powerful social movements equipped with bold ideas are the catalysts for positive social change. IPS is proud to belong to dynamic coalitions forging powerful new approaches that are making a difference.

The great actor and activist Danny Glover will present the City Life/Vida Urbana award to Curdina Hill and Steve Meacham. Tiffany Loftin, president of the United States Student Association, will present the award to the Chilean student leaders Camila Vallejo and Noam Titelman.

Fun fact: Readers of the UK’s Guardian newspaper chose Vallejo as “the person of the year.”

If you’ve attended in recent years, please take note of our new venue, located at 1530 P Street, NW in Washington, DC. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. and the ceremony will get underway at 7 p.m.

The Institute for Policy Studies has honored human rights heroes for 36 years in the names of our colleagues Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who were assassinated in 1976 by agents of the Chilean dictatorship. John Cavanagh is the Institute’s director and Joy Zarembka is its associate director. IPS-dc.org