 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
November
7, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 19Oakland,
CA
CCHD funds non-profit’s
efforts
to empower immigrants
A non-profit Oakland group that empowers immigrants
to organize and advocate for policy changes in immigration has received
a Catholic Campaign for Human Development multi-diocesan grant for 2005
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) has been awarded $30,000
to help support its Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition’s new
Freedom Academy.
EBASE was among 14 organizations in Contra Costa and Alameda counties—sponsoring
six national projects and eight local ones—to receive funding from
CCHD, a 36-year-old anti-poverty project sponsored by the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The annual CCHD collection taken up in parishes across the United States
each November funds projects across the country that focus on breaking
the cycle of poverty. This year’s collection will be held the weekend
of Nov. 19-20.
EBASE is a seven-year-old organization that brings together labor, community
and faith-based groups and leaders to end low-wage poverty and create
economic equity in the East Bay. Among its projects was a 2002 campaign
to press for a living wage for airport workers at the Port of Oakland.
Since 2003, EBASE has been zeroing in on immigration rights, explained
Evelyn Sanchez, workplace immigrant and civil rights organizer. Members
participated in the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition, which brought
community organizers and labor leaders from 12 cities to Washington, D.C.
to advocate for immigration reform. The bus project was organized to counter
the backlash against immigrants, which arose after 9-11, Sanchez said.
But the backlash continues, she said. Congress is attempting to pass the
Real ID Act – legislation that would force states to create a federal
identification card for immigrants traveling between states to verify
their status.
“The rhetoric claims the cards are for security purposes, but it
will make it much more difficult for people to travel and to get drivers’
licenses,” said Sanchez. The proposal is also flawed because it
doesn’t take into account such issues as legalization of undocumented
workers, family reunification or workplace and civil rights issues, she
said.
In an effort to fight such anti-immigrant sentiment, EBASE opened its
first annual Freedom Academy this fall to train new immigrants on effective
community organizing and to provide them with the opportunity to participate
in specific campaigns.
The $30,000 CCHD grant will provide stipends for 23 immigrants to attend
the classes. The students hail from Central America, Africa, Afghanistan,
and Palestine and include physicians as well as farmers now living throughout
the Bay Area. Each student receives $50 for each of the six four-hour
sessions to cover the cost of gasoline, bridge tolls and bus fares. EBASE
is also paying for interpreters who speak Farsi and Spanish, and for childcare.
Once the Freedom Academy concludes in December, its graduates will have
the opportunity to become involved in one of three activist projects,
said Sanchez.
The first will involve putting together a broad coalition of business
leaders, labor unions, church groups and immigrant organizations to convince
Senator Diane Feinstein to change her stance on immigration and to realize
how valuable immigrants are to California’s economy. “She’s
on the wrong side of the issue,” said Sanchez.
Since next year is a national election year, EBASE plans to invite Feinstein
to a town hall meeting to discuss the issue with immigration rights advocates.
A second project for Freedom Academy grads will be to develop talking
points that explain to California legislators why legalization is preferable
to deportation.
“Fifty-eight percent of children in California have an immigrant
parent,” said Sanchez. “If we deport these parents, how many
children will lose out physically, educationally, and mentally by the
trauma of separation?”
Activists will also bring these talking points to adult education classes
and church communities.
EBASE’s third activist project will be to organize a local town
hall meeting calling attention to the economic power of immigrants, and
how many corporate banks are taking unfair advantage of them by charging
high fees for deposits in foreign nations.
Mexican immigrants living in the United States send $13 billion dollars
back to their relatives each year, said Sanchez. Fifteen percent of El
Salvador’s gross national product consists of remittances from the
U.S. “So immigrants are contributing to two economies.”
The meeting will be modeled on one sponsored last summer in New York City
in which immigrants and representatives of a national bank dialogued about
the high fees. The bank in question ended up agreeing to contribute one
dollar for every three dollars deposited by immigrants to Mexico to be
used for public services and infrastructural projects within the country.
Evelyn Sanchez, an immigrant and civil rights organizer with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, talks with participants in the EBASE Freedom Academy.
EBASE PHOTO
