Grantee Partner

Think infrastructure jobs will only work for men? Think again.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

As the economic stimulus package inches closer to Congressional approval and President Obama’s signature, many have focused on who is in and who is out – especially men versus women.

While predictable, this is not particularly productive.

Yes, men’s unemployment is rising faster than women’s.  Losses in the manufacturing and construction sectors have hit men particularly hard.

Still, unemployment among women is also rising, just not as fast. 

As usual, the losses are falling particularly hard on women-headed families, many of whom were also struggling before the recession. 

In addition, if history is any guide, we know women’s unemployment is likely to increase later in the recession.

In the work of repairing the economy, our policymakers need to find the wisdom to focus on the totality of the challenge for all Americans and the courage to question their assumptions.

One assumption I nominate for the recycle bin is that infrastructure jobs (and, for that matter, “green” jobs) are not and cannot be jobs for women.

Here at The Women’s Foundation, through investments made in our Stepping Stones Initiative, we have generated a lot of learning about how to support women in training for non-traditional occupations, such as construction.  Women who have completed these programs have gone on to good jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits.

Here is one example from Washington Area Women in the Trades (a joint project of the Community Services Agency of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, Wider Opportunities for Women and the YWCA of the National Capital Area.

J. H. started in June 2008 as a ‘Transformer Tester Helper’ in general utility operations training at the PEPCO facility on Benning Road. The experiences she gained at the Washington Area Women in the Trades program helped her attain this very competitive job, which will put her on a solid career path, allowing her to help support her family and eventually to purchase a home. She starts at a great pay grade – double the minimum wage – and with a generous employee benefits package. After 12 months and after successfully completing the PEPCO exam, she will make even more.

Of course, this kind of success requires more than a physical program. To be successful, women need a rich and stable array of supports to sustain them during training and on the job, including child care, transportation, access to health care and access to financial education to help them reduce their debt, improve their credit and save for the future.

(I’m guessing men probably need some, if not all, of this, as well.)

Because Stepping Stones is a comprehensive and long-term initiative, it invests in all of these services to support low-income, women-headed families in our region.

Even in difficult economic times, we have continued to see our investments reap benefits for these women, their families and our community. I can only hope that our national leaders will look out of the windows of their Washington offices and into our greater Washington community for inspiration and help.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Online tools help service providers help local low-income families.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

This morning, Phyllis introduced a Webinar hosted by one of our Grantee Partners, Wider Opportunities for Women, on a tool they’ve developed to help calculate the true income needed to raise a family in our region.

As Phyllis explained, "With the current economic downturn…families are increasingly focusing on cutting back. And for some families—particularly those headed by single mothers—this means slipping from barely making it to not making it.  But where is the line?  According to the federal poverty standard—which hasn’t changed since 1960—a family of three headed by a single mom isn’t poor if she earns a dollar more than $16,500.  Yet, the real costs of raising that family are far greater…The federal standard is based just on the cost of food and doesn’t include crucial costs to families like child care, health care and transportation."

That’s why WOW’s standard is important, as it shows the the real cost for a single mother to raise an infant and a pre-schooler is $55,000 a year in Prince George’s County, $58,000 in Washington, D.C. and about $70,000 to live in Arlington or Montgomery Counties. 

A bit more realistic.

The Self-Sufficiency Calculator will not only allow a family to calculate what income they’d need to be self-sufficient based on family size, geography, etc., but it also provides information on how to find jobs that would meet that level of income and are attainable even without a college or two-year degree.

The Calculator can be accessed at www.dcmassc.org. 

WOW recently hosted a session featuring two other resources that help direct service providers in our area help heads of low-income families, who are usually women. 

One is the DC Food Finder, produced by So Others Might Eat (SOME), another Grantee Partner.  The Food Finder is an excellent resource that uses Google mapping to show where a variety of food resources exist in relation to a particular neighborhood or address, from food pantries to low-cost groceries to farmer’s markets.

Finally, the District Alliance for Safe Housing developed the Housing Resource Center, which helps identify housing appropriate in various situations, ranging from women fleeing domestic violence with children to affordable homes to purchase.  The resource enables service providers or individuals to input information relevant to them and then to access information particular to their situation.

 Many thanks to WOW, SOME and the District Alliance for Safe Housing for developing, updating and maintaining these tools that provide crucial information to our region’s low-income families as they strive for self-sufficiency.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Arts are an important investment, even when resources are tight.

Posted on by Phyllis Caldwell

Looking at the recent grants issued by our two giving circles, they may seem a bit counter-intuitive given the current economic climate.

Some have asked me why I believe funding the arts for girls is so important when there are many other pressing issues and priorities in our city, and funds are so tight.

But I’m proud of these recent funding choices by our African American Women’s Giving Circle and the Rainmakers, who chose this grantmaking cycle to invest in the Cultural Academy for Excellence (CAFÉ), a music arts program for girls in Maryland, and The Art League, an art mentoring program for at-risk, pre-teen girls in Virginia.

I salute these choices because in tough economic times, so often the arts are among the first cuts made in schools and programs for youth.

And at The Women’s Foundation, it is part of our mission to encourage philanthropy that focuses on filling the gaps where services are most needed and our support can make a unique, significant contribution.

I am a long-time supporter of the arts. I serve on the board of the Cultural Development Corporation, which is committed to supporting artistic outlets in Washington, D.C. that also create economic return for our community.

I personally invest in the arts because I believe that they are a fundamental part of the health and vibrancy of any community, contributing a space for dialogue, reflection, spiritual and emotional growth and intellectual challenge. The arts remind us of our shared humanity.

Similarly, the programs our giving circles have chosen to support use the arts as a means to help our community’s young women to build self-esteem, academic skills, and an expanded sense of their place in their community and the world.

Opportunities like these are all-too-often lost in communities and families where resources are limited and must be directed to more basic needs like food, shelter and clothing.

So, at a time when attention is focused on where to cut back so many programs and opportunities, I’m proud to see our giving circle members taking the lead in recognizing the need for youth in our area to imagine and create a future based on all of their unique talents and potential.

Whether they lie in a book or on a computer, or on a stage or blank canvas.

Phyllis Caldwell is president of The Women’s Foundation.

Help from community inspires improvement in college essays.

Posted on by Tia Felton

Last Friday, several District of Columbia students, myself included, filed onto the 8th floor of the Watergate building.  We were all interns with The Urban Alliance Foundation, and were there to get professional help from newspaper editors, lawyers, and other successful people, including my mentor Lisa Kays, on our college essays.

It is routine and mandatory that each Friday afternoon all interns attend a workshop class.  During this time, we are informed of events, discuss events that have happened during the work week, and are educated about key things to know when working in a professional environment and also that you will need throughout life–such as professional attire, how to use technology and managing money and bank accounts.

Since interns are seniors in high school, we have also been focusing a lot on college and making plans, setting goals and working to reach those goals.  We have been discussing applications and different scholarships that are available for us to receive.  Over the last few weeks, we have been drafting our college essay.

The dreadful college essay that most of us fear.  The one thing that is going to set you aside from hundreds of thousands of other applicants applying to the same school.

There have been several editors and writers who have come in and talked to the classes as a whole about writing our essays.  But on Friday, everyone received that one-on-one attention that they needed. 

We were paired up with a professional and then sat in a quiet area where we could focus and really think.

It was very helpful to get this sort of help. Little things that you might not catch, another person will, and it is those little things that can make a writing piece excellent. 

It was a very successful event.  No one was rude or judgmental towards anyone’s writing.  They were only helpful in as many ways possible.

In the end, every last intern walked away with a sense of confidence that they can write an excellent essay, and that it is going to get them into the college of their choosing.

Tia Felton is a senior at McKinley Tech High School and an intern at The Women’s Foundation through Urban Alliance–a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  When she graduates from high school this year, she hopes to go to college and eventually to become a lawyer.

To learn more about the Urban Alliance internship program, click here.

Washingtonian: 64 ways to do good this holiday season, locally.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

If you’re looking for creative, different ways to give this holiday season, don’t miss this month’s issue of the Washingtonian, with their cover article, "64 Ways to Do Good."

The article features a lot of different ways to make your local community here in Washington, D.C. a better place, from volunteering virtually to coaching a kid.

We were also proud to note that 13 of the organizations listed are Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation.  Congrats on being featured to:

We’re proud to partner with these outstanding organizations!

Lisa Kays is Director of Communications at The Women’s Foundation.  Tia Felton, who works with The Women’s Foundation as an Urban Alliance intern, contributed to this post.

Through the Kitchen Door teaches culinary skills that nourish the body and mind.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

The day before Thanksgiving, as thoughts are turning to time with family and friends and, of course, holiday meals, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the work of Through the Kitchen Door, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation that teaches culinary skills to low-income youth and adults as a pathway to better careers and nutrition in their lives.

Last week, the Washington Times ran a piece on Leisel Flashenberg, co-founder of Through the Kitchen Door, and how she and her husband came to create the organization while living in Costa Rica.

The article states:

In one 24-hour period, she [Leisel] says, she catered for a French ambassador who complimented her work and also heard from a woman who had participated in a training program Ms. Flashenberg had established for local women to learn kitchen skills — enough so that some could earn a living. 

The trainee told her: ‘Today I could pack up my children and leave the man who has been beating me for 25 years because I know now I can support myself.’

‘You can tell which one resonated with me the most,’ Ms. Flashenberg says. ‘The subtext became the curriculum of what we are doing today.’

A great story around the holiday that draws our appreciation not only to the value of a good meal in our lives, but in its ability to bring people together and nourish the soul. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Cuts in jobs available to Urban Alliance internship program hits home for me.

Posted on by Tia Felton

When I saw Philip Rucker’s piece, "Economy Slices into Internship Programs," in the Washington Post, it really hit home for me.  I’m currently an intern with Urban Alliance (also a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation), and I saw the impact of the economic downturn on the program firsthand.

By joining the Urban Alliance foundation during the summer of my junior year, I became one of the lucky ones promised a job.  My summer days were spent working full time in one of the offices owned by Sonnenschein Law firm. The experience was wonderful and the pay not only pleased me, but also my mother, who could spend her earnings on other household necessities without worrying about having to set aside funds for my own personal summer activities.

When the last day of summer work came to an end, I was informed that I would begin my fall internship mid-September.  But, somehow between mid-August and the time the time I was supposed to resume work, troubles began. 

Weeks continued to go by throughout the fall, and as I saw new interns with their starting dates and job sites, I realized that I still did not receive mine.  Finally, I received a call saying that I should report to Washington Area Women’s Foundation at 2:00 p.m. on November 10, 2008–two months after what my initial start date was meant to be.

While reading the Washington Post article suggested to me by my mentor, Lisa Kays, at The Women’s Foundation, I later found out that the reason for my delayed job site was not only due to poor organization skills, but also the economy’s falling.  I was one of the lucky ones who was promised and job and actually received one.

Several students were turned down from the organization after months of training because businesses in the Washington area simply cannot afford interns. Fannie Mae, which is where several of my peers worked this summer, took on no interns this fall season.  I know this internship meant a lot to the students, especially with the overwhelming expenses of senior year: class fees, trips, prom, spending funds, and other items that express school spirit like year books, hoods, shirts, etc.

During this time every little cent counts.

Being a part of the Urban Alliance family, above anything else, has given me great experiences, memories and opportunities.  I have had the chance to work in bigger office spaces where you e-mail more to communicate, and I have also had the chance to work in smaller office spaces where people are more warming to you, which is where I am currently working now.

I know that both experiences will help me through my college years and also my working years.

I am very thankful to have been chosen for this, and only wish that those who were not could have experienced it as well.  It is truly a shame that they could not.

Tia Felton is a senior at McKinley Tech High School and an intern at The Women’s Foundation through Urban Alliance.  When she graduates from high school this year, she hopes to go to college and eventually to become a lawyer.

To learn more about the Urban Alliance internship program, click here.

Washington Post story on local sex trafficking features work of two Grantee Partners.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Yesterday, Washington Post reporter Robert Pierre’s story, "Anti-Prostitution Initiative Taken to D.C. Schools," explains how children in D.C. are being coerced into prostitution and sex trafficking, and how agencies throughout the area are working together to stop this phenomenon.

Two of the organizations involved in this work are Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation: Fair Fund and Polaris Project.

Read the full story in the Washington Post here.

For more on Fair Fund’s work on this issue, and the report they just released on trafficking of youth in D.C. and Boston, or for information on how to get involved, click here.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Sex trafficking strikes in D.C. just as it does in Dakar or Dubai.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

When I lived in Africa and worked on girls’ education and HIV/AIDS prevention issues, I encountered what was known as the Sugar Daddy phenomenon.

In various countries in Africa, girls are the first to be pulled from school when money in a family is tight.  They’re also the last to eat, and the last to receive basic necessities like health care or clothes.  Busy with caring for siblings or fetching water, they also often go without much attention or sense of self-worth.

But Sugar Daddies are more than willing to make up for that. 

Older men, usually with means, they prey on these young women–sometimes as young as 11, 12, 13.  At first, they just show them attention, maybe by paying school fees or purchasing a new uniform.  Then, they might take a young woman out to dinner or pay for her to have her hair done.

All innocent enough.  Until he begins to convince her that she owes him and that her debt can be repaid with sex. 

I got all too used to seeing this in various African cities and villages, where poverty is rampant and there are few social services to assist vulnerable youth who may fall through the cracks into such situations.

Of course, now I’m all too used to hearing about it happening on K Street, in my city’s schools, throughout the region where I live.  In our nation’s capital.

It’s not okay that this happens to children anywhere, but there is something about it happening in one of our country’s wealthiest cities, just blocks and miles from the White House and Capitol Building, that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to.

Which is why I was so pleased to attend an event on Tuesday evening hosted by Fair Fund–a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  The event brought together members of our community to learn more about how human trafficking and sexual exploitation are impacting youth in Washington, D.C.   

About how young men and women in this city are routinely entrapped by pimps who start out as friends or boyfriends and then demand a return on their kindness with sex, first with them, and then with others. 

And thus the cycle of entrapment in sex trafficking continues, here in Washington, D.C. just as it does throughout the world.

Here though, we are fortunate to have a committed coalition of activists, including Fair Fund and a number of other nonprofits and Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation (including Polaris Project, WEAVE, Latin American Youth Center, SMYAL, AYUDA, DC Rape Crisis Center, and Ascensions Community Services), who are all working together to break this cycle by advocating for a safe house to take teens to when they are pulled out of dangerous situations and building awareness among teachers, social workers and police officers throughout our community who can help identify, assist and protect young people who fall into this trap.

To learn more about this important work or to get involved:

Fair Fund’s new report documenting these trends locally: Pathways Into and Out of Commercial Sexual Exploitation 

3-minute interview with Fair Fund’s Executive Director Andrea Powell in the DC Examiner

WAMU radio piece on Fair Fund’s work and local sex trafficking

To learn more about how to get involved, visit FairFund.org.

Lisa Kays is Director of Communications at The Women’s Foundation.

How a bank account can help a woman escape domestic violence.

Posted on by Emily Appel

CBS Evening News aired a story last week about a mother of three in Washington state who is rebuilding her life after leaving a domestic violence situation.

One of the tools that helped her is an IDA (Individual Development Account) matched savings account, which she used to buy a car, a computer and a home. The three-minute video is on Capital Area Asset Builder’s Web site.

This same tool is available through CAAB for low-income women to help improve their financial situation.  They can earn up to $3,000 to use towards buying a car or a home, starting a small business, paying off medical debt, or continuing education or job training classes.

Christine Walker, a client of CAAB and Lydia’s House–both Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation–used an IDA to help pay for school.  You can read her story here.

Emily Appel is the Matched Savings Program Director at Capital Area Asset Builders, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, which supports CAAB’s IDA program through Stepping Stones.