31 of july - community organizing

In the afternoon, we heard Ojeda Hall-Philips speaking about the community organizing.

She’s a Professional Organizer for the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation and she was really interesting.

Why? Because she was really passionate about her job in community organizing and I could feel it when she was speaking.

I was also interested because I’ll do my internship in a community organizing in San Francisco so…I was waiting for that speaker.

Well, I learned that this community organizing thing (that I can’t find in my country) it’s a grassroots job, I mean, if you wanna work for a community organizing project, you mustn’t be afraid to work with communities, in their neighborhood and that you have to be PATIENT.

But it looks like a very interesting job where you can meet very interesting people…

The second part of this afternoon was particular because we had to find our research topics for our writing and most of all, the fellows with whom we must work (which is not an easy thing).

So we did a kind of “speed dating topic”: each turn, everyone spoke about their ideas that they had grown during the program.

Then, a big noisy, confusing, misunderstanding conversation came through between all the fellows LOL…

It sounded like “oh I like your idea, but I like your idea too, but I like this other idea too…you wanna be in my group?! But we’re full! …I don’t know what to do!”

After had written our 3 favorite topics, the big boss A.k.a Nick Farrell from NY decided.

Finally, I had my first choice for my research and I’m really happy with the fellows I’m going to work withJ. (like almost everyone I think).

Leila.

BLOG JULY 30TH 2008 – CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

NINA BAK:

I have nothing good to say – replied Will right after we left the room, where a couple minutes earlier Marianne Engelman Lado from the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) – displayed movie about the color communities affected by the industrial companies. No one could believe that this is actually happen – dangerous for health, pollution-productive factories & energy plant are being located in the towns and areas with vast majority of color population. Scenes like from Erin Brockovitch movie – didn't seem to end happily this time. I cannot believe in that, I had no idea about, Something like that in the States - those were the comments from the fellows I asked about opinion on the movie & situation in general. Concerns, disturbing thoughts were present especially in American fellows minds, not only though. While Ms Engelman Lado was giving example of lost trial, when parents of a molested girl sued the school in which bus a incident happened - Magnus showed his incomprehension – I simply don't get it.. why is had this case ever happened to go to the court? There should be other way to deal with those issues...in Denmark, we… Disappointment and anger were the feelings increasing with every minute when more facts& figures were revealed. Hopeless appeared when we learned about the struggles taken by the individuals & communities trying to fight their rights in the court against public institutions, enterprises, industrial corporations, etc. Political narrative courts and inconsistency in federal system of justice – falls into class& racial issues – that's the reality revealed by our guestspeaker. What we try to do to have those kind of cases won - Ms. Engelman Lado said- we try to keep them out of the court. It brought us down a bit.

NIENKE VENEMA:

Every morning at 7 am I ask myself - whilst snoozing and somewhat desperately postponing getting up – how on earth I’ll manage to stay awake and concentrated when my head still hasn't processed the incredible amount of information and the overwhelming experiences of the day before, and before. Yet the HIA program consistently manages to surprise me by keeping me sharp. Today was no different.

Rita Kaufman’s high speed, super dense lecture reminded us of one of the main critique Europeans and perhaps most people, American and non-American alike, have on the US: it commits itself to Human Rights on the international stage and yet lacks to implement these sufficiently within its own borders, at least not top-down. Personally, I did not realize that economic, social and cultural rights aren’t seen as an affirmative obligation within the US and it surprised me - how can this country expect to be taken seriously as a role model for good governance if it does not strive to guarantee its own citizens such basic rights as housing, health, social security and educational equity, at least to it’s best ability? I admire America’s strong commitment to Freedom and Democracy but now that I’ve become more aware that the freedom emphasized here is passive, or the ‘freedom from’ and that little is done to actively protect the lesser-off American citizens, I am not sure if these civil and political rights are important enough to overrule health and wellbeing of millions. Do they need to exclude each other? What good are Human Rights without active remedies? The actions of private litigators and other actors are admirable and impressive, but why is an institution such as the Supreme Court blocking their initiatives when it should be with its citizens, not against them? It puzzles me.

Sue Kaplan talked to us about the racial and ethnic disparities in health - infant mortality, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and general life expectancy are still significantly lower for African Americans. How can this be when it is clear that there are no biological differences, that it is not a genetic problem? Does it all come down to personal attitudes and circumstances, a fear of not being taken seriously by doctors, an unhealthy lifestyle caused by poverty? Or, and this is a worrying thought, are implicit biases of doctors a serious factor as well? Damien Stanley explained to us that racial biases can be tracked down to the brain, and told us that research done amongst doctors showed that they are likely to diagnose black Americans with the same symptoms differently. If prejudice has a neural basis on which we have little control it is good that we are finding out about it, but what is the solution?

Mobilization. If Woody Allen is right to say that ‘80% of success is showing up’, we need to stay active and organised. Over the course of the last three weeks it has become clear to this little Humanity in Action group that racial disparities in health, education, labour.. almost in every sector are still much alive in the land of Milk and Honey, and to me it is obvious that they are real Europe as well. Our biases exist, and whether they have a neural base or not, they are still dependent on our environment and the political system we have created. The only real way to soften and eventually dispose of them is to actively keep working to improve and change the societies we live in, to stay committed to it despite all the frustrations it might bring. Well that’s a thought to take home for sure.

Thursday July 31 Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, and Community Organizing.

Thursday July 31
Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, and Community Organizing.
Tom Seessel, Philanthropy and Volunteerism.


Tom Seessel gave us presentation about the philanthropy and importance of philanthropy and Voluntarism at the public life in USA. The topics of Tom Seessel's presentation were very close to the topics of the Arthur C. Brooks article "Philanthropy and the Non-Profit Sector".
The major statements are:

The exceptional importance of Philanthropy and Voluntarism in USA. One of the reasons for the high involvement of the Americans in the philanthropy is among others distrust of governments authority in the social issues of population. And the reasons for the European reluctance for philanthropy are highly developed social welfare and high taxes in the EU.

One very Interesting observation which was mentioned in Tom Seessels presentation and Arthur C. Brooks article as well, was the Distribution of the US Givings. The biggest share of the givings in USA goes to religion(36%) the other secular purposes like Health(9%) and Education(15%) etc. are not getting nearly the half of the resources which go to religion. On the other side the priorities of EU givings are distributed with the biggest share in the secular area of social life, the the biggest share goes to the area of Health (25%). The religion with only 2% shows the great discrepancy between the EU and US Philanthropic tendencies.

Tom Seessel mentioned also the great challenge of society and government to monitor and to control the Philanthropic organisations. The problems already starts with the definition of charity. As example was mentioned the Leona Helmsey case were the huge amount of money was donated for the dogs. The concern of the society and government is that the Philanthropically organisations and givers are getting high Tax reductions and this givings should be spend on legitimate social justice purpose. The other challenges are the transparency of the organisations which recive the money for the philanthropic purposes lack of which leads to other problems like governance, accountability, salaries, operating expenses and possible fraud.






Emary Aronson
Robin Hood Foundation http://www.robinhood.org/home.aspx


First Emary Aronson presented the the Robin Hood Foundation values. The most important is the transparency accountability. 100% of every donation goes directly to programs helping poor New Yorkers

The mission of the Robin Hood Foundation is to fight the poverty in New York

From the first year of the establishing of the Robin Hood Foundation it was a success. The Idea behind this success was the implementation of the commercial strategies in a philanthropic organisation.

One of the important activities is the investment in the education. Because according to the statistics the failing High school diploma means poverty. Other statistics say that only the half of the High school students will graduate. According to some estimations 6500$ in year is the average amount of extra money the high school diploma brings to a person.

Besides the success Robin Hood Foundation is still in the development so for example in the beginning the foundation policy was not to be involved in the public policy, currently it finds itself in the constant interaction with the government. One of the reasons is the biggest NY Party with up to 40000 participants. Which annually raises big public interest.

The most significant change in the Robin Hood Foundation history came with the 9/11 events. Robin Hood Foundation managed to raise very rapidly one of the biggest 9/11 Funds which required the professional organisational structure equal to any other financial organisation. But the major success of this Fund was the ability tho provide some help to every person who was affected by the events.

Last Year Robin Hood Foundation managed to raise 150 000 000$ from approximately 4500 donors the most of the donations are the hedge funds. Besides the necessity of professional management Robin Hood Foundation require from its Board of directors personal contributing to the cause of the Foundation. Emary Aronson mention also the current challenge of the most NGOs to found the professional Management because the MBA students tend to work in the commercial organisations instead of NGOs which can not afford the same salaries as the commercial organisations.

US Immigration Court

Friday the 25 we continued our encounter of America with a visit to the US Immigration Court. Boiling it down, the Court is the main and legal gateway for hopeful immigrants, seeking to be reunited with family, escaping political, racial, religious persecution or whatever urged people to go look up their luck in America. Today was no different. And then maybe a little.

Because, as the first asylum seeker, a male from the Ivory Coast, entered the court so did we. The whole HIA team packing up the court room with notebooks, business casuals and attentive listening, that only grew as the interpreter struggled his way through stories of rape, imprisonment, killing, political prosecution and an illegal journey ending in New York. Not that the 26-years old asylum seeking male in particular noticed the name of the city, when he sat foot on American soil. Probably the feeling of making it to the other side shook off the need of checking up the nearest road sign. He was in America - what else is there to wish for?
But even though it might not matter at first to our immigrant from the Ivory Coast, there is a lot to wish for and even though he might be a bit disturbed by the 20 business casuals looking at him from the guest seats as he goes through his life story, it turns up to be a stroke of luck, that he is sitting in exactly this court room in exactly this city.

Even though the change of being granted asylum is 44 percent, it turns out that the numbers differs in the nation's 54 Immigrants Courts. A Chinese immigrant seeking asylum in fear of persecution has 76 percent chance of being granted so in Orlando, but only 7 percent in Atlanta. And just to add to the confusing, getting in the right court room is not necessarily enough. Studies show that Colombians had 88 percent chance of winning asylum from one judge in the Miami Court but only 5 percent from another judge in the same court. Circumstances as lack of witnesses, passports or other documents means that the nation's more than 200 judges must go through cases based on scant or subjective information. Add to this, that the time is little as the judge determine wether or not the nation is going to welcome a new immigrant.

In the case of today's asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast this description is no different. He claims asylum due to political persecution - one out of five internationally recognized grounds for gaining asylum. Race, religion, nationality and membership in particular social group being the other grounds. With no passport and no documents that the court finds credible, the ruling is based on examine on the story, as it bit by bit unfolds in the court room.
New York is one of the cities that grants a high percentage of asylum. And today's case is not an exception. Though the State attorney do not find him credible, our guy in the court room is granted the asylum he hoped for. And though he has to update the English vocabulary with the word 'income tax' and even more important the understanding of this action, he walks out of there with an permit to American.

Refugees

After getting an insight in the legislative framework of refugees in the U.S. we spent the afternoon talking about what it actually meant to bare the refugee status and how refugees take their first legal steps in the U.S. American society. There are ten organizations supporting refugees in getting a basic orientation in the U.S.A. One of them is the

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

It is the second largest organization of its kind in the United States.

Talking about refugees in a global perspective one has to be aware of the fact that less than one per cent of people having fled there homes are actually relocated into so called third countries, which are neither countries of the refugees' origin nor countries into which the refugees flees and live in refugee camps. Currently the number of people that have been driven out of their home country is estimated to be around 14 Million. The number of internally displaced persons is believed to be much higher.

The U.S.A. has by far the largest resettlement program worldwide. Around 17,000 refugees are admitted annually. The process, however, is lengthy and can take a few years. The IRC alone has resettled between 8,000 and 10,000 refugees per year over the past decade. The numbers for this year are expected to be even higher. The IRC is taking care of 155 different ethnicities from all regions of the world.

As soon as a person is granted refugee status he or she is entitled to work. The IRC encourages the refugees to make their own living in order to be able to pay for housing and obtain health insurance. The IRC has developed a program called Individual Development Account (IDA), which is supposed to support refugees in handling financial issues. In addition to that the U.S. government grants the refugees an initial aid in terms of public benefit (the so called Refugee Cash Assistence). This aid is granted during the first eight months after the acknowledgment of refugee status. It is very low, but entails medical aid. Around 30 per cent of refugees arriving in the United States have family members that already live in the country. After one year of physical presence in the country refugees have the right of becoming a permanent residence of the United States. He can apply for citizenship after five years.

The IRC works together with the Bellevue hospital in Downtown Manhattan and is engaged in a partnership with their “Survivor of Torture” program. Usually, psychological problems refugees have do not show immediately upon arrival. Often it is the case that during the first months refugees are very engaged in getting used to the new situation. Only after they have started settling down post-traumatic symptoms or other psychological stress phenomena seem to appear.

Tuesday July 29; GLBT, Asian-American and Indian-American minority issues

It’s funny how fears of being discriminated against seems to be a phenomenon that knows no boundaries. As Alan van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and speaking on the behalf of LGBT-Rights shared a remembrance of his early youth with us, being an teenager he blew out the candles of his birthday cake whishing that he wouldn’t be gay. When I was that young I tried to trick myself – since an important thing (which I don’t remember) turned out just the opposite of what I had planned it to be, I figured that if I kept repeating to myself that I was gay, clearly I would turn out not to be. Well, it didn’t work that way. However, the main insight of this little anecdote should be that even young teenagers on their way of courageously clearing a path through the jungle of unfamiliar rising emotions, they already sense the hostility of society towards sexual dispositions that are somewhat different from what is perceived by the majority as the “normal” sexuality or even just “normal” behaviour in the eyes of a few. Speaking of this early learned, or shall I say taught, inner fear or even immanent threat by society, it seems even more unclear to me, why some people take the argument, that being gay is something you happily chose for or decide against or a matter of “lifestyle”, which the word already includes the notion of there being a choice. I am sure, the kids on the streets that Kai Wright later on described, himself being a Journalist and devoted to the subject of (mostly) black gay kids and young adults in NYC in his recent book, would have loved to have had this choice, after having found the courage to come out having watched stereotype-representing but nevertheless gay liberty promoting serials like “Will and Grace” on TV, and consequently being thrown out of their families and homes and, moreover, as a result of no “gay spaces” in their surroundings and neighbourhoods ending up having to work the streets for living and having no other choice than putting their lives at risk (3000-4000 black kids in New York – every night that is! Not to speak of other backgrounds).

Be it what it is, I found Allens self-conscious presentation and strategy quiet intriguing since he mentioned that he wanted to make the state of New York something he called an “engined state”, meaning that his organisation, being structured like a union and mainly working together with 3rd party validators of the lower management level next to the top decision makers, was trying to install a catalogue of specific LGBT-rights in the State of New York in order to along with a few other states serve as a model for the rest of the country - out of the strong belief that revolutions in the past have only taken place, if there was a league of good examples already applying certain practices wished for. He also made a strong argument that language does matter, referring to the question of gay marriage, which civil union will never be an equivalent to, because it is not guaranteed the equal amount of rights, and therefore always somewhat dehumanizing the people concerned compared to heterosexual people. In my eyes a society accepting this biased treatment can never consider itself ideally democratic or even humane, because this would require treating all humans and participants equal and therefore guaranteeing to each human the same amount of rights - and not producing something like a second class. It’s not like we haven’t seen in the past, what thinking in classes can mean for a society as a whole.

Those were not the only topics of the day, though. Vanessa Leung spoke on Asian Americans and Bethany Berger gave a lecture on Native American Communities. Most striking to me was the thought of the strong tendency to connect manifest prejudice with whatever minority. Such as seeing the Asian Americans, the body as such itself consisting of a wide range of nationalities and complexions and therefore making this category a non-representative one, as the “model minority”. Being envious for their successes in education, but blending out that mathematics and natural sciences are the only areas that have the least amount of cultural variation, therefore almost being the only option. In the outcome, because they seem to be doing well as a minority somewhat neutralizing them, so they become invisible. Or the Native Americans, who because of the wrongly imposed connected image or stereotype of wilderness, simplicity and nature, are being perceived as stone hearted capitalists; just because of their natural und historically understandable strive for economic success, in this case in the gaming industry. Again blending out such things as the status of a “domestic depending nation”, meaning recognition, but not to give them a complete recognition after all, as well as the dangers and difficulties their representatives of culture have to face. I guess the majority in a society generally tends to take a very conceited and simple stand on very complicated issues.

Wednesday, July 23: Seedco

We ended a long day with two HIA senior fellows, Nikki Evans and Jeff Hochstetler, both of whom work with an organization called Seedco.

Seedco's mission reads as follows: "Seedco is a national nonprofit organization that works with local partners to create economic opportunity for disadvantaged job seekers, workers, and neighborhood entrepreneurs."

Nikki and Jeff explained their roles in this wide-reaching entity. Their work is multifaceted, which reinforced the complex underlying causes of poverty which had early in the day been espoused by Larry Mead and Henry Freedman. Seedco, like Grameem America, emphasizes economic and business opportunity over handouts. Realizing that it takes money to make money, Seedco helps to secure funding for entrepreneurs while simultaneously educating low-income Americans on financial management. They seek to both address problems unique to a particular community and also to export successful programs on the national level.

It was a bit difficult to come up with questions for Nikki and Jeff, something our group had never had trouble with before. I blame the combination of it being the end of a long day and the lack of controversy in their presentation. Clearly Seedco is an important company combating issues of poverty in an effective way. Nick reinvigorated the conversation by directing it into a more general discussion of poverty and race. And so ended the day.