The Value of a Community Organizer
I am still trying to find things that inspire me & post for my vox hood..but lately I have been drawn into the political fray over the upcoming US election. With the latest depressing news about US unemployment on the rise & mortgage company failures, it has become very difficult for me to hold back my opinions on this election race.
My attention was drawn to a particular comment made at the RNC by "she-who-must-not-be-named"; it has not been sitting well with me for the past few days, this poking jab at Obama's time as a community organizer (which apparently is an unworthy, mockable waste of time according to the McCain campaign).
So I set out on a brief journey to discover what I could about community organizers, to form my own opinion of their role & value:
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Definition: Community organizing is a process by which disempowered people—most often low- and moderate-income people—are brought together to act in their common self-interest. Community organizers act as area-wide coordinators of programs for different agencies in an attempt to meet community needs for health and welfare services. They also facilitate self-help programs initiated by local common-interest groups, for example, by training local leaders to analyze and solve the problems of a community. Community organizers work actively, as do other types of social workers, in community councils of social agencies and in community-action groups.
The American Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movements, the Chicano movement, the feminist movement, and the gay rights movement all influenced and were influenced by ideas of neighborhood organizing.
Many of the most notable leaders in community organizing today emerged from the National Welfare Rights Organization. John Calkins of DART, Ernesto Cortes of the Industrial Areas Foundation, Wade Rathke of ACORN, John Dodds of Philadelphia Unemployment Project and Mark Splain of the AFL-CIO, among others.
Other famous community organizers include: Jane Addams, César Chávez, Samuel Gompers, Martin Luther King, Jr., John L. Lewis, Ralph Nader, Barack Obama, Pat Robertson, and Paul Wellstone.
Source: Wikipedia
ACORN: “ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending remarks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country. The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their out-of-touch with ordinary people. Through community organizing, people are empowered to take action to solve their own problems, develop leadership skills and make decisions that improve their lives and their communities.
ACORN has been building organizations and developing leadership among low- and moderate- income residents in neighborhoods throughout the United States for 38 years. During that time, ACORN chapters have worked individually and collectively to organize innovative grassroots campaigns on a number of critical issues. As the nation’s largest grassroots community organization with more than 400,000 member families, ACORN employs 400 organizers that carry a huge responsibility of helping disenfranchised people in their communities.
In the past 10 years, ACORN has helped more than 30 million American families through our various organizing campaigns: better schools, financial justice, living wages, community improvement, immigration, healthcare, predatory lending, voter engagement and utilities.
Source: ACORN website
DART: The Direct Action and Research Training (DART) Center is committed to building powerful, diverse, congregation-based, and democratically run organizations capable of winning justice on issues facing the community. Since 1982, DART has built and strengthened over twenty local affiliated organizations in six states and trained over 10,000 community leaders and 150 professional community organizers.
Using DART's approach of congregation-based community organizing, local DART affiliates have won victories on a broad set of issues including reading instruction and fair school suspension policies in public schools, new pre-school programming for children from at-risk families, clean-up of drugs and crime, multi-million dollar investments in an affordable housing, reinvestment by banks in previously redlined communities, expansion of effective community-oriented policing, massive multi-million dollar expansions of public transportation, accessible health care reform in several major metropolitan cities, investment in job training for those coming off public assistance, fair immigration policies, and dozens of other issues important to low-income communities.
Source: DART website
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And I found many other organizations led by community organizers, that drive programs for local folks on topics ranging from managing healthcare, finding employment, minimizing violent crime, creating educational programs for children at risk..basically empowering people to take control of their lives. Based on my research, I think community organizers are pretty dedicated people, who deserve our respect and admiration for taking on causes that support folks in need.
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