|
October 19, 2001
"Leadership Talk with MOSES Transportation Task Force of Detroit"
An interview with Victoria Kovari, Chairperson of the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy for Enabling Strength (MOSES) Transportation Task Force in Detroit. Read background information. Leadership for a Changing World
Welcome to Leadership Talks. Today's guest is Victoria Kovari, Chairperson of the Metropolitan Organizing Strategy for Enabling Strength (MOSES) Transportation Task Force in Detroit.
Today's first question is:
How did you get involved with MOSES?
Victoria Kovari
MOSES was born out of a merger between three church based community organizations in Detroit, all affiliated with the Gamaliel Foundation . I was involved in one of these organizations in southwest Detroit, through my Church. I started out doing some children’s liturgy in my church but what I really wanted to work on was housing in the neighborhood. It was in horrible condition, a lot of abandonment, deterioration, and tremendous poverty. The pastor and I started a housing ministry committee that eventually led to the formation of a separate non-profit organization. I became its first staff person and director. This non-profit would never have succeed if it were not for the technical expertise we received for a variety of sources, the most important of which was a week long national leadership training by the Gamaliel Foundation in 1994.
It changed my whole perspective on organizing, power and, of course, leadership. It forced me to deeply reflect on how to effectively live out my values in the public arena. Doing this neighborhood work also made me realize that there were forces beyond our control that seemed to undermine our work at every turn, decisions made at the state level that we were powerless to affect. That’s why I became more involved in MOSES’ Metropolitan Equity agenda.
Lansing, MI
Why did MOSES decide to take on transportation issues?
Victoria Kovari
Besides that fact that Metro Detroit and the City of Detroit in particular have the worst public transportation in the country, we saw transportation as a unifying issue. Better regional public transit benefits people across geographical boundaries, it cuts across age, race, and income by improving access to jobs, health care, education. You must understand that we are the largest region in the country by far without any form of rapid transit and we have a city bus system in a state of near total collapse, while one third of city residents do not own cars. Surveys of families on welfare have named transportation as the number one obstacle to getting and keeping a job. Just as important, we needed an issue that could bring both city and suburban congregations together, by benefiting both, and an issue that would raise MOSES’ profile in the region and in the state as a powerful force of grass roots people to be reckoned with. And it’s worked.
Oakland, CA
How do you work with the community to make your programs successful?
Victoria Kovari
I work on two levels. One is with a group of leaders from my church, a Core Team. We have worked together, both Spanish and English speaking people, on quality of life issues in the neighborhood: abandoned housing, crime, and pollution, just to name a few. We have held numerous neighborhood meetings of 200 - 300 people, bringing public officials in front of the community and holding them accountable to do specific things. I have also chaired two taskforces for MOSES, one on housing and economic development and most recently on Transportation. This work involves a much broader group of people both clergy and lay people from the City and the suburbs, Black White and Latino. We plan, strategize and carry out actions around specific issues. We have victories in housing -- building 60 units of affordable housing in Detroit -- and on transportation with increases in state funding for public transit and currently in our efforts to bring mass transit to Metro Detroit for the first time.
Santa Barbara, Ca
It sounds like you accomplished a formidable collaboration effort with many diverse groups. What methods did you use to facilitate these groups working together in a task oriented and mission driven way?
Victoria Kovari
I think the start of the collaboration was it's an honest dialogue about what our various groups' particular interests were in this issue. We came to it from very different places. Several weeks and months of dialogue about what we wanted to get out of the collaboration was a very important element of its success.
The same is true whether you're dealing with collaborations between larger groups or whether you're doing it between different leaders in your organization. Relationship building is an important part of any potential success.
The other element is that you actually do an action. You participate in carrying out some concrete action on that particular issue. And your ability to declare victory is an important part of building solidarity among those groups. There's nothing like a win to build team spirit.
So tackling something winnable is important and being able to recognize victory is important.
Leadership for a Changing World
Vicky, can you give us an example?
Victoria Kovari
One specific example is a hearing we held in Lansing, our state capital, in April of last year. We brought over 200 people to Lansing to conduct a citizens' hearing on the priorities of the state transportation budget. The rest of the statewide coalition, which included environmentalists and several unions, brought a more limited number of people from across the state. When they saw our ability to bring out that many people from the Detroit area, the other members of the coalition became much more trusting of our abilitand our claims of being able to follow through on the things we said we could do. We became much more of a force in their eyes. And we gave them a lot more credibilty because of our numbers and the diversity of our numbers. Just a dialogue about this would never have achieved that kind of solidarity and trust that the action was able to achieve.
We didn't win what we wanted to win originally, but because we were able to increase state funding by $50 million we decided to declare that a victory.
Silver Spring, MD
Does the leadership of your group involve many members of the groups who need public transit to survive?
Victoria Kovari
The users of public transit are not a majority of the leadership involved in the campaign. but they are represented. The leaders come from both people in the suburbs who want public transit as a choice, as well as lower-income people who need it to survive, as well as people who see it as a moral issue. And even some leaders who see it as an economic issue that involves more than just access to jobs, but also addresses the issues of the cost of having to drive everywhere.
So by appealing to various self-interests in this campaign and having leaders represent those various self-interests, it has been able to broaden the appeal of the campaign beyond just the issue of survivability.
Santa Barbara
What is the biggest obstacle you face in bringing various players to the table, and how is that overcome?
Victoria Kovari
Certainly one of the biggest has been the legacy of racism and segregation in the Detroit region. There is a tremendous amount of mistrust on both sides, and pain over the flight from the city and the flight from the older suburbs. I think getting through this legacy, talking about it, laying people's emotions about it on the table, in those instances where that has happened, we have been able to get beyond it. But we need to get through it to get beyond it. And going through it means bearing your pain, your anger, putting it on the table and dealing with it.
I think that has been a big obstacle because there is still a lot of hostility that exists between the city and the suburbs. But we have to deal with it in running a regional campaign. We have to bridge that divide.
Richmond, VA
What is your motivation for doing social justice work?
Victoria Kovari
I grew up in a white working class neighborhood on the fringes of Detroit. Our family had a strong ethnic identity, both my parents spoke Romanian at home. So, we were “different,” and with that came abuse – mostly verbal – during our childhood. It does not take much for a Romanian to be angry and so the fire began to burn at a relatively young age. I also attended a Catholic school where responsibility to the poor was a strong value. I grew to believe that, in spite of whatever humiliations you suffer, we are all called to great things with our lives.
Fairfax, VA
How do you involve youth in your program work?
Victoria Kovari
Youth are involved in various aspects of the organization. We have an after school program and recreation task force. It's developing a campaign to bring millions of dollars of state funding to fund after school programs in the city and suburbs. There are a number of youth groups in the churches that are very deeply involved in that campaign.
They have spoken at public meetings we have had. They have gone to Lansing on occasion to talk to state legislators. Some are involved in core teams in our various churches.
We have also sponsored a number of youth leaders through national leadership training, the Gamaleil Foundation offers several times a year.
Tucson, AZ
What have been the effects of the September 11th terrorist attacks on your work and you personally?
Victoria Kovari
After the September 11th attacks, we were in the middle of a campaign to talk to 100 congregations in 100 days. We had presentations set up in a number of churches following the attacks. And what I had to reflect on was: Why is this work still important, given the impending war, given the change of national priorities? Did this make sense to press for public transportation?
In reflecting on that and decicing how to articulate it, I realized that what we were doing, what MOSES was doing and what the campaign was doing, was the real work of democracy. It put the flag waving and the singing of patriotic songs in a different perspective. The real hard part of appreciating and protecting what we have in this country is our ability to make our voices heard in the political process, to try to effect change to benefit all of our people, vote, all of those things. That's the toughest part of democracy. We encouraged them to attend this massive public meeting on October 4th as a way to practice democracy, to make their voices heard about issues that were important to them.
Leadership for a Changing World
Can you tell us what the response was to that October 4th meeting?
Victoria Kovari
We had 1,000 people attend the meeting.
Pottstown PA
Are you primarily a membership based organization? And can you give a sense of what type of funding supports your work?
Victoria Kovari
MOSES is a membership-based organization. We have about 62 member congregations. About a third of our funding comes from membership dues and grassroots fundraising. And probably 55-60 percent comes from grants from foundations. The remainder is individual donations and corporation contributions, about 10 percent. We have no money directly from the federal government or the state.
Miami, Fl
Can you describe the kinds of trainings or experiences you have had that have resulted in your leadership role at MOSES?
Victoria Kovari
The most profound experience I had was in 1994, when I attended the week-long national leadership training at the Gamaliel Foundation. It changed my whole perspective. It changed my notion of power. Before, I thought power was for other people, as if there was this finite pie of power, and if I took a slice of it, other people wouldn't have as much. And what I realized was that power is infinite, and I had to remain powerful myself, and have people around me become powerful as well. And only if the community had power could it be succesful in making the kinds of changes it wanted in our community. And that was one of the biggest shifts in my own thinking that happened.
San Jose, CA
Congratulations on your successes! Where do you see MOSES headed in the future?
Victoria Kovari
The transportation campaign has raised MOSES’ profile in the regional as a powerful grass roots force. In the short term, over the next 12 months, we want to use this power to be at the table when decisions get made about how to fund this new transit system. We know the politicians and the Chamber of Commerce will not protect the interests of low- and middle-income people.
Also, we face a watershed year politically in the next 12 months here in Detroit and in the State of Michigan. We will elect a new mayor next month, and next year, because of term limits we will elect a new Governor and over 2/3 of the Michigan Legislature will be newly elected. What this means to our leadership is that we have to make our issues priority issues, higher profile issues in the coming election. This includes not only regional transit but greater metropolitan equity: that means, more investment in the urban core and in older suburbs and more priority placed on funding repairs to the existing infrastructure – roads, sewers, land – rather than building new infrastructure in communities for the wealthy. MOSES is at the forefront of these issues in the State, now we have to get the issues to the forefront.
Fairfax, VA
Where does the transportation task force fit in with the mission of MOSES?
Victoria Kovari
The transportation campaign is part of a larger strategy of MOSES to try to achieve greater metropolitan equity. That means pushing for policies that would bring more resources into the older suburbs and the city - the urban core - and to shift the priorities which are currently directed to the outer surburbs to build new sewers. We want to shift those recources to the city and the older suburbs to fund repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure, using existing land.
Seattle, WA
Have you sought to involve groups of disabled activists in your coalition (as the disabled often rely on public transportation as their sole means of transportation)?
Victoria Kovari
Absolutely. We have a number of people with disabilities in leadership positions in this campaign over the last three years, precisely because they are so deeply impacted with the deplorable state of public transit in this region.
New York City
I am interested in hearing about any steps you have taken to promote community activism to reduce youth violence. So many of the issues MOSES appears to be struggling for impact urban youth. My interest in New York would be to learn how the community can band together in social justice efforts that would develop and involve youth and create safe places for them in our city.
Victoria Kovari
As I mentioned earlier, our after school program and Recreation Task Force was formed to address this issue of youth violence. Since most of the crime between youth occurs between 3 and 8 pm, we felt one of the answers would be to create a much greater array and better funded after school and recreation programs in the city and suburbs. A lot of our churches run these after school programs, but they are woefully underfunded. There is no coordination.
In the meantime, the state of Michigan is spending its tobacco settlement money on research, budget deficits -- everything but youth education, recreation and activites -- all of those things that would be antidotes to violence, drugs, smoking, those sorts of things. So that is a big part of our campaign.
Washington, DC
Within your organization, are there any special qualities that allow you and the MOSES staff to be more effective in the work you do?
Victoria Kovari
The chief qualities have been the emphasis in bringing people into action. Don't just have leaders sitting around the table and talking about issues. Leaders are agitated to take action, to bring people together and decide on an action to take for a particular problem or issue.
Also, the courage to take risks. It was a real risk to take on the issue of mass transit. A lot people said we would fall right on our face, that the organization was dreaming. It's the ability to take on tough issues and take on risk for those issues.
One more thing that's important to me organizationally and personally is a commitment to remove obstacles in your way and not accept defeat - a determination to remove these and the ability to declare victory and move on.
Gaithersburg, MD
Coalition-building is often stressful. How do you take care of yourself to prevent burnout?
Victoria Kovari
My faith in God sustains me above everything else. It is a sense of spiritual calling that propels me to do this work. I also have a tremendous family, my two kids and husband, who is himself a community organizer. For nearly two decades now we have had this loving partnership, where we support and often push each other to do things we were either too afraid or too tired to do. The thought of being part of something that’s bigger than you and your own work is also a sustaining force.
Leadership for a Changing World
That's all the time we have for today. Thank you for joining us.
For more information:
Victoria Kovari
Coordinator, Transportation Committee
Metropolitan Organizing Strategy
Enabling Strength (MOSES)
9520 Mettetal St.
Detroit, MI 48227
Phone: 313-838-3190
Fax: 313-341-2194
Email: vkovari@aol.com
Stay tuned for future Leadership Talks.
Victoria Kovari
|
