Eduardo Loredo to be the focus of a national march and video project

Starting this April, a national march for health-care reform will wind its way from Louisiana to Michigan — and the poster child for the plight of the uninsured will be Eduardo Loredo.

Last weekend, Monique Gabrielle Maes-Salazar, a recent graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and advocate for the Loredo family, traveled to New Orleans to meet with members of The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The Ohio-based organization, with affiliates across the nation, demands basic services, like housing and health care, for low-income families. For the past several months, the PPEHRC has made Loredo — and his need for a heart transplant — a key national campaign.

“Somehow there’s supposed to be a pecking order in this country, where some residents are more deserving of life than others,” says Cheri Honkola, national organizer for the PPEHRC. “But we’re a spiritually motivated people and that’s not how we roll. We think everybody should have right to life and right to health care.”

If Loredo’s situation isn’t resolved by April 4, communities from New Orleans to Detroit will recognize the face of the Kansas teen from the banners and T-shirts of the national march.

In the meantime, a handful of local activists have started rolling tape on an amateur documentary, following Eduardo’s experiences. Here’s the introduction.