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A news update from the National Latin@ Network
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Civic Engagement and Making Your Voice Heard
Written by: Pierre Berastaín, Assistant Director of Innovation and Engagement
How to become civically engaged
Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or from any other political party or ideology, you probably feel strongly about some issues Congress and the Trump administration are considering. From advocacy around the DREAM Act to proposed changes to the Senate budget, grassroots advocacy is essential to hold lawmakers accountable and make them aware of the impact their decisions have on millions of people.
As an individual, however, you might be wondering how you can make your voice heard, what impact you can have, and what tools you have available to send a clear message to your members of Congress. Here are some tips:
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Webinar Speaking Out in Unity: The Utility of Testimonios from Undocumented Latina Immigrant Women to Address Intimate Partner Violence Help-Seeking Experiences
2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST
In this webinar, the principal investigator of this research study will share about the one-on-one interviews she conducted with Latina immigrant women living in Washington State that experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). She investigated how the women's undocumented immigration status impacted their experiences with help-seeking attempts and behaviors for the IPV. Culturally-relevant testimonio interviews were conducted to qualitatively investigate the complexity of IPV and how immigration status, ethnicity, class, gender, and informal and formal social supports impacted their experience.
Through this webinar, participants will:
- Explore the ways in which undocumented immigration status impacts how Latina intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors access formal and informal help-seeking
- Understand the importance of using research methods that are culturally-relevant to enhance the ways we gather data from vulnerable populations
- Identify strategies to improve service provision for mixed-status immigrant families that have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV)Presenters:
Presenter
Miriam Valdovinos, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut, School of Social Work
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Downloadable Resource Ensuring Access to Shelter and Services for Immigrant Survivors
Service providers can and should provide services to all victims and survivors, regardless of immigration status.
Read more in this resource, developed by Rosie Hidalgo, Senior Public Policy Director.
This resource provides information on:
- VAWA, and other victim-centered legislation
- Ensuring Access to Services Necessary for the Protection of Life or Safety
- Non-discrimination provisions
- Resources for service providers on confidentiality protections
- Ongoing, comprehensive support for survivors and providers
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Registration deadline Enhancing Cultural Responsiveness in the Courts Training
**Deadline to register is tomorrow (November 3, 2017)
January 10-11, 2018
Portland, Oregon
Objective:
Enhancing Cultural Responsiveness in the Courts Training is an interactive training for court staff that explores culture and court responses to culturally specific domestic violence and sexual assault victims.
Who Can Apply:
Attendance is limited to
40 participants representing Justice for Families, Court Training and Improvements Programs (CTIP), and STOP, Improving Criminal Justice Response (ICJR) and Rural and their OVW grant partners can participate and use their OVW travel funds to send court staff and partners to this training.
Register before spots are full!
Sites interested in attending must register by November 3, 2017 at 5pm EST. Please submit one application per team member by the deadline (even if you are still awaiting approval internally).
**PLEASE NOTE**
Do not make travel arrangements. All registration submissions will be submitted to OVW for review and approval to participate.
For questions, please contact Jose Juan Lara Jr. at
jjlara@casadeesperanza.org
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You can donate critical relief resources to Puerto Rico through Amazon list
Puerto Rico is still without potable water and other basic necessities. In this Amazon wishlist, you can purchase basic necessities such as batteries, medicine, toiletries, and more. Community members have organized to deliver these necessities to marginalized people every day.
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APIGBV releases publications with information on how to support immigrant survivors
The Asian-Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence urges service providers to maintain victim-centered advocacy at the core of their work. APIGBV has released the following materials to help accomplish just that:
Additional information and resources are available
on its website.
See also APIGBV Policy Director Grace Huang's statement on the Huffington Post, Domestic Violence Awareness Must Be Inclusive of Immigrant Survivors
by clicking here.
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Raliance releases 2017 Ending Sexual Violence in One Generation: A progress report for the United States
Raliance is working toward ending sexual violence in one generation. While this may seem aspirational, profound changes toward this vision are taking place in our culture. To document and benchmark these changes, Raliance released its latest report documenting the state of sexual violence in the U.S.
The report, titled, "
Ending Sexual Violence in One Generation: A progress report for the United States 2017" builds upon Raliance's inaugural 2016 report continuing to analyze progress in the movement to end sexual violence and how it is shaping public conversation and, ultimately, our culture in how we address this important societal issue. While there is more work to be done, the key trends and examples identified in this report underscore that positive changes are underway and prevention is possible.
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Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
By: Raquel Cepeda
In 2009, when Raquel Cepeda almost lost her estranged father to heart disease, she was terrified she'd never know the truth about her ancestry. Every time she looked in the mirror, Cepeda saw a mystery-a tapestry of races and ethnicities that came together in an ambiguous mix. With time running out, she decided to embark on an archaeological dig of sorts by using the science of ancestral DNA testing to excavate everything she could about her genetic history.
Years later, when Cepeda had become a successful journalist and documentary filmmaker, the strands of her DNA would take her further, across the globe and into history. Who were her ancestors? How did they-and she-become Latina? Her journey, as the most unforgettable ones often do, would lead her to places she hadn't expected to go. With a vibrant lyrical prose and fierce honesty, Cepeda parses concepts of race, identity, and ancestral DNA among Latinos by using her own Dominican-American story as one example, and in the process arrives at some sort of peace with her father.
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NCJFJ releases Indian Child Welfare Act Judicial Benchbook
Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in 1978 to address the widespread practice of state entities removing American Indian and Alaskan Native children from their homes and families. Congressional findings memorialized in ICWA included "an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by non-tribal public and private agencies and that a high percentage of such children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions."
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Project SAFE Needs Assessment issues a call for participation
Project SAFE provides targeted training and technical assistance to Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) grantees working with justice-involved Black/African-American women who are survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. The project addresses the intersectionality of racism and racial bias, poverty, and specific gender-responsive needs of women in the justice system. The purpose of this questionnaire is to learn about what current trainings, outreach, technical assistance services to sites, materials, and documents exist as well as what types of training, outreach, technical assistance services, materials, and documents would be most helpful to you, your staff or agency, and to the system responders in your community.
- Completion of the questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes.
- All responses are confidential and will be used to inform future products, trainings, and technical assistance related to Project SAFE.
- We ask that you please complete this questionnaire by November 30, 2017.
- Questions with an asterisk (*) are required. All else is not.
- You do not have to provide contact information if you don't want to.
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NIWAP extends deadline for immigrant crime victim survey
Deadline Extended to Monday, Nov. 13
The National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project at American University Washington College of Law is conducting a survey designed to learn about barriers that may prevent foreign-born, immigrant, and limited English proficient victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, child abuse, elder abuse and human trafficking from seeking justice system (police, prosecutors, courts) and social services assistance.
We are seeking your assistance in helping us collect information from police, prosecutors, judges, court staff, victim advocates, attorneys and other serving immigrant victims in communities across the country. The data we will collect in this survey will provide valuable information that will assist in the development of training, materials, and tools that will promote greater access to justice for immigrant crime victims. The survey results will also support advocacy to implement the protections for immigrant victims created by the Violence Against Women Act and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act over the course of the past decades.
Below are the links to four surveys designed for four different groups of survey participants. Please complete the one designed for your area of professional expertise.
Please also forward these links to others in your field and to the other professionals you work with who serve, represent, or whose work assists immigrant, foreign-born and limited English proficient victims.
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Webinar Sexual Assault in the Workplace: Survivors' Rights and Remedies Webinar
Thursday, November 9, 2017
1 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. EST
This webinar is tailored to attorneys with prior employment law experience and a working knowledge of Title VII, the ADA, FMLA and their state equivalents. In this interactive webinar, the presenters will provide a brief overview of how sexual assault impacts a survivor's work performance, and then focus on state and federal sources of employment
rights
, including the broad range of potential claims and common defenses. The webinar will also discuss creative employment remedies, the employment
rights
of undocumented workers, and litigation tips including settlement strategies.
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Tahirih Justice Center: Executive Director (Atlanta office)
The Tahirih Justice Center will soon be opening a permanent, fully-staffed office in Atlanta, GA. The Atlanta office will provide pro bono holistic immigration legal representation, including social services case management, for immigrant women and girls fleeing human rights abuses (similar to the services in our Houston, San Francisco, DC, and Baltimore offices). Additionally, in partnership with the Atlanta Mayor's office and Emory University Law School, Tahirih will be launching an appellate project to enable Tahirih to support the incredible advocates in Atlanta who are working so hard to combat the Atlanta immigration courts, which have some of the highest denial rates in the country. Under the appellate initiative, Tahirih's Atlanta office will support as well as lead appeals from the Atlanta immigration court on cases involving gender-based asylum claims and will deploy its Washington-DC based policy advocacy and federal litigation teams to support those efforts. Tahirih is grateful for the collaboration of the Atlanta immigrant rights community and the Georgia Immigration Law Working Group, as well as consultations with the Centers for Excellence and others, which resulted in the formulation of this appellate project.
The office will initially launch with 4 staff (Executive Director, staff attorney, case manager, administrative assistant), but is focused on first hiring the Executive Director.
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Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs: Program Manager
WCSAP is seeking an experienced and dynamic Program Manager to join the WCSAP team. This is a new agency position. This position will supervise and support agency staff; oversee programmatic activities; manage grants and ensure compliance to contracts; oversee programmatic budgets; provide technical assistance to member programs; and manage agency publications and resource production. Applicants must be tactical in delivering project tasks under tight deadlines, be able to multi-task, work well independently and in a team setting, have demonstrated high-level experience in managing multiple diverse projects and staff, and have strong quality communication skills. All applicants must be familiar and agree with WCSAP's mission statement and philosophy regarding the elimination of sexual violence, empowerment, inclusiveness, and social change.
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Tahirih Justice Center: Technology Project Manager
The Tahirih Justice Center seeks a Technology Project Manager to lead and maximize the effectiveness of initiatives to help Tahirih operate efficiently as a national organization. In this newly created position, the individual will serve as project manager for technology projects; plan, implement, oversee, complete and continually assess technology projects throughout the organization; and perform related duties as needed. Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Technology Project Manager will work closely with the management team. Approximately 25% travel to Tahirih's four US field offices is required. The most competitive candidate will possess fierce intellectual curiosity, emotional and professional maturity, and a passionate work ethic. The individual's work history will reflect these qualities through steady professional advancement, from academic achievement to responsibility with well-managed organizations, and demonstrated experience managing technology projects.
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Now accepting submissions
We welcome submissions on a number of topics pertaining to domestic violence, family violence, and gender-based violence. These topics include, but are not limited to:
- Gender-based violence intervention and prevention programs that are culturally specific
- Working with Latin@ youth
- Working with immigrant Latin@s
- Health care and gender-based violence
- LGBTQ Latin@ communities
- Children and domestic violence
- Building Latin@ leadership in Latin@ communities
- Elder abuse
We also welcome photography, video, resources, and other digital material that organizations or people wish to share with our network.
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL LATIN@ NETWORK FOR HEALTHY FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
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The National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities is a network of individuals and organizations committed to improving the health and well-being of Latin@ communities. The National Latin@ Network is led by Casa de Esperanza, a national Latina organization whose mission is to mobilize Latinas and Latin@ communities to end domestic violence. The National Latin@Network for Healthy Families and Communities builds on Casa de Esperanza´s experience working in local communities to support families, end domestic violence, and increase meaningful access to services for Latina@s and incorporates a research center, public policy initiative, and training.
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