Highlands Neighborhood Association Hosts Awesome Advocacy Training

Highlands Neighborhood Association partnered with Habitat for Humanity to host a two-day Participatory Leadership & Advocacy Training at the Washington state capitol in June.

Representatives from 20 organizations attended, including a few of our Southwest Washington partners. Experts coached participants on the importance of community leadership and inclusion, and shared how to plan well-organized strategies and approach legislators for effective policy change. 

All we can say is, WOW! Props to Highlands Neighborhood Association. We love it when our community partners find ways to share skills with other organizations in their region. And we love it even more when they are building power for advocacy, leadership, organizing and policy change! This is how we will achieve better health for everyone in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Highlands Neighborhood Association is the lead organization for Highlands Grows and Shares, an Organizing Grant Community funded by our Healthy Beginnings+Healthy Communities Initiative.

Fair Shot for All

This week we're celebrating the Fair Shot for All coalition, which saw four out of five of its priority bills pass during the 2015 Oregon legislative session!

All four bills are huge wins for hardworking Oregonians! All told, they require employers to offer their employees paid sick days, ban questions about criminal history on job applications, reform Oregon's retirement savings system, and increase law enforcement's accountability for profiling.

The best thing about Fair Shot for All? It is a coalition of community-led organizations! This means that the people who are most affected by these policies are the ones leading the effort to change them. When putting their agenda together, Fair Shot for All sat down with employers and businesses, as well as employees, to talk about how this legislation could work for them. Fair Shot for All put time and thought into creating an agenda that all Oregonians could benefit from, and it shows in their success.

Fair Shot for All includes several of our past and current partners: Family Forward Oregon, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Basic Rights Oregon, CAUSA, Oregon Action, Partnership for Safety and Justice, PCUN, the Urban League of Portland, VOZ Workers’ Rights and more.

Fair Shot for All is funded in part by the Kaiser Permanente Community Fund at Northwest Health Foundation through a grant awarded to Family Forward Oregon. 

Adelante Mujeres Nourishes the Community

In Washington County, research shows the health outcomes for Latinos are significantly worse than those of other ethnic backgrounds. The concentrated poverty for immigrant farmers, challenges of adapting to a new culture and poor urban planning have all added to the poor health of Washington County’s Latino population. However, it is also evident that lifestyle choices have also played a large role. For Adelante Mujeres, a Forest Grove, Oregon-based nonprofit, the solution lies in holistic education about health, food, and nutrition to inspire positive lifestyle changes.

“Nourish the Community,” one of Adelante Mujeres’ newest initiatives, aims to incorporate nutrition education into their already established programs such as their Adult Education, Chicas, and Early Education programs. Nourish the Community was funded with a $200,000 Kaiser Permanente Community Fund grant in 2011. “This is an initiative where the values of health, wellness and nutrition are disseminated throughout all of the programs,” said Kaely Summers, Adelante Mujeres’ Farm Coordinator.

“It’s been encouraging and helpful to have the support of NWHF and Kaiser for organizational capacity. Now we have the time to planning this all out the best way possible.”

Adelante Mujeres focuses on education and access, and “one way of doing this is the farmers market,” said Summers, “We have this resource here that we’re bring all of this great food and local fruits and veggies and organic food to the people of forest grove and the greater community. Through our matching program, people come with food stamps or with their WIC checks and can get that same amount matched up to 10 dollars a week. Essentially if they swipe their card for 10 dollars they’ll get 20 dollars in total!”

Adelante also focuses on microenterprise. “We have a microenterprise goal so that our producers, our farmers, as well as food producers like the tamale makers are now contributing to the community as producers of a health resource,” said Summers, “Obviously if people are financially sound they can make healthier choices in their life.”

Finally, Adelante focuses on community advocacy. “We want our participants to be more politically, and civically active in the community and what they’re doing.” said Summers, “we want them to learn things in the walking club and share them with their neighbors and extended families.” 

Adelante acknowledges that the Forest Grove community represents many different levels of health and wellness. “Some people are struggling with diabetes and don’t know a carrot from a radish, and others are farmers who are producing kale and eating that, and are walking every day,” said Summers.

“We want to meet people where they are and work with them so they not only become healthy themselves in the choices that they make, but so they can contribute back into the community.”

Moving the Health Care Constituency

OSPIRG is a 35-year old advocacy organization, with a full-time legislative presence at the capitol, tens of thousands of members across Oregon, and an online activist network of thousands of people.

In 2009, OSPIRG collaborated with Oregonians for Health Security (OHS), a leading voice in healthcare advocacy in Oregon, to split a one-year, $40,000 grant. The funding enabled the two groups to reach out to 30,000 Oregonians at community events, on the phone, online, and through media – all in an effort to mobilize support for a legislative bill to improve access to health care for all Oregonians.

Influenced by this, and fifteen other healthcare advocacy efforts funded by the Foundation, the Oregon Legislature passed two bills that are expected to cover 95% of Oregon’s uninsured children and extend coverage to an additional 35,000 low-income adults while instituting a reformed model of healthcare delivery for Oregonians.

“This may be the most important piece of legislation that we pass out of this building this session. This is a good deal for Oregon,” said Senator Alan Bates (D-Ashland).