This is a list of the 2007 Generation Change Internship Host Organizations. The 2008 Generation Change Internship Host Organizations are still being finalized and will be posted in April 2008.
NEW YORK
Center for Community Change
National Campaign Planning and Housing Trust Fund Project
New York, NY
The Center for Community Change's National Campaign seeks to strengthen the field of community organizing by bringing organizations together to plan an ambitious national strategy and implement joint actions and events. The CCC's Housing Trust Fund Project also provides technical assistance to organizations seeking to establish or improve affordable housing trust funds.
Intern: Manasi Nair
Community Voices Heard
New York, NY
Community Voices Heard (CVH) is a membership organization of low-income individuals working together to build the power of families, communities and low-income people. It pursues a multi-pronged strategy that includes community organizing, direct action, public education, public policy advocacy grassroots-driven research, coalition building, and civic engagement, all with a focus on leadership development and achieving policy transformation. Founded in 1994 by women on public assistance to impact the welfare system, CVH now focuses more broadly on economic justice issues including access to education, job training and workforce development, living-wage jobs, affordable housing, accountable economic development, and other important community issues. While CVH's base remains in the five boroughs of New York City, the organization has recently begun expansion into Westchester County and the Mid-Hudson Valley region.
Intern: Juan Sosa
Make The Road By Walking
Brooklyn, NY
Make The Road By Walking (MTRBW) was founded in the spring of 1997 in the wake of an unprecedented legislative attack on America's poor and immigrant communities in order to provide neighborhood residents with the resources and skills necessary to confront the problems of racial discrimination and political marginalization facing their community. Recognizing that real and lasting improvements in community life will be achieved only when residents have sufficient power to enforce their legal rights, MTRBW supports resident-led efforts to educate themselves, access legal services and organize for broad-based policy change.
Intern: Irene Ortega
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
Bronx, NY
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition unites area residents to identify common problems and then work together to solve them. The NWBCCC's primary strategy to fulfill its mission is community organizing. The NWBCCC seeks to build a large membership that reflects the diversity of the people that live in the Northwest Bronx. People join the organization through active participation in tenant associations, congregations, neighborhood committees and issue committees. Their core issues/campaigns are affordable housing, immigrants' rights, education reform, youth leadership development, community redevelopment and economic justice through their jobs campaign.
Contact: Aleciah Anthony, aleciah@northwestbronx.org, (718) 584-0515, www.northwestbronx.org
Intern: Ivie Guobadia
NYC AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN)
Brooklyn, NY
NYCAHN is an organization comprised and led by low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. Given that housing is a human right, NYCAHN's mission is to empower low-income people living with HIV/AIDS to organize their community, including the nonprofits that serve them, to advocate for more housing, better housing and sound public policies for all New Yorkers. Their core issues are welfare rights, criminal justice, housing/homelessness, access to healthcare/AIDS, youth organizing and immigration. NYCAHN led the House Every One! Campaign, resulting in legislation mandating that New Yorkers living with AIDS must be moved from emergency housing into permanent medically appropriate housing in a timely manner.
Intern: Shakya Cherry-Donaldson
NORTH CAROLINA
Communities Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment (C.H.A.N.G.E.)
Winston-Salem, NC
CHANGE provides a space for residents of Forsyth County to participate in democracy and public life. Core issues/campaigns consist of community and human development, affordable housing, transportation, healthcare, a living wage, seniors and youth, public education, reinventing local government, a non-partisan school board, and Get Out the Vote. Recently, they helped to pass a local school bond measure that provides greater equity in new school construction and renovation between inner city and county schools.
Intern: Derwin Montgomery
Durham Congregations Associations and Neighborhoods (C.A.N.)/Metro Durham Sponsors
Durham, NC
Metro Durham Sponsors is a Triangle-wide non-profit, non-partisan multiracial and interfaith network of institutions dedicated to building relationships across race, social and religious lines. It identifies common concerns and promotes acting together for the common good. Metro Durham Sponsors operates two independent networks of institutions in Durham and Orange County (emerging project). They engage and train thousands of volunteer leaders to work effectively with public and private decision makers translating community concerns into civic participation and innovative solutions and policies. Some core issues/campaigns that they are currently working on are access to health care for low-income families, living wages, job training, decent housing, public safety, and youth leadership development. One of Durham CAN's most recent campaign victories was to establish a living wage for city, county and public school workers!
Interns: Idonea Lewis, Allison Zirkel
El Pueblo
Raleigh, NC
El Pueblo is a statewide non-profit advocacy and public policy organization dedicated to strengthening the Latino Community. This mission is accomplished through leadership development, proactive and direct advocacy, education and promotion of cross-cultural understanding in partnerships at the local, state, and national levels. El Pueblo is involved in a variety of core issues/campaigns such as advocacy initiatives, community leadership, cultural and educational outreach, health programs, public safety, and youth leadership. El Pueblo was proud to take part in the demonstrations and marches that brought millions of people out into the streets in peaceful protest in March, April and May of 2006 and participated in Get Out the Vote efforts.
Intern: Estefania San Juan
Helping Empower Local People (H.E.L.P.)
Charlotte, NC
H.E.L.P. brings together, trains, and organizes the communities of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County across all religious, racial, ethnic, class and neighborhood lines for the public good. Core issues/campaigns include increasing youth employment opportunities; increasing funding for the housing code enforcement department; improving the quality of nursing homes and assisted living facilities; and increasing English language programming, citizenship classes, and voter registration for immigrants. H.E.L.P. recently worked with Katrina survivors, congregations, local government and agencies to secure a $1 million commitment from the city government. The funding will be used to assist up to 500 Katrina evacuee households with Temporary Housing Assistance.
Intern: Rev. Toure Marshall and Channing Mathews
North Carolina Latino Coalition
Durham, NC
The NC Latino Coalition is a nonpartisan, multi-issue network of organizations dedicated to building relational power among grassroots Latino leaders. They fulfill their goals by identifying, developing and training grassroots leaders, strengthening institutions through the provision of technical assistance, and addressing concerns through collective public action. NC Latino Coalition's core issues/campaigns are immigration reform, education, health issues, and housing for migrant workers. Recently, they have been working on a state campaign to educate the immigrant community on the recently adopted resolution by the North Carolina Sheriff Association to cooperate and implement agreements with ICE to arrest and investigate immigrants' legal status in the country.
Intern: Jordan Gregson
TENNESSEE
Nashville Homeless Power Project
Nashville, TN
Nashville Homeless Power Project (NHPP) is comprised of homeless and formerly homeless people confronting the root causes of poverty and injustice. NHPP promotes the human rights of all poor people while striving for the civil rights of those who remain on the streets. It believes that housing, healthcare, food security and use of public facilities are rights that we all deserve. NHPP develops concrete solutions by building power through relationships with our brothers and sisters in the streets, allies, and decision makers. The Common Ground Project, a recent campaign, aims to hold the largest emergency shelter accountable for the treatment of its clients (homeless individuals).
Intern: Alonzo Fortune
Tennessee Disability Coalition
Nashville, TN
The Coalition and its member agencies work together to advocate for public policy that ensures self-determination, independence, empowerment, integration, and inclusion for people with disabilities. From the ADA to long-term care, from education to health, from housing to employment, from personal assistance to assistive technology, the coalition focuses on legislative and administrative support that improves the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. The Coalition led a group of organizations committed to improving access to therapies for children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder when the Coalition learned that health insurance companies across the state were routinely denying proven therapies to children on the basis that such therapies were "investigational" or "habilitative." The Coalition's efforts resulted in passing the first insurance mandate in more than 8 years in the state legislature.
Intern: Jessica Lotz
Tennesseans for Fair Taxation
Knoxville, TN
Tennesseans for Fair Taxation (TFT) works to create a more fair and progressive tax system that invests in Tennessee, its communities, and its people. TFT works through local organizing, coalition building, public education, and advocacy. TFT is a state-wide coalition with both individual and organizational members. Recently TFT promoted a bill to cut the state food tax in half, paid for with an increase in the state cigarette tax. TFT hopes to pass some form of the "Tax Swap" in the coming year.
Interns: Emily Thaden and Elizabeth Hopkins
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition
Nashville, TN
Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) is a state-wide, immigrant and refugee-led collaboration whose mission is to empower immigrants and refugees throughout Tennessee to develop a unified voice, defend their rights, and create an atmosphere in which they are viewed as positive contributors to the state. Current focus areas include grassroots policy change, defense of civil liberties and civil rights, grassroots leadership development, and public awareness.
Interns: S. Catalina Nieto and Amelia Post
Tying Nashville Together
Nashville, TN
Tying Nashville Together (TNT) is a broad-based, interfaith organization that brings together people of different faith traditions, ethnicities and socio-economic status to work to change and improve their "beloved community." TNT is currently working on home-based healthcare and magnet schools within the area of public education. In 2006, TNT led a non-partisan civic engagement campaign that enlisted over 200 volunteers to knock on 3,000 doors and fill out an issue-based survey as well as register folks to vote. Their efforts contributed to an increase in voter turnout that ranged from 4-21% in 4 different polling areas!
Interns: Eric Brown, Diane DeTrizio, and Natalie Nelson
WASHINGTON, DC
CASA de Maryland, Inc.
Takoma Park, MD
CASA's primary mission is to work with the community to improve the quality of life and fight for equal treatment and full access to resources and opportunities for low-income Latinos and their families. CASA also works with other low-income immigrant communities and organizations, makes its programs and activities available to them, and advocates for social, political, and economic justice for all low-income communities. Core campaigns include efforts to pass legislation that protects the rights of domestic workers in Montgomery County, legislation to maintain access to driver's licenses for all immigrants in Maryland, and a variety of other initiatives.
Contact: Kim Propeack, Director, Community Organizing and Political Action, kpropeack@casamd.org, (301) 431-4185, www.casademaryland.org
Interns: Sukhdeep Aneja and Daniela Vann
Center for Community Change –Immigration Team
Washington, DC
The CCC Immigration Team works to build a united voice within the national grassroots movement for immigrant rights and comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. The team leads the push towards a humane and comprehensive immigration reform package that lives up to the best American values and which honors America's rich history as a nation of immigrants. The team works to assist local immigrant rights organizations, support and organize youth leadership, and facilitate cross-cultural alliance building among America's diverse immigrant communities.
Intern: Amye Greene
Virginia Organizing Project
Charlottesville, VA
The Virginia Organizing Project, founded in 1995, is a statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. VOP especially encourages the participation of those who have traditionally had little or no voice in our society. By building relationships with diverse individuals and groups throughout Virginia, VOP enhances their ability to work together at a statewide level, democratically and non-violently, for change. Core issues/campaigns on a statewide level are racial profiling, predatory lending, tax reform, wage reform, affordable housing, verified voting, living wage, and emerging health care and child care campaigns.
Intern: Kevin Simowitz
Washington Interfaith Network
Washington, DC
Washington Interfaith Network (WIN) works to build power to make change and to train leaders to act on issues that affect them. Currently, WIN is working on implementing $1 Billion WIN Vote Neighborhoods First Victories, and holding DC elected officials accountable to pledges made to Vote Neighborhoods First during 2006 Elections. Recently, WIN organized 300 volunteer leaders to do GOTV work in 27 target DC precincts to force DC Mayoral and Council candidates to commit to implementing WIN's Vote Neighborhoods First Election Agenda if elected. WIN raised voter turnout on average 15.71% in targeted precincts.
Intern: Shawna Murray
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