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News from Leadership for a Changing World A program of the Ford Foundation in partnership with the Advocacy Institute and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University For more information about the awardees or program, contact Deborah Walter at dlwaltr@aol.com or (908) 522-1677 March 2004 Newsletter During the past six months, LCW winners have furthered the understanding of community leadership and achieved an extraordinary degree of recognition -- from media coverage to the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Lateefah Simon Wins MacArthur Fellowship
In October, Lateefah Simon, executive director of the Center for Young Women's Development (CYWD), was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. The award is given to individuals who have shown extraordinary levels of originality, self-direction, insight, creativity and dedication in their work. Recipients come from a diverse range of fields, such as science, art, education, and activism. Each year, the MacArthur Foundation provides these fellowships to about 20 or 30 people from all over the United States. The five-year fellowship allows recipients to use the foundation's substantial financial support to pursue the professional or creative direction of their desire. Simon plans to use the award to achieve her longtime dream of attending college. Simon (lateefah@cywd.org) has been the executive director of the Center for Young Women's Development for the past seven years - since she was 19 years old. CYWD (www.cywd.org) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that provides gender specific, peer-based opportunities for low and no-income young women to build healthier lives and communities.  John Logue Honored by Ohio House of Representatives
On March 10, the Ohio House of Representatives presented a Resolution to John Logue, honoring him for winning a Leadership for a Changing World award. Logue, a professor of political science at Kent State University, directs Ohio Employee Ownership Center (www.kent.edu/oeoc), where he and his small staff work to increase the number of employee-owned and run companies, and to help the employees of such companies build personal assets. In a recent essay, Logue challenged presidential candidates to encourage employee representation on corporate boards. "Experience shows worker representation works well," he wrote. "Among Ohio employee-owned companies, about one in six have worker directors on their boards. Our Ohio study (The Real World of Employee Ownership, Cornell University Press, 2001) shows that employee-owned companies with worker-directors on the whole outperformed those without." Logue can be reached by email at jlogue@kent.edu. For a recent "Leadership Talks" interview with John Logue, see: leadershipforchange.org/talks/archive.php3?ForumID=19  Project HOME Honored for Work on Root Causes of Homelessness
In March, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) presented its Solutions Through Alternative Remedies (STAR) Award to Project HOME (www.projecthome.org) and a select group of programs and communities throughout the country that are working to address the root causes of homelessness. Many cities have enacted laws or introduced policies designed to criminalize activities associated with homelessness, such as sleeping, loitering, or eating in public. A 2002 study by the NLCHP found that all 57 of the largest United States cities had at least one such statute in place. The STAR Award honors communities that have turned away from criminalizing homelessness and instead sought out productive ways to help people move beyond that condition.  Janet Fout Wins Mother Jones Award
Congratulations to LCW awardee Janet Fout, co-director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) (www.ohvec.org). Fout received the Mother Jones Award from the West Virginia Environmental Council (WVEC) on Tuesday, February 17. WVEC is an umbrella organization for all environmental groups in West Virginia and has presented this award annually since 1989. The Mother Jones Award is WVEC’s highest honor, given to individuals who "fight like hell for the living." Mary Harris Jones (aka Mother Jones) helped organize miners in West Virginia in the early 1920s. Janet Fout (ohvec@ohvec.org), Dianne Bady, and the late Laura Forman have worked together at the OVEC for over a decade. OVEC was founded in 1987 in order to fight industrial pollution, but in recent years has focused on saving mountains from being destroyed by the mining practice of mountaintop removal.  RAIN Recognized Internationally by Search for Common Ground
The Charlotte-based Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) has been recognized for its pioneering work by the Washington-based Search for Common Ground, a non-governmental organization and international leader in conflict resolution. On March 18, RAIN (www.carolinarain.org/) and five other groups and individuals were recognized for their peace initiatives. All will receive Common Ground Awards in the seventh annual presentation of the prizes. Other recipients this year included Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee of India and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, for renewed peace negotiations between their countries. Other recent winners of Common Ground Awards include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, journalist Ted Koppel, and the Daniel Pearl Foundation. RAIN, an LCW recipient, provides practical, emotional and spiritual support to people with HIV or AIDS and their families, through a network of 1,000 volunteers and more than 80 congregations representing 20 denominations and faith traditions. To contact RAIN by email: d.warren@carolinarain.org  PODER Expands Exploration of Collaborative Leadership
LCW recipients Susana Almanza and Sylvia Herrera, leaders of People Organized in the Defense of the Earth and her Resources (PODER) (www.poder-texas.org), were honored in February by Pathways to Collaboration as a partner in the Pathways to Collaboration Workgroup (www.pathwaystocollaboration.net). The Workgroup is being organized by the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine, and is funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Over the next three years, working together and with a technical support team, the members of this partnership will explore their collaborative processes. In addition, Almanza and Herrera (poder_tx@sbcglobal.net) were two of seven women recognized as "Heroinas del Pueblo" at a two-day event in October sponsored by the University of Texas center for Mexican American Studies and the College of Liberal Arts. The two LCW awardees were featured in the September/October 2003 issue of Sierra Magazine.  "The West Wing" and "60 Minutes" Highlight FAMM
Two of America's most popular television news and drama programs, "60 Minutes" and "The West Wing," highlighed mandatory sentencing laws and Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) in January. LCW awardee FAMM (www.famm.org) reports working closely with producers from both shows, providing facts and lining up interviews with FAMM spokespersons. On January 14, NBC's "The West Wing" showed President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) deciding whether to veto a popular piece of legislation because it contains an amendment limiting judicial discretion in sentencing. The episode included a scene in which President Bartlet talks to the president of FAMM —portrayed on the show as a man, though Julie Stewart is the real FAMM president. Nonetheless, Stewart and the FAMM staff were thrilled with the show. On January 4, CBS' "60 Minutes" aired "More Than They Deserve," Ed Bradley’s investigation of recent attacks on judicial discretion and the effects of mandatory sentencing. FAMM member Brenda Valencia, who served a 10-year federal mandatory minimum sentence, and Eric Sterling, FAMM board member, were interviewed for the segment. Julie Stewart can be reached at julie@famm.org LCW Partner Advocacy Institute Wins Workplace Award Washingtonian magazine has named the Advocacy Institute (www.advocacy.org) one of the "50 Great Places to Work" in the Washington D.C. region. The publication described the LCW partner as a nonprofit that "organizes leadership-development programs for community-based social-justice activists." As Washingtonian pointed out, among the 24-person staff are veterans in the fights for improved race relations, reproductive rights, anti-tobacco causes, and human rights: "They now teach others how to use the media, strategize, and advocate for a cause." AI also practices the kind of leadership it encourages in others. In the magazine, Laura M. Chambers (lchambers@advocacy.org), AI’s senior director, was quoted as saying, "We’re a group that’s been resisting a chain of command. We hate the word ‘boss.’ We use the word ‘colleague.’" Other News  PURE Parents Register Voters and Practice Practical Politics
"PURE is up to its ears in democracy!" says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Chicago-based Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE). Woestehoff and her fellow PURE directors -- advocates Wanda Hopkins, Johnny O. Holmes and Ismael Vargas -- is an LCW recipient. "During March we are working to turn out the vote for the April 2004 local school council (LSC) elections," adds Woestehoff. LSCs are the parent-majority governing bodies that make budget, strategic planning, and principal selection decisions at each Chicago public school. PURE (www.pureparents.org) is also settings its sights on registering 1,000-2,000 new voters for the November general election. "One notable aspect of Chicago’s LSC election is that non-citizens are allowed to run as candidates and vote," says Woestchoff (julie@pureparents.org). "Since we can’t register non-citizen LSC candidates for the general election, we will recruit them to register others."  KaYing Yang Now Working to Resettle 15,000 Hmong Refugees
LCW awardee KaYing Yang, who has served as the Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), reports is serving as a language and cultural advocate for the U.S. resettlement program for a group of 15,000 Hmong refugees. These refugees live as undocumented immigrants in Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist temple north of Bangkok. Yang notes that the refugees have been living there for more than 10 years. SEARAC, under her leadership, had joined other organizations in urging the U.S. government to offer resettlement for this group, and eventually to hire former refugees to support the resettlement process. Yang (kayingyang2003@yahoo.com) will head the Cultural Orientation Program for the International Organization for Migration, contracted by the U.S. government to coordinate the medical screening and movement of refugees to the United States.  Silver Valley Community Resource Center Hosts Forum to Create Broader Stewardship Alliance
On January 16 and 17, the Inland Northwest Environmental, Economic Development (INEED) Forum was hosted by LCW recipient Silver Valley Community Resource Center (SVCRC) in Kellogg, Idaho. SVCRC director Barbara Miller (paccrcco@imbris.com) described the forum as a collaboration of environmental, labor, health, community and government representatives, as well as tribal nation groups and other concerned individuals. The mission of the forum was to discuss critical issues affecting the environment and labor, and to unite a broad "stewardship" alliance. LCW Recipients Speak Out in Nation’s Newspaper Commentary Pages Move over George Will and Thomas Friedman; LCW awardees are writing more these days for major newspapers. Some recent examples: John Logue’s op-ed, "America’s Corporate Boardrooms Need More Workers" appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal on March 18. To read it, go to www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/editorial/8215045.htm. On February 24, 2004, Diana Spatz’s piece, "Bush Welfare Agenda — Married to a Myth," was published by The Christian Science Monitor: www.csmonitor.com/2004/0224/p09s02-coop.html . Gerry Roll’s most recent commentary, "Good Leaders Aren't Scarce, They're Scared - of Scrutiny," also appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, on Dec. 1. To reader her analysis of an important issue for community leaders, go to www.csmonitor.com/2003/1201/p09s01-coop.html . Copyright © 2004 Advocacy Institute |