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.