Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees - GCIR

The Ford Foundation and The Opportunity Agenda, in collaboration with the Open Society Foundations and Public Interest Projects’ U.S. Human Rights and Four Freedoms Funds, invite you to a funder briefing on public opinion and media research on key social justice topics:

• Race and LGBT Equality 
• African-American Men and Boys
• Reproductive Justice
• Immigrants in America
• Economic Justice and Equal Opportunity
  

The briefing will share new analysis and recommendations for funders seeking to influence public attitudes, practice, and policy. The research has implications for a wide range of issues, including education, criminal justice reform, health, employment, housing, and economic development.
 
Registration
 
Space is limited. To reserve a place at the briefing, please contact Ross Mudrick by phone (212-584-3709) or email at rmudrick@opportunityagenda.org.

You are invited to a special briefing on Faith, Values, and the Economy hosted by Open Society Foundations, Nathan Cummings Foundation and Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.

The Occupy Wall Street protests accomplished in a matter of months what progressives have struggled to do for years by focusing the nation’s attention on corporate greed, economic injustice and inequality. Shared prosperity, economic opportunity and corporate accountability are being recognized by more people as fundamental American values. The time has finally come for a moral debate about the economy.

But powerful opponents of economic fairness have consolidated their power and built a formidable policy, communications, and grassroots alliance. They have already mounted successful anti-union and voter-suppression campaigns and now stand poised to thwart progress toward economic justice and gut all remaining progressive public policy achievements of the past century.

A key component of their strategy of gutting Medicaid, eliminating unions and privatizing Medicare and Social Security is casting their agenda as a morally responsible solution that resonates with the values of average Americans. Yet the Occupy Wall Street movement and the work of progressive faith communities over the past five years has shown us that a different set of values can have more universal appeal. A group of prominent advocates have come up with a strategy to do just that. Please join us for a short briefing and discussion of their plan.

Featuring:

• Rob Stein, Founder of the Democracy Alliance
• Tom Chabolla, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
• Jennifer Butler, Executive Director, Faith in Public Life
• Katie Paris, Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Media Matters
• David Brock, Founder & President, Media Matters

This conversation will be exclusively 501(c)3 in nature.

Registration

Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP by January 13, 2012 to Heddy Nam at hnam@sorosny.org.

Co-sponsored by the International Migration Initiative of the Open Society Foundations and Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.

This June, the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted the Domestic Workers Convention a new landmark treaty that establishes the first set of standards for the estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers across the globe and marks a milestone in the decades-long struggle for the rights of one of the most vulnerable groups of workers. The vast majority of these workers are women and girls, who are subject to excessive working hours without rest, non-payment of wages, forced confinement, physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and trafficking.

Experts from across the globe will discuss the provisions of this landmark treaty and how it can protect this vulnerable population; examine its immediate and long-term implications; and explore how it can serve as a platform to initiate collaboration and coordination on advocacy efforts around ratification and meaningful implementation.

As a follow-up to the forum, International Migration Initiative will be screening the documentary Saving Dolma, directed by Kesang Tseten, on September 26th. The film looks at the experiences of women domestic workers in Kuwait and explores how all segments of society responded to Dolma’s situation and influenced officials to consider the plight of migrant workers. 

Moderator:        

·       Elizabeth Frantz, Program Officer, International Migration Initiative

Panelists:             

·       Simel Esim, Senior Regional Technical Specialist, International Labor Organization

·       Priscilla Gonzalez, Executive Director, Domestic Workers United

·       Luna Ranjit, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Adhikaar

·       Nisha Varia, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Registration

To RSVP to this event, please visit the event registration webpage.

This is a public event, so please feel free to circulate to your networks.

Co-sponsored by the International Migration Initiative of the Open Society Foundations and Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.

The International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) is an initiative of scholars from Georgetown Law’s Global Law Scholars program, the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the Migration Studies Unit at the London School of Economics. The IMBR seeks to consolidate international law governing the protection of migrants in a unifying document. While the IMBR puts forward a vision for the protection of international migrants, it is also rooted in the international consensus on human rights, state sovereignty, and the interests of all stakeholders affected by the increasingly complex phenomenon of migration. This forum will provide an overview of the IMBR, which will serve as a backdrop for a conversation about the existing legal framework for protecting migrants and civil society’s activism in the governance of migration.

Moderator

·       Aryeh Neier, President, Open Society Foundations

Panelists

·       Ian Kysel, IMBR Coordinator and recent Georgetown University Law School graduate

·       Bianca Santos, IMBR Coordinator and recent Georgetown University Law School graduate

·       Susan Martin, Executive Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration

Registration

To RSVP to this event, please visit the event registration page.

Please join local Bay Area funders for the 3rd annual holiday networking event to be held at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Last year's event brought together over 200 individuals from the philanthropic community to network, share insights, and reflect on the year past and the year ahead.

Register Here.

This event is co-sponsored by the following affinity groups:

Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy
Bay Area Blacks in Philanthropy
Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
Hispanics in Philanthropy
Native Americans in Philanthropy
Northern California Grantmakers

As the immigration debate continues, the guestworker program continues to be one of the most contentious part of any effort to move federal comprehensive immigration reform.  Many advocates now characterize guestworkers as “indentured.”  But business leaders and numerous elected officials say anything short of expanding the program is a deal breaker:  You can’t have federal reform without a temporary worker program.

The voices missing from the debate have been guestworkers themselves.  Until recently, they’ve been invisible, working across the United States without access to direct participation in the rancorous policy debate about them.  In the last three years, the guestworkers of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast have changed that.  Members of the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity (a project of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice) have run campaigns across the South, winning a place at the table in the ongoing debate. 

One group of workers in particular launched a heroic campaign to expose the realities of the guestworker program and promote an alternative vision.  Indian workers trafficked to the US Gulf Coast after Katrina escaped labor camps in 2008.  They embarked on a civil rights journey, travelling by foot from New Orleans to Washington, D.C., to bring the guestworker reality to the attention of Congress.  Along the way, they built relationships with African-American communities.  They became the first H2B workers to testify in Congress and won broad support from elected officials, clergy, civil rights leaders, and unions.  They also faced severe retaliation from immigration authorities—and will launch a new phase of their campaign in the coming weeks to expose misconduct by authorities in the Department of Homeland Security.

Firelight Media, an award-winning New York City-based documentary production firm, produced a film highlighting their courageous campaign.  The film focuses on the explicit connections and collaborations between the Indian guestworkers and the post-Katrina African-American community.  This presentation and discussion will start with a viewing of the short film.  The presentation will feature representatives of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice and members of the Alliance of Guestworkers.

Lunch will be served.

A Philanthropy New York Members Briefing presented by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Public Interest Projects, the Ford Foundation, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, the Open Society Institute, Unbound Philanthropy, and Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.

REGISTRATION: 

NYRAG members: Please log in to register yourself or a colleague online by clicking here.  (visible through February 19th).
Non-members: Please fill out this online form. (No fee.)

OTHER INFORMATION: Please contact register@philanthropynewyork.org with any questions.

Will new federal immigration policies help or harm the City?  New York continues to be an immigrant City-one third of the City's residents were born outside the U.S. and more than half of its children are from immigrant families.  Immigrants from across the globe have been critical to maintaining the City's vitality.  Federal policies currently being implemented or considered can have an enormous affect on the City's immigrant communities.

This briefing will introduce funders to Fatima Shama, the newly appointed Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.  Commissioner Shama will discuss the City's immigrant policies and priorities regarding language access, confidentiality safeguards, and health and other City services particularly in light of national trends. 

Marie McHugh, Co-Director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. will provide an update on the status of federal policies, including immigration reform and the Dream Act that would enable undocumented students to legalize their status.  She will address the impact of healthcare reform on undocumented and legal immigrants and educational, ESL, and job training opportunities for immigrant students and adults under the stimulus package and other federal funding.   And Muzaffar Chishti, Director of the Migration Policy Institute-New York Office, will talk about the effect of national immigration enforcement programs.

Presenters: 

Fatima Shama, Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs
Margie McHugh, Co-Director, National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, Migration Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.

Moderator:

Muzaffar Chishti, Director, Migration Policy Institute-New York City

REGISTRATION:
Please register online by Monday, November 9th, go to www.philanthropynewyork.org and click on Events and Programs. 

For more info about the program, contact Liz OuYang, Coordinator, Fund for New Citizens at lizouyang@aol.com.