{"id":47,"date":"2017-05-03T13:48:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T17:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/?page_id=47"},"modified":"2017-05-15T11:57:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T15:57:24","slug":"examples-of-grassroots-organizations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/page-with-video\/examples-of-grassroots-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Grassroots Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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1<\/sup>\u00a0OL\u00c9 New Mexico<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong>OL\u00c9 New Mexico is a parent-led organization that campaigns for the rights of New Mexico\u2019s working class population, including the right to affordable early childhood education. The main focus of their early childhood education campaign has been to secure enough votes in the legislature to pass a state constitutional amendment that would allocate a small portion of funding from New Mexico\u2019s Land Grant Permanent towards early childhood education. Much of this work is done in collaboration with a larger organization, Invest in Kids Now<\/a>!, which focuses specifically on this legislative proposal.2\"\"<\/a>\"\"
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3<\/sup>\u00a0\"\"Mothering Justice<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong>Mothering Justice is a coalition of mothers (or \u2018mama-vists,\u2019 as they call themselves) in Michigan that advocates for mothers’ involvement in policy that affects working families. The organization hosts a number of events with community partners\u2014including childcare provider, parents, lawmakers, professionals, and scholars\u2014to facilitate access to high-quality affordable childcare. They also host get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, advocacy workshops and leadership development training sessions that are all designed to make mothers\u2019 voices a more integral component of Michigan policy.4\"\"<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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5<\/sup>\"\"5<\/sup>\u00a0Maine Children\u2019s Alliance<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong>The Maine Children\u2019s Alliance is dedicated to improving the lives of Maine children through research, collaboration, and advocacy that encourages child-friendly public policy. Since early childhood education is the foundation for success, the organization is committed to policies that expand access to quality and affordable early childhood education in Maine, including public preschool programs, Head Start and Early Head Start and home visiting programs. Currently, the organization is engaging with the ME Department of Health and Human Services to work on revising the state\u2019s grant the Child Care Development Fund, which is a block grant to provide more access to quality early childcare programs to needy families.6<\/sup><\/p>\n

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7<\/sup>\"\"POWER-PAC (Parents Organized to Win, Educate, and Renew\u2014Policy Action Council)<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong>POWER-PAC is a cross-cultural group of parents in Chicago who are trained by COFI (Community Organizing and Family Issues). They aim to harness the power of these parents to elevate the voice of low-income, immigrants, and working-class families about issues relating to children and families. They have a number of campaigns, including an elementary justice campaign, an early learning campaign, a stepping out of poverty campaign, a food and health campaign, a children\u2019s rights campaign, and a community-building campaign. As part of their early childhood learning campaign, they are partnering with a local organization, the Southside Early Learning Network, to connect needy families with early childhood intervention resources and to press for a statewide parent advisory group on early childhood education.8<\/sup><\/p>\n

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9<\/sup>\"\"\u00a0\u201cParent to Parent, Building to Building, School to School\u201d Project at UCLA Labor Center<\/a>\u00a0|<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>This program was designed in collaboration with the UCLA Labor Center\u2019s Building Skills Partnership and is designed to mobilize janitor parents and union members in the Los Angeles area to improve the educational outcomes of the janitors\u2019 families and communities. Since janitors often work long hours and multiple jobs, this program makes it easier for janitors to stay involved in their child\u2019s education by providing workshops, field trips, and cultural activities held at janitors\u2019 worksites, union centers, and their children\u2019s schools. The program is supported by W.K. Kellogg Foundation family engagement initiative grant which focuses on educational success from birth to eight years old.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

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11<\/sup>\"\"Bright Future Chicago<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/strong>Bright Future Chicago is a coalition of parents, community advocates, alderman, teachers, childcare providers and educators working together to push for access to quality early childcare and education for Chicago\u2019s working families. To accomplish this mission, the organization engages in and hosts leadership development trainings, advocacy workshops, community action forums, film screenings, marches, and protests.12\"\"<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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13<\/sup>\"\"\u00a0Raising California Together<\/a>\u00a0|<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>This community organization is comprised of parents, community leaders, and childcare providers in California who are collaborating to press local, state, and federal legislators to expand access to quality and affordable childcare. Their solution involves securing funding to both expand access and improve the quality of childcare offered, which is tied to a campaign to ensure that early educators earn a living wage of at least $15 per hour and have access to professional development trainings.14<\/sup><\/p>\n

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15<\/sup>\"\"\u00a0Family Forward Action<\/a>\u00a0|<\/b>\u00a0Family Forward Action\u2019s mission is to harness the power of grassroots organizing to promote family-friendly policy in Oregon and beyond. This includes advocating for paid family and medical leave, flexible work arrangements, affordable and high-quality childcare, and more.16<\/sup> Their approach involves lobbying in the Oregon legislature and organizing a grassroots movement of parents and employers to back these policies through their participation in events, workshops, action groups, and political advocacy.17<\/sup> Successful policy efforts include a sick time law in Oregon that went into effect in 2016 and allows employees to use sick time for parental leave.18\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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19<\/sup>\"\"\u00a0Chicago Childcare Collective<\/a>\u00a0|<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>The Chicago Childcare Collective (ChiChiCo) takes an alternative approach to expanding childcare access by focusing on providing free childcare for parents\u2014particularly mothers\u2014who participate in racial and economic justice work. This demographic is often underrepresented in advocacy efforts due to childcare demands and ChiChiCo believes that it is critical for the marginalized voices that are most directly affected by policies to be heard. By connecting childcare volunteers to community organizations across Chicago, the collective ensures that childcare does not serve as a barrier to these mothers\u2019 participation in social justice efforts.20<\/sup><\/p>\n

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21<\/sup>\"\"\u00a0Smart from the Start<\/a>\u00a0|<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>Smart from the Start is an organization in Boston and Washington DC that aims to narrow the achievement gap in low-income children by focusing on early intervention strategies.22<\/sup> The organization aims to accomplish this mission through a multi-level approach that focuses on the community, the family, and the child.23<\/sup> The organization recognizes the intersectionality of early childhood issues and offers a variety of programs, including prenatal education, family visits, newborn baby educational programs that focus on infant brain development, pre-K and toddler play groups and field trips.24<\/sup><\/p>\n

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1\u00a0OL\u00c9 New Mexico\u00a0|\u00a0OL\u00c9 New Mexico is a parent-led organization that campaigns for the rights of New Mexico\u2019s working class population, including the right to affordable early childhood education. The main focus of their early childhood education campaign has been to secure enough votes in the legislature to pass a state constitutional amendment that would allocate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"parent":20,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-47","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/449"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-cgoodric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}