******************
Funding Opportunities
Community-Based Abstinence Education Project Grants
(http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-30597.htm)
WHO:
Public and private entities, including faith-based and community organizations,
which develop and/or provide an abstinence program
WHAT:
Community-Based Abstinence Education Project Grants. Approximately $33 million
will be available provide abstinence education to adolescents. The purpose of
this grant program is to provide support to public and private entities for the
development and implementation of abstinence education programs for adolescents,
ages 12 through 18. This program funds the planning and implementation of
community-based, abstinence-only educational interventions designed to reduce
the proportion of adolescents who have engaged in premarital sexual activity,
including but not limited to sexual intercourse; reduce the incidence of
out-of-wedlock pregnancies among adolescents; and reduce the incidence of
sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents. Specific objectives for the
SPRANS Community-Based Abstinence Education planning and implementation grants
are to:
1) Support
programmatic efforts that foster the development of abstinence-only education
for adolescents, ages 12 through 18, in communities across the country.
2) Develop and implement abstinence-only programs that target the prevention of
teenage pregnancy and premature sexual activity.
3) Develop abstinence education approaches that are culturally sensitive and
age-appropriate to meet the needs of a diverse audience of adolescents, ages 12
through 18.
4) Implement curriculum-based community education programs that promote
abstinence decisions to adolescents, ages 12 through 18.
WHEN:
Letter of Intent due December 31, 2003. Applications due February 9, 2004.
CONTACT:
Not available until the Application Guidance is posted.
******************
National Civic League Invites Entries for All-America-
City Award
(http://www.ncl.org/)
A program of
the
National Civic League, the All-America-City Award seeks to recognize
exceptional grassroots community problem-solving and communities that work
cooperatively to tackle challenges and achieve results. The award honors
communities of all sizes in which citizens, government, businesses, and
volunteer organizations work together to address critical local issues.
The National
Civic League is now accepting applications for the 2004 award. Cities, towns,
neighborhoods, counties, and regions are encouraged to apply.
Award
criteria include participation of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and
key constituencies to the maximum extent possible; recognition and involvement
of diverse segments and perspectives (ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, age, etc.)
in community decision-making; creative use and leveraging of community
resources; significant and specific community achievements; projects that
address the community's most important needs; cooperation across jurisdictional
boundaries; clear demonstration of results and impacts; and projects that have
impacted the community significantly within the last three years and have
potential to continue improving the quality of life in that community. In
addition, at least one project should document ways in which the lives of
children and youth have been tangibly improved.
For more
information or to request an application form, see the NCL Web site.
******************
California
Endowment Accepting Applications for Local Opportunities Fund
(http://www.calendow.org/)
Deadline: January 15, 2004
The
California Endowment's Local Opportunities Fund provides grants of up to
$50,000 to California-based organizations that are addressing important health
issues on a local level.
Priority will be given to
proposals that demonstrate one or more of the following: address a locally
defined health need or health-related priority in an underserved community; are
from a grassroots, nontraditional, and/or emerging organization, or address an
issue or community that traditionally does not benefit from mainstream funding
resources; and utilize the talents, cultures, and assets of the local community
to address the health priorities of that community.
The Local Opportunities Fund
features a streamlined application and timely review process to ensure that the
program is responsive and accessible to organizations that address pressing
community health issues.
See the California Endowment
Web site for complete program guidelines and application procedures.
******************
Draper Richards Foundation Offers Funding to Social Entrepreneurs
(http://www.draperrichards.org/)
The
Draper Richards Foundation provides selected social entrepreneurs with
funding of $100,000 a year for three years. The funds are specifically and
solely for entrepreneurs starting new nonprofit organizations.
The foundation awards only four fellowships a year and, like a
venture capital fund, offers strategic and organizational assistance in addition
to financial support. The projects selected by the foundation will demonstrate
innovative ways to solve existing social problems. The foundation will accept
proposals for a variety of public service areas, including but not limited to
education, youth and families, the environment, arts, health, and community and
economic development. The foundation seeks organizations that are or plan to be
national or global in scope. The foundation does not fund research,
scholarships, or local community-based organizations.
Experienced, dedicated social entrepreneurs with a developed idea
for a nonprofit organization in the
U.S. are invited
to apply. The foundation funds the entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team;
organizations at the beginning of their development; organizations based in the
U.S. only; and organizations that are national or global in reach and social
issue. Applicant organizations must demonstrate that their idea is sustainable,
scalable, and has the potential to create significant social change. In
addition, the founder/enterpreneur must have the skills to manage a national or
global organization.
For further information on the foundation and/or the program, see
the foundation's Web site.
******************
Bonner Foundation
(www.bonner.org)
Anti-Hunger Initiatives associated with faith based organizations
can apply for funding through the Bonner Foundation's Crisis Management Ministry
Program.
Grants range from $2,500 - $10,000 and can only be used to purchase
food, meaning no funds for general operating expenses, capital campaigns or star
up programs. Non profits showing how funds will boost support and volunteerism
among congregations and clergy receive preference.
The first 2004 deadline is March 1, followed by June 1, Sept. 1,
and Dec. 1.
Info: Genevieve Gorman 609-924-6663
******************
Ludwick Family Foundation
(www.ludwick.org)
Children and family nonprofits looking for infrastructure funding
can apply to the Ludwick Family Foundation. The funder provides up to 25 grants
per year ranging from $5,000 - $50,000 for new equipment replacement and
modernization, facility improvements and educational materials.
Due date: Letters of intent are due
March 31, 2004
******************
Jobs/Internships
NAPALC Summer 2004
Clerkships/Internships
Important Dates
Applications: Rolling (recommended by January 15, 2004)
First Round Offers: Sent by January 30, 2004
First Round Acceptance Deadline: By February 15, 2004
Second Round Offers: Sent by February 28, 2004
Second Round Acceptance Deadline: By March 15, 2004
Eligibility
Law Students
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Students
Recent Graduates
About The Program
The NAPALC summer clerkship program is a highly competitive program that
recruits approximately twelve to fourteen law and undergraduate students from an
applicant pool of over 300 applications for the summer clerkship program.
Decisions are often based on the written applications and interviews are not
necessarily given. Unfortunately the position is an unpaid/uncompensated
position. We can, however, assist you in finding funding resources and housing.
Our program is designed to compete with the large law firm summer
associate programs, with respect to program design, quality of supervision and
feedback, and activities. In brief, our program is a unique summer program that
incorporates staff attorneys, law, and undergraduate students. Each program
staff attorney is paired with a law student and an undergraduate student to form
a summer working group. The pairing fosters leadership, management skills, peer
learning, and organizationa l behavior learning. Although both student clerks
interact with the staff attorney on a daily basis, the law student is expected
to help mentor and manage the work of the undergraduate student. This provides
the law student with the invaluable experience of working with individuals with
less experience in law and policy and provides the undergraduate student with
the experience of critical legal reasoning and a foundation in legal and policy
research. In addition to the day-to-day work, each participant in the summer
program is required to produce a minimum of one substantive project that must be
completed by the end of the summer. Clerks are also required to attend a weekly
clerk staff only meeting with the Legal Director to discuss and share the
progress of the work with the rest of the class. This meeting also gives NAPALC
management an opportunity to ensure that the clerks are receiving the best
experience possible and an opportunity to correct if necessary.
In addition to the projects, clerks attend a weekly NAPALC legal
training seminar, where NAPALC staff lecture on various subjects including: how
to brief a case, court rules and procedure, the legislative process, immigration
law, resume and cover letter workshop, and the use of media in advocacy, among
other subjects. Clerks attend weekly brown bag lunches co-sponsored by NAPALC,
MALDEF, and NAACP-LDF and also participate in the APAICS summer intern events.
NAPALC will schedule luncheons with law firm hiring partners for the law
students to discuss career development. Clerks received VIP scheduled tours of
the Supreme Court of the
United States,
the Capitol, and the Library of Congress. Lastly, clerks participates in outings
to movie premiers, kickball/softball leagues, and other entertaining events.
Last year, NAPALC recruited thirteen law and undergraduate students
to participate in its summer clerkship program. Schools that were represented
include: American(3), Catholic(1), Carnegie Me llon(1), Georgetown(1), George
Washington(1), Harvard(3), James Madison(1), University of Maryland(1), and
University of Pennsylvania(1). Clerks had a diverse experienced background
including, a former professional tennis player, a Grammy award nominee, a
Kennedy Center solo cello player, and a former L.A. Times reporter.
Here is a sampling of the projects that our 2003 summer clerk class
completed:
* Prepared and wrote testimony on language access, which was entered into the
Congressional Record and read before members of Congress;
* Researched and prepared vetting packages on presidential executive nominees
for distribution to the national civil rights groups;
* Researched and prepared community educations materials such as a handbook on
English-only laws, a naturalization fact sheet, and voting rights handbook;
* Researched and prepared memoranda on a bill concerning the federal recognition
of Native Hawaiians;
* Researched and prepared memorandums on trademark, insurance, and other legal
matters for NAPALC's management and board of directors;
* Prepared comments for submission to federal agencies on regulations, rules,
and guidances;
* Provided data and analysis of federal and state budgetary shortfalls and their
impact on APA communities;
* Developed a post 9/11 immigrant rights resources kit; and
* Prepared immigration lawyer referral services list.
We are confident that NAPALC has developed one of the most
structured and organized summer clerkship programs in
Washington, DC.
We put a lot of resources into ensuring that the summer clerkship program is a
top-notch program where alumni want to recommend others to participate and where
alumni want to continue their relationship with NAPALC throughout their careers.
How To Apply
Candidates should mail or email a cover letter explaining interest in the
internship program, resume, a concise writing sample (3-5 pages), and a
transcript (unofficial accepted) to:
Vincent A. Eng
Legal Director
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
1140 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 1200
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 296-2318 (Fax)
Phone calls not accepted.
NAPALC is an equal opportunity employer
Ben de Guzman
Community Education Manager
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
1140 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20036
202-296-2300 (voice)
202-296-2318 (fax)
bdeguzman@napalc.org
www.napalc.org
******************
William T. Grant Scholars Program
(http://www.wtgrantfoundation.org/info-url_nocat3042/info-url_nocat_list.htm?attrib_id=4398)
The William
T. Grant Scholars program, formerly called the William T. Grant Faculty Scholars
Program, supports promising post-doctoral scholars from diverse disciplines
whose research deepens and broadens the knowledge base in areas that contribute
to creating a society that values young people and helps them reach their
potential. The program, now in its 24th year, has funded more than 110 Scholars
since its inception.
Priority areas for research are youth development; programs, policies, and
institutions affecting young people; and adults' attitudes about and perceptions
of young people, along with the consequences of those attitudes and perceptions.
The Foundation focuses on young people ages 8-25, and is particularly interested
in research that is interdisciplinary, examines young people in social,
institutional, community, and cultural contexts, and addresses issues that are
relevant to youth-related programs and policies.
Candidates are nominated by a supporting institution and must submit five-year
research plans that demonstrate creativity and intellectual rigor, are grounded
in theory and sound scientific methods, and provide evidence for appropriate
mentoring from senior investigators. Every year, four to six William T. Grant
Scholars are selected and each receives $300,000 distributed over a five-year
period.
Please note that applicants no longer need to be in a tenure-track position or
affiliated with a university to apply for the program. Researchers at all
tax-exempt organizations are now eligible.
******************
Tips
Writing Effective Email Alerts
Email with a clear call to action
July 03, 2001
Author: TechRocks
Source:
TechRocks
Email Alert: An email with one clear call to action, like emailing a
representative.
Email alerts or e-newsletters?
An email alert is not an e-newsletter. Many of us create weekly or monthly
emails that include updates about our program work, news about the issues we
work on, and calls to action – what our constituents can do about it all.
Including an action item in an e-newsletter is a great way to remind your
constituents that they can effect change. However, the e-newsletter format is
not the most effective format for generating political action. When it is
critical that your constituents respond to your action item, send an email
action alert, a separate email with one clear call to action. Many organizations
have experienced much higher response rates for email alerts than calls to
action that are buried in a newsletter.
What goes in an email alert?
* Tell a timely, compelling story. Connect your alert to the recipients’
lives. Let them know how your issue affects their families and their
communities. Make it clear why you
are sending the alert today instead of 3 weeks from now or next year.
* Speak in a conversational tone. Use everyday language. Draft the alert
as if you are sending an e-mail to your brother, your sister or a good friend –
someone whom you know well, but who doesn’t know your issue well, if at all.
* Personalize your message. Start off with a personal greeting. Ideally,
alerts are addressed to individual recipients. If you can’t create personalized
salutations, at least say hello.
* Ask for one clear action. No doubt there are at least six important
things that everyone should do right now to support your cause. Pick one.
* Get to the point right away. Let recipients know what action you are
encouraging them to take – and how to take it – within the first one or two
sentences of the message. State the problem and its solution. A concise overview
of the situation will help readers understand the importance of your alert.
Instead of including loads of details in your message, direct recipients to your
web site where more information is easily available.
* Urgency. Let recipients know the issue is time sensitive. Taking the
action, right now, will move things faster.
* Empower the recipients. Give readers a sense that their actions will
actually make a difference.
* Encourage recipients to forward the alert widely. With your
encouragement, your alert can reach people well beyond your network of
colleagues and organizational members.
* Structure the text to be easily read. Include spaces between
paragraphs. Keep paragraphs to 1-3 short sentences. Short line breaks are
important so that email programs don’t wrap your text into an unreadable mess.
* Keep it brief. Edit your text. Then edit it again.
* Include the basics.
1. Explain who you are and how readers can contact you.
2. Include your organization's web site address.
3. Clearly mark the message’s beginning and end.
4. Include the date.
5. Include http:// when listing URLS, that way they will appear as hyperlinks,
not
just text.
*Follow up. Thank activists. Promptly thank the people that respond to
your alert. Update activists. Let your mailing list know what happened in the
weeks following the alert.
(http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articlepage.cfm?ArticleId=307&topicid=5)
******************
News
October 2003
Report to Congress
on proposed refugee admissions
Every year
millions of people around the world are displaced by war, famine, and civil and
political unrest. Others are forced to flee their countries in order to escape
the risk of death and torture at the hands of persecutors. The United States
(U.S.) works with other governmental, international, and private organizations
to provide food, health care, and shelter to millions of refugees throughout the
world. In addition, the United States considers persons for resettlement to the
U.S. as refugees. Those admitted must be of special humanitarian concern and
demonstrate that they were persecuted, or have a well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or
membership in a particular social group.
Each year, the State Department prepares a
Report to Congress on proposed refugee admissions, then the
U.S. President consults with Congress and
establishes the proposed ceilings for refugee admissions for the fiscal
year. For the 2004 fiscal year (i.e. October 1, 2003 - September 30, 2004), the
total ceiling is set at 70,000 admissions and is allocated to six geographic
regions: Africa (25,000 admissions), East Asia (6,500 admissions), Europe and
Central Asia (13,000 admissions), Latin America/Caribbean (3,500 admissions),
Near East/South Asia (2,000 admissions) and 20,000 reserve.
(http://www.state.gov/g/prm/asst/rl/rpts/25691.htm)
******************
December 5, 2003
English Proficiency Impacts Cancer Screening for APAs
By May Chow
Despite the fact that cancer is the second leading cause of death
in California and the United States, second only to heart disease, Asian Pacific
Americans consistently trail other racial and ethnic groups in cancer screening,
especially for cervical and breast cancer, according to a new study by the UCLA
Center for Health Policy Research.
What was most important from this study, researchers say, was that
racial and ethnic disparities exist in cancer screening rates and within the APA
population, ethnic subgroups differ substantially in their rate of cancer
screenings at recommended intervals, with APAs, who have limited English
proficiency, having the lowest cancer screening rates among APAs statewide.
Ninez Ponce, one of the authors of the study and an assistant
professor at the UCLA School of Public Health said an earlier study that
suggested APAs had one of the lowest cancer screening rates prompted the center
to release this new fact sheet.
“We suggested that education of individuals and their doctors is
key and this should be tailored by that individual’s language and culture,”
Ponce
said. “But, because Asians consist of many different groups such as Filipinos,
Koreans and Cambodians, we thought that aggregated statistics were not enough.”
Ponce
added that it was pertinent to present cancer screening rates for each group to
the APA community and health care providers.
Researchers gathered information from the California Health
Interview Survey, a telephone survey of over 55,000 households in
California
conducted in 2001. More than 6,000 APAs were interviewed in Mandarin, Cantonese,
Vietnamese, Korean, Khmer, Spanish and English.
To my knowledge, the largest sample on Asians ever done in the
United
States,” Ponce said.
The study shows considerable variations within the various APA
ethnic groups on the frequency of cancer screening tests. All APA ethnic
subgroups, except Filipino women, fall significantly below the overall cervical
cancer screening rate for
California
(86.2 percent), while Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, South Asian and
Cambodian women have lower rates of Pap smears, a test for cervical cancers, in
the past three years than
California’s
average. Researchers say this is a disturbing statistic since a National
Institutes of Health report showed Vietnamese American women are five times more
likely than white women to have cervical cancer.
Language ability seemed to play a part in those who received
routine Pap tests. Among Chinese American women, the proportion reporting a Pap
test is lower for limited English-proficient women (56.7 percent) than that for
English-proficient women (75.5 percent).
“We thought that rates for Asians may be lower because many may
have difficulty navigating a health care system or communicating with their
doctors because of language barriers,”
Ponce said. “We
found that language barriers are associated with lower rates of receipt of a
mammogram and Pap tests for most groups, but not for colorectal cancer
screening. Surprisingly, Vietnamese American women who reported that they speak
English poorly or not at all had higher rates of Pap tests than Vietnamese
American women who speak English well or very well. This may indicate that some
culturally tailored strategies to expand cervical screening among Vietnamese
Americans — a group that has one of the nation’s highest rates of cervical
cancer — has worked well in
California.”
With routine mammograms, Cambodian American and Korean American
women have had rates far below the state average continuously for the past two
years compared to all women over the age of 40 in
California. But
the study also cited that language acted as a barrier to preventive care
services. While 63.8 percent of English-proficient Korean American women
received mammograms within the past two years, only 45.4 percent with limited
English proficiency reported having a mammogram.
Among the Japanese Americans and South Asian Americans, screening
rates for colorectal cancer are comparable to the overall rate for the state,
but less than 40 percent of Cambodian American and Korean American adults over
the age of 50 reported having be screened for colorectal cancer.
“Tests for colorectal cancer screening are very low overall for
California
(53.2 percent), but even lower for Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and
Cambodian men and women,”
Ponce
said.
Ponce
said the disparities in screening rates stress the need for public policy and
culturally sensitive outreach to help high-risk population groups receive
preventive care and education.
“The report is for community advocates, health providers,
legislators, program planners and funders to direct their attention on the low
rates of cancer screening among specific Asian groups,”
Ponce said.
“These three tests — Pap tests, mammograms and colorectal cancer tests — should
be done routinely even if one does not have any symptoms or even if their doctor
does not recommend it. These tests could save lives.”
She added that doctors who see APA patients need to be educated and
be culturally sensitive, and patients need to learn to be more proactive with
their doctors.
A common reason among APAs who haven’t received a recent test is
that the doctor never informed them about the routine exams.
“We tried to get at the cultural question by examining cancer
screening rates by how well the person speaks English,”
Ponce said. “The
language effect was less for mammograms, and not significant for colorectal test
rates. It certainly is an access issue; for colorectal tests since getting a
sigmoidoscopy/colonoscopy (a colorectal test) usually requires insurance. In
California, there are programs that provide free Pap tests and mammograms, so
financial access to these tests is not such an issue as it is for colorectal
tests. This is surely a big reason why the rates for breast and cervical cancer
tests are higher than the rates for colorectal tests.”
Reach May Chow at
mchow@asianweek.com.
(http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=5080c7a362c59125f3f2c3cc4f7e5589&this_category_id=170)
******************
December 8, 2003
Bomb
Lady: Vietnamese American Makes Tools for War on Terror
By Andrew Lam,
Pacific News Service
Editor's Note: A
former Vietnamese boat person is now a top explosives scientist for the military
and the developer of the controversial "thermobaric" bomb.
She's afraid of blood. Otherwise she would have been a doctor. But she almost
passed out in high school zoology when forced to dissect, she says, "some small
animal." To preserve her perfect GPA, she dropped the course.
She was good in math and chemistry, and got a degree in chemical engineering
from the
University
of Maryland and another degree in computer science just for kicks. After that
she asked herself: "What should I be doing with my life?" The answer was
unexpected: Nguyet-Anh Duong, now mother of four and a former Vietnamese boat
person, became arguably the best bomb maker in the world.
When the Vietnam War ended and communist tanks rolled into Saigon, Duong, then
15, and her family escaped to sea on a crowded boat. Amid the churning waves,
they had to jump from their small boat onto a ship that would take them to a
refugee camp in the
Philippines.
Duong replays the moment in her mind -- a misstep meant being crushed between
the two vessels. "It's a miracle that I'm here at all," she says.
She's here, and thriving. Duong now supervises one of the world's best teams of
explosives scientists, more than half of whom are women, at the U.S. Naval
Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Md. Thirteen of 15 explosive weapons
commonly used by the
U.S.
military are developed at Indian Head.
The bomb that Duong is most proud of is BLU118/B, termed the "thermobaric" bomb
by the Pentagon. It was specifically built to destroy Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
hideouts in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Her team had two months to
make it. About a hundred scientists and engineers were involved.
It's a terrifying device. The thermobaric bomb crushes caves with a super-hot
blast that can destroy internal organs as far as a quarter-mile away. Its
explosion is designed to tunnel through convoluted caves and pulverize anyone
hiding as deep as 1,100 feet inside, and then incinerate whatever remains.
Human rights activists have called the bomb "thermo-barbaric." Greenpeace called
for its ban, likening it to nuclear weapons without the radiation. One Russian
scientist said the bombs cause small earthquakes, a claim
U.S.
geologists dismissed as ridiculous.
Duong is undeterred by the criticism. "We've gotten more sophisticated compared
to the old days of dumb weapons," she says. "Now you can deliver it exactly
where you want it to go. Our strong wish is to avoid as much collateral damage
as possible."
But all bombs are designed to kill. How does Duong reconcile her job with the
consequences of her creation?
"I'm not on the operation side," she says quickly, not missing a beat. "We don't
deal with human fatality. That's another field."
She pauses. "Look, the way I see it is simple. There are a lot of bad guys in
the world. The best defense is offense. If you're not strong you're going to
die."
Perhaps it's a lesson from her past. Duong grew up in South Vietnam, a country
that, near the end of the Vietnam War, was abandoned by the United States, while
Soviet fighter jets and Chinese-made weapons continued to flow unimpeded to the
communist North. After holding on for two years, the government in Saigon
surrendered on
April 30, 1975, and over 2 million Vietnamese subsequently
fled overseas.
"If you are weak you will lose, it's a simple fact," Duong says.
Duong says she wishes that the
United States
never had to go to war. "But if war is inevitable," she says, "if we're going to
send troops, we want to make sure that a lot of them will come back. And we
better equip them with the best weapons."
A strong patriotism informs Duong's work. Making explosives "is something to
give back to the country that gave me so much. My family and I, we feel strongly
that we were given a second chance coming to the United States."
A recent multilingual poll by the New California Media, a consortium of ethnic
and in-language press, found that up to 85 percent of Vietnamese Americans
backed the
U.S.
war in Iraq.
Asked what she would have done had she not gone into the sciences, Duong says,
"I always wanted to be a writer. Every now and then, when the seasons change, I
look out my office window and have to resist the impulse to grab pen and paper
to write some poetry."
But for now, Duong is working on other weapons projects. For security reasons
she can't discuss them in detail, but she does mention one, a sort of
"dial-a-yield" bomb. "It's the next stage of guided weapons. Say there are
terrorists taking over a hospital and they are on the fourth floor, and there
are patients of the 15th floor. Ideally, the explosive device would be regulated
to explode in a way that would destroy that floor, and not the entire building."
Andrew Lam is a PNS editor and writer. He also writes short stories.
(http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7b82c31eb1a725262fb0af787a6ceaaf)
******************
December 10,
2003
Mood Brightens for Nonprofits
An improving
economy has brightened the mood of nonprofit fundraisers after more than a year
of bad news, according to a new report.
The
Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University reported in its
Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI) that fundraisers gave the overall giving
climate a score of 83.3 on a scale of 1-100, up 15.2 percent from the summer
2003 survey. The PGI score equals that found immediately after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, but still lags behind pre-2001 scores.
Scores for both the current giving climate and future giving climate also
improved by double digits.
When asked about the economy's impact on giving, 57 percent of respondents said
it was having a negative impact, down from 85 percent in the summer. "Over time,
we have seen that the economy has greatly affected fundraisers' views of the
charitable-giving climate in the U.S.," said Gene Tempel, the center's executive
director. "This new report gives nonprofits hope during the holidays that
Americans will be more generous in supporting their programs and services."
(http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/
(http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/announce.htm#PhilGivIndex)
******************
December 10,
2003
Feds Launch Grants.gov
The Bush
administration this week unveiled
Grants.gov, billed as a "one-stop shopping" resource for getting information
and applying for all federal grants.
The initiative is part of Bush's Electronic Government initiative. "For the
first time, there will be a single, government-wide source for information about
grant programs across the federal government," said Tommy Thompson, secretary of
the Department of Health and Human Services. "By putting relevant information in
one place, we're helping to level the playing field for organizations less
familiar with federal grant programs so that they too can identify and apply for
appropriate grants."
The site will have information on more than 800 grant programs from 26 federal
agencies, representing total annual awards of more than $360 billion. About half
of all federal grants are awarded by HHS. Site visitors will be able to search
for, download, complete, and submit federal grant applications.
(www.grants.gov)
******************
December 11,
2003
In
riskier world,
U.S. recommits to
aiding refugees
BARRY
NEWMAN, The Wall Street Journal
Fifteen of
Feruza Mamedova's relatives have just received an invitation to America from
President Bush.
Ms. Mamedova,
who lives in New Jersey, belongs to a small ethnic group known as Meskhetian
Turks. The Meskhetians are two-time exiles: Deported by Stalin from their Black
Sea homeland, then expelled from Central Asia, many now live without citizenship
in southern Russia, where Cossack vigilantes regularly beat them.
In 1992, Ms.
Mamedova was able to leave. She married a Meskhetian whose father had managed to
slip out of the Soviet Union. The three of them, she believes, are the only
Meskhetians to make it here. But in late October, President Bush announced that
the U.S. would be glad to welcome 5,000 more -- as refugees.
"Do
Meshketians have to wait for another pogrom?" Ms. Mamedova asks, sitting in the
kitchen of her new suburban home. "If there is an opportunity to save them now,
bring them in and let them be happy. Wouldn't that be nice?"
The White
House thinks so. As it combs the earth for foreigners who menace America, the
administration is also setting out on a search for nonmenacing ones: people who
can let the U.S. reopen its humanitarian gateway without letting down its guard.
The world's
uprooted now total an epochal 35 million: refugees trapped where they aren't
wanted, both outside and inside their own countries. But U.S. refugee admissions
have been shrinking since the end of the Cold War. In 1992, 142,000 came here.
By 2001, the tally had faded to 68,000. And after the attacks of Sept. 11, the
sanctuary nearly closed. Admissions collapsed, to 27,000, in 2002; in the fiscal
year just ended, they bumped up to just 28,000.
When he came
into office, Mr. Bush was intending to reverse the decline. His backers, in
particular those who craved a larger presence for religious groups in public
affairs, described it as a moral obligation. Now Mr. Bush has reiterated his
original promise. "The administration acknowledges that the program is at a
crossroads," the White House said in an October report to Congress. "We will do
everything we can to sustain our rich tradition of offering refuge to those who
need it most."
But saving
the desperate has become a lot tougher over the past decade. Refugees have
scattered among dozens of failed states instead of a few fairly stable ones. The
terror scare has forced them through a finer security screen and sometimes
scared away the American screeners who interview them in camps overseas. For
those and other reasons, a strong faction inside the State Department has been
arguing that the U.S. should let admissions remain at low ebb.
In its
public statements, the administration isn't flinching. "The plan still holds,"
says Arthur Dewey, the State Department assistant secretary and Bush appointee
who oversees the refugee bureau. "There are refugees out there. They're just
more difficult to get to. They require a lot more work."
So Mr.
Dewey's office is setting its sights on groups it can certify as the least
sinister among the world's least wanted. The administration has assured Congress
that new arrivals won't "pose a threat to the people of this country." Mr. Dewey
hopes this year's intake will reach at least 50,000.
There is no
shortage of refugees caught in camps for long periods, sometimes for decades:
540,000 Burundians in Tanzania; 100,000 Bhutanese in Nepal; 130,000 Burmese in
Thailand. But the groups currently favored for admission to the U.S. fall mostly
into familiar pools: ex-Soviet Jews and Evangelical Christians, Cubans,
Vietnamese and some Iranians caught in Vienna.
The
Meskhetian Turks can claim a place on a new "nonmenacing" list for three
reasons: They have no link to terror; they are close enough to civilization for
Americans to meet them in safety; and they have been living in misery for 60
years.
They come
from a region of Georgia near the Turkish frontier. No one knows exactly why,
but in November of 1944, Stalin had 110,000 Meskhetians put into cattle cars and
sent to Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Feruza Mamedova has recorded some of her
mother's memories of that trip and set them down in English:
"It was a
long journey -- about 20 days," her mother recalled. "On every train stop
soldiers were throwing hundreds of dead bodies onto the snow. When we finally
arrived in Uzbekistan, my little sister died from starvation, then my
grandmother died; right after, my 20-year-old aunt died from the cold ... ."
Never
allowed to go home, the Meskhetians lived as outsiders in Uzbekistan. Ms.
Mamedova, now 33 years old, was born in the city of Ferghana. In 1989, as Uzbek
nationalism bloomed, a fight between Uzbeks and Meskhetians set off a murderous
riot. Uzbeks went gunning for Meskhetians. The Soviet army evacuated 70,000 of
them. About 18,000, Ms. Mamedova's family included, ended up in Krasnodar, a
Russian province north of their native Georgia.
From the
first moment, Ms. Mamedova knew that "the local people didn't like us." But
since she left Krasnodar in 1992, the province has been consumed by Russian
nationalism. The local government refuses to give Meskhetians residency permits.
Without permits, they can't buy houses or cars, obtain medical care, enter
college or work. Their marriages, births and deaths go unrecorded. Trying to
survive as subsistence farmers, they are harassed by gangs of Cossacks with deep
roots in Czarist xenophobia who are pledged to seeing them deported.
At the end
of December, their old Soviet passports will expire. After that, the Meskhetians
will be undocumented aliens in their own country -- and technically stateless.
But does
that qualify them for a flight to New Jersey?
Not
necessarily. The attacks of Sept. 11, refugee workers say, have brought to a
head a decades-long debate within the State Department over the wisdom of
resettling large numbers of refugees in America at all.
The question
is this: Should the U.S. take in as many as it can? Or should it help feed and
clothe many more in camps, or in the countries where they have tried to find
refuge, until a day comes when they can return to their own homes? Caring for
them costs less, but their lives remain in limbo; bringing them here costs more,
but their trials will end.
For the
U.S., the answer has never been pat. Before World War II, it welcomed hardly any
refugees. Afterward, some were taken in mainly to stabilize Europe. Those
accepted during the Cold War served to display communism's failings. The U.S.
did set up a refugee bureaucracy and learn to move big, orderly groups of Soviet
Jews and Vietnamese, but once the Cold War ended, many of them began to look
like plain immigrants.
The easy
gets were gone, and the world was turning upside down: Failed states from Bosnia
to East Timor generated millions of new refugees. None had propaganda value. And
instead of being caught in two relatively peaceful places -- Vietnam and the
Soviet Union -- they were caught in 60 hazardous ones.
During the
Clinton administration, the U.S. decided to focus on resettling only those it
deemed to be in deepest trouble and in need of "rescue," while helping larger
numbers in camps abroad. The Bush administration contests that view. It wants to
broaden the definition of "rescue."
"A rescue
situation doesn't only mean a guy's got a gun to your head," says one State
Department official. "It means kids growing up with no schooling. Those kids
could be in the United States. Those kids could be going to medical school."
Kelly Ryan,
a conservative Republican who took office in February as deputy assistant
secretary for admissions, has been charged with building up the numbers brought
into the U.S. Though the State Department declined to make her available for
interviews, a refugee worker who knows her says Ms. Ryan favors resettlement as
"an expression of American values."
In practice,
however, security remains America's priority, and that gives a powerful lever to
long-serving civil servants responsible for making resettlement work. At least
some of them, it's said, still doubt its usefulness.
Like other
foreigners coming to the U.S., refugees are subject to strict new background
checks imposed by the Department of Homeland Security. While the checks haven't
unmasked any terrorists, they have exposed large-scale fraud in the refugee
pipeline. Thousands who falsely claimed American family ties to help them get in
have been rejected. For those in the government who think the system is lax, aid
workers contend, this has been a handy justification for cutting admissions.
"For people
who view this program as compromised, it's an opportunity to make changes," says
Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute, an independent think tank.
In fact, a new rule has narrowed the family category to immediate relatives.
Security,
moreover, has come not only to mean defending the homeland but defending the
homeland-security officers sent to vet refugees in risky places. Unless it's
safe, they won't go -- and that means many genuine refugees will have to stay
put.
Well before
the 2001 attacks, the U.S. offered to resettle 12,000 Bantu tribespeople. Once
enslaved in Somalia, they had fled civil war to a camp in Kenya. Sending
American interviewers to the camp was judged to be so hazardous that in 2002 the
U.S. spent $5 million to bus all 12,000 Bantu across Kenya to another camp. Last
June, the State Department reported, U.S. interviewers had to be "evacuated in
the midst of gunfire" from the second camp.
For another
$500,000, the U.S. has now built fences and guard towers around its camp
compound. All 12,000 Bantu, it hopes, will at last make it to the U.S. before
the end of 2004.
"It tells
you what a complicated business it is to select people and bring them in," a
government consultant says. The extra security has doubled the cost of admitting
one refugee -- to $4,800 -- in a system that spends about $750 million all told.
"Which groups do you take?" Ms. Newland says. "How do you decide?"
Adding new
names to this list, specialists agree, requires more than assurances of
security. A mass move to America shouldn't provoke a rush of fakers hoping to
join the crowd; it shouldn't reward the inhumanity that made people flee in the
first place; and it shouldn't come until every local exit proves a dead end.
Only two new
groups have made that cut for 2004 -- a sign that the Bush administration's
internal debate is far from over. The Bhutanese in Nepal are one, the Meskhetian
Turks the other. As Cossacks hound them toward statelessness, the Meskhetians
seem to satisfy all views on the uses of resettlement: They are both
long-sufferers and urgently in need of rescue.
From the
safety of her living room in Wayne, N.J., Feruza Mamedova put through a phone
call to her uncle Asnar in Krasnodar. "If you had a chance to come to America,
would you take it?" she shouted down the line.
Asnar
Mamedov shouted back: "Of course!" He is 43, jobless, and tries to live by
selling fruit and vegetables in the market.
"How are
things now?" his niece asked.
"They're
strangling us," said Mr. Mamedov. "They take our produce and throw it on the
ground. They take people to jail just for selling. The way it was is the way it
is. It never stops. I would be happy to go to America!"
There is,
however, one loose end: Russia, a friendly country with democratic ambitions,
has not yet signed on to the deal. Alexander Verkovsky, who tracks
ultranationalists for Panorama, a Moscow think tank, says, "It is a scandal.
Nobody in the Kremlin will agree with such a decision."
Mr.
Verkovsky wants Russia to grant the Meskhetians citizenship and move them to
safer surrounds. America's offer -- limited to only 5,000, under a third of the
total -- may, in fact, turn out to be a form of diplomatic arm twisting. As one
U.S. official says, "One thing Russia still responds to is shame."
Alexander
Osipov of the Russian human-rights organization Memorial gives his government
less credit. "They've talked for years about taking any opportunity to let these
people go," he says. "Now it's working. We cannot object. This is the real life
of real people. It's their one chance to save themselves."
The Kremlin
has made no public comment on the U.S. offer. In a document summarizing its
still-unsettled refugee resettlement campaign, the State Department devotes
three words to the prospects of a Meskhetian move to New Jersey: "Sensitive
negotiations underway."
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/12/11/financial1003EST0050.DTL)
******************
December 12, 2003
U.S. Planning Anti-Bullying
Campaign
The federal
government is launching a $3.4-million campaign aimed at curbing school
bullying, the
Associated Press reported Dec. 9.
You can't learn at high levels when you're being humiliated and thinking of how
you're going to get your butt kicked in the boy's bathroom," said Bill Bond, a
national safety consultant for school principals. "The solution is, everyone
involved has to have the courage to say, 'This isn't right.' The biggest group
that can stop it is the peers, if they just have the courage to say, 'Hey, leave
him alone, that's not cool.' But you can't ask someone to tell a bully to leave
someone alone unless the principal has shown the courage to take action, too."
The campaign, which will structure bullying as a public-health concern, is
expected to enlist support from more than 70 education, law-enforcement, civic,
and religious groups. In addition, the campaign will feature a website, animated
Web episodes, and commercials.
The goal of the campaign, organizers said, is to create a culture where bullying
is not considered cool. It would also make parents aware of warning signs, train
teachers to intervene in bullying situations, and teach children how to stand up
and support each other against bullies.
"Bullying has been around forever, and I think the attitude among many adults
is, 'Well, we survived it, and we're probably more resilient people for dealing
with it," said Sue Limber, a Clemson University researcher who has helped the
government campaign. "But if you look at research and listen to kids, there are
good reasons to deal with this."
The anti-bullying campaign is set to begin next year.
(http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/12/09/bullying.ap/index.html)
******************
December 14, 2003
The World in
Houston
New life for Little Saigon
By EDWARD
HEGSTROM
Copyright 2003
Houston
Chronicle
The sign on the door of Tropioca, the Midtown hot spot for
Asian-inspired tapioca drinks, advertised extended hours during finals last
week. Inside, Asian college students sipped on their multicolored beverages at
tables strewn with notes and textbooks.
At a table of three
University of
Houston pharmacy students, Hong Pham had a one-word description for the place:
"Awesome."
The idea to visit Tropioca came from a meeting earlier in the week,
where City Councilman Gordon Quan called together community leaders to consider
ways to save the area of Midtown known as "Little Saigon." Vietnamese shop
owners occupied the area when it was little more than an urban wasteland 20
years ago, and many are leaving now that the region has been slated for
gentrification.
Quan wanted to see if there was any way of preventing this ethnic
enclave from disappearing.
Some Midtown promoters offered the typical boosterism, and some
shop owners offered the usual -- though certainly legitimate -- complaints.
There are not enough lights, they say. Transients are a problem, as are trash
and crime. The trees need trimming.
There was talk about ways to give Little Saigon a signature image.
Some spoke of a gate, like the one marking the entrance of
San Francisco's
Chinatown. Others wanted to know if it would be possible to plant palm trees.
There was an idea floated for an annual festival that would celebrate the
region's Asian identity.
"If you promote it, people will come," said Mark Dang, with Minh
Tri Fine Jewelers.
Everyone spoke of their desire to keep the Vietnamese presence. One
representative noted that the first plans for Midtown redevelopment in the early
1990s included drawings of an area of shops and residences designed to look like
Saigon.
"I don't believe there's been any attempt to exclude anyone," said
Quan.
But the Vietnamese did invest great effort to bring Midtown back to
life. Ironically, many were renters who found it difficult to stay once the
improvements in the area led to higher rents.
"It did not happen overnight that Midtown became what it is today,"
said Nicole P. Cao, a longtime business owner in the area. She noted that most
longtime Little Saigon shopkeepers can tell horror stories of being robbed.
There was not much talk of demographics, perhaps because people
recognize that there is not much they can do about that. Asians in
Houston have made
a remarkable migration to the southwest part of the city and the suburbs.
Businesses have naturally followed the customer base, creating a thriving new
Asian district on
Bellaire Boulevard.
A store specializing in Vietnamese videos can hardly survive in
Midtown anymore, because the vast majority of Vietnamese speakers now live 10 or
20 miles from the city center.
Urban Asian neighborhoods in places like
San Francisco and
New York continue to thrive because Asians continue to live there. Can Houston's
Little Saigon maintain an authentic feel after losing its Asian population base?
Put another way: What's a Vietnamese restaurant without throngs of
Vietnamese customers?
Then again, maybe authentic is just another way of saying
old-fashioned. Some of those who showed up to meet with Quan were young,
second-generation Asian business owners who are defining a new urban market --
places like Jenni's Noodle House (which is in nearby old
Chinatown) and
Tropioca (in the heart of Little Saigon on Milam). It seemed worthy of a bit
more investigation.
The tables at Tropioca were remarkably crowded for midafternoon on
a weekday. The clients were almost all Asian, many from UH.
Pham and An Bui, both Vietnamese-Americans, described how they have
learned to use both Midtown and Bellaire for different purposes. They offered a
list of things to like better about Bellaire, including the better varieties of
Asian restaurants and the quality of produce at the markets.
"The food is fresher," said Bui.
"The restrooms are cleaner," added Pham.
But then they admitted there was something missing on Bellaire.
"There's nothing on Bellaire that appeals to young people," said
Bui. "That's why I like it here."
E-mail Edward Hegstrom at
edward.hegstrom@chron.com.
(http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/2296027)
******************
About NCVA
Founded in 1986,
the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community
advocacy organization working to advance the cause of Vietnamese Americans in a
plural but united America – e pluribus unum – by participating actively
and fully as civic minded citizens engaged in the areas of education, culture
and civil liberties.
Visit us at
www.ncvaonline.org.
