Washington

Congrats Doreen, and thanks for being an inspiration to so many!

Posted on by Barbara Strom Thompson

I’m so thrilled to hear of Doreen being recognized as a 2008 Washingtonian of the Year!  This is so well-deserved.

I recall first meeting Doreen in an early round of the Rainmakers Giving Circle, and was so impressed by how thoughtful and engaged she was in the circle’s work, which was fairly demanding, time-wise.  Knowing how complicated her schedule was, her example motivated me to strengthen my commitment to The Women’s Foundation.

If she could make that meeting downtown, I had better get there!

Through the years, it has been delightful to witness her effect on others as well.

I remember how moved I was to see Grantee Partners beaming as they had picture after picture taken with her at a house event.

At a Washington 100 breakfast at her home, a Grantee Partner told our group how, after meeting Doreen at a previous event, she stopped watching her regular Spanish newscast and started watching Doreen’s. Not only did her English improve, but now her sons also watch Doreen.

And just last month at the board meeting, Covenant House’s Executive Director, Judith Dobbins, broke out with a huge smile as she recognized Doreen during our otherwise routine, round-the-table introductions.  We all had to laugh.

Because of Doreen’s personal graciousness and the respect she garners throughout our region, The Women’s Foundation’s good work is amplified every time she represents us.

But Doreen also has a tremendous fun side that I’ve had the pleasure to get to know as we’ve worked together as co-chairs of Washington 100.  Given how organized and poised she is, you probably would be surprised that half the time I feel like we’re Lucy and Ethel.  We spend a lot of time laughing, just scrambling to keep up and improvise with our latest version of a "plan", which is often a work in progress.

Thank goodness Doreen is a rare combination of extremely dependable and organized, mixed with go-with-the-flow and a really wry sense of humor.

I’m so proud of her earning this prestigious award.

Doreen, you make us all proud!  Congrats on this dazzling accomplishment.

Barb Strom Thompson is co-chair of The Women’s Foundation’s Washington 100 network and a board member. In her professional life, she is a child development specialist.

Congratulations to Doreen Gentzler, Washingtonian of the Year!

Posted on by Phyllis Caldwell

It is just like Doreen to accept an honor as huge as being named Washingtonian of the Year by turning the attention back to The Women’s Foundation and the NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo—two community efforts she supports tirelessly.

But that’s exactly what she did Monday night on the news when her co-anchor, Jim Vance, proudly announced her award. Doreen’s response was about how pleased she was that the award brought attention to Washington Area Women’s Foundation and the NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo.

Having worked with Doreen, who serves on our board of directors, I echo Jim’s statements about Doreen’s commitment and efforts in our community.  She has been a tremendous force in fostering The Women’s Foundation’s success, serving first as part of our Rainmakers Giving Circle, and then as a board member and co-chair of our philanthropic leadership network, Washington 100. She also brings an amazing presence and energy to our Leadership Luncheon, which she graciously emcees every year.

As just one example of Doreen’s commitment, she—along with her co-chair, Barb Strom Thompson—helped solidify Washington 100 by recruiting more than 100 founding members to kick off the network in 2007. Many of the current members will say that they were impressed and inspired to join and to remain part of the network by Doreen’s outstanding positive energy and dedication to our work.

In addition to her tremendous talents as a communicator and her knowledge of our community, Doreen brings humility, humor, grace and passion to everything she does, and I know that I speak for everyone in The Women’s Foundation’s community who has had the opportunity to meet or work with her that we are very fortunate to have her involved in our work and mission.

Doreen, here at The Women’s Foundation, we are tremendously proud of you and are thrilled to see your contributions to our region acknowledged by this award.  Thank you for your continuing service to help improve the lives of our region’s women and girls.

Congrats Doreen, and to all the other 2008 Washingtonians of the Year. We’re grateful for the work you do to make our community a better place to live and work.

Read the article on Doreen’s award here.

Phyllis Caldwell is president of The Women’s Foundation and a member of Washington 100.

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.

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.

Child care: A sound investment even in this time of economic uncertainty.

Posted on by HyeSook Chung

All the jurisdictions in the region are in the midst of budget cuts to fill huge budget shortfalls.  All around us is gloom and doom news about funding.

Yet, to my delightful surprise – the chair of the D.C. City Council, Vincent Gray, wrote an OP-ED piece in the Washington Informer highlighting the sound investment in Pre-Kindergarten education as a way to invest in children, families and the city overall.

For D.C., the Pre-Kindergarten Enhancement and Expansion Amendment Act will ensure every three and four-year-old in the District has access to high-quality pre-kindergarten.

The hope that every child in the District will receive quality early education to ensure they are prepared to succeed in school and life is so exciting.

We need more key leaders in government and business to stress the importance of funding what is absolutely necessary for a sound future. There is a solid case for investments in early care and education.

So at this time of financial crisis, thank you to those who are advocating for such investments for your commitment to ensure the District’s children are going to be afforded the quality early learning opportunities they deserve!

HyeSook Chung is The Women’s Foundation’s Early Care and Education Program Officer.

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.

It's up to all of us to learn to identify, report and assist victims of domestic violence.

Posted on by Debbie Billet-Roumell

In a crowded room at the Catholic Charities, more than 60 people gathered to hear Kathy Zeisel, Domestic Violence Staff Attorney at The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, and Robin Runge, Director of the Commission on Domestic Violence at the American Bar Association and Commissioner at The DC Commission on Women, spoke on learning to recognize red flags for indications of domestic violence and what to do if you suspect someone is a victim.

The event was organized by The DC Women’s Agenda to honor the month of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The event served as an opportunity to reach out to the broader community serving clients and educate them about recognizing and creating a safe comfort environment for victims of domestic violence.

Ms. Runge addressed the prevalence of domestic violence and the need for the public to help victims. Domestic violence effects one out of four individuals in heterosexual and homosexual relationships.  More than 80 percent of domestic violence victims in families become homeless; and 20 percent of women victims become homeless. 

The insidious nature of domestic violence causes individuals to withdraw from society, friends and family, isolating them from potential sources of support. This is why it is imperative that in our professional and personal lives, we look for signs of domestic violence.

Ms. Runge spoke about her work with lawyers who are legally mandated to report domestic violence. When victims gather the courage to speak about their abuse, they are often referred to seek relief through legal channels. Many lawyers are not adequately trained to work with survivors and often seek a protective order, which can cause additional trouble for the victim.  When individuals disclose that they are victims, they should be referred to experts in domestic violence who have the knowledge, updated information and skills in understanding how to navigate the system for victims.

Ms. Zeisel addressed red flags that are often seen with survivors of domestic violence.  If a survivor is with their spouse and is meeting with a third party, the survivor often stays quiet and looks uncomfortable, the spouse controls the conversation and will not allow the survivor to be without him. Another classic sign is that a spouse will become violent toward the victim’s property; for example, they may run over their cat.

The speaker addressed the need to create a safe environment for individuals to disclose that they are victims. When a professional is screening for any type of service, they should always screen partners separately and ask about domestic violence. The screening should be standard policy to ensure that victims don’t get nervous as to why they are being asked. The victim often feels that they are the one to blame in the situation; other times, victims are in denial and will make excuses for the partner. 

Individuals working with clients should always have material available on domestic violence.  Restrooms are an excellent place to put material on domestic violence because the victim is alone.

When screening for domestic violence, it is imperative that you know the limits of your confidentiality. If you are required to report instances of domestic violence, you need to tell the victim before they disclose. Once reported, the victims’ life can be turned upside down. They may lose their job because they have to go to court and their perpetrator may come after them for disclosing.

In conclusion the speakers explained that there are resources available. In addition, the DC Coalition against Domestic Violence can come to organizations and train staff.

Additional information on screening for domestic violence.

Debbie Billet-Roumell is the coordinator of the DC Women’s Agenda, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation that is a coalition of advocacy organizations, service providers, and individuals working to promote the advancement of equality, safety and well-being for women and girls in the District. It is chaired by the DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women.

Low-income residents are hit by cuts to D.C.'s budget.

Posted on by Debbie Billet-Roumell

Monday was a set-back for low-income residents in Washington, D.C.  For those of you that have not followed the events of this past week, here is a brief re-cap:

On Friday November 7th, the DC Council announced a proposal to cut $16 million from the FY 2009 budget to address the $131 million budget short fall as well as to anticipate worsening economic times. The Council is also creating a $50 million reserve if the economy continues to decline. The Council’s proposal passed.

Mayor Fenty had already proposed a budget to close the budget gap by not filling vacancies as well as looking for other cost saving measures. The Council’s budget includes the proposed changes in the Mayor’s budget as well as many additional cuts noted below.

Many advocates made calls and met with Council members and their staff.  We were successful in restoring some of the funds for Housing First as well as new housing/programs for domestic violence victims.

The DC Women’s Agenda continues to work with other advocacy groups to have the money restored. The DC Council will meet in legislative session on Tuesday, November 18th and all persons concerned about the cuts should attend.

Current cuts:

  • $2 million for the rent supplement program that would have provided 150 units of affordable housing at a time when there are over 26,000 DC residents on the housing assistance waitlist;
  • $1.3 million for a Temporary Assistance to Needy Families cash assistance increase for some of the District’s most vulnerable families at a time when energy costs are increasing by 29 percent and prices for basic food items are increasing by 11 percent. TANF recipients have already begun to receive the 2009 increase of $9.00 per month;
  • $12.4 million from the Housing First Fund which will result in nearly 400 individuals already placed in permanent supportive housing to lose their homes within 6 months. In addition, no homeless families will be able to be served under the program. A PORTION OF THIS FUNDING HAS BEEN RESTORED; and, 
  • $19 million for the Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP), which will reduce the amount of funding for low- and no-interest loans that help low-income first-time homebuyers purchase homes in the District.

The following measures will not be cut:  

  • $20 million business tax break enacted in FY 2009;
  • $141 million in tax cuts provided to DC’s wealthiest residents several years ago.

To learn how you can take action or learn more about these issues, contact me at DBRoumell@wowonline.org.

Debbie Billet-Roumell is the coordinator of the DC Women’s Agenda, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation that is a coalition of advocacy organizations, service providers, and individuals working to promote the advancement of equality, safety and well-being for women and girls in the District. It is chaired by the DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women.

Girls in Wards 7 and 8 pose tough questions for DC Council candidates.

Posted on by Debbie Billet-Roumell

In a new report released last week by the D.C. Women’s Agenda, ninth grade girls residing in Hillcrest, Naylor Gardens and Woodland Terrace challenged DC Council candidates for Wards 7 and 8 and At-Large positions to answer questions about daily hardships they must confront.

The girls’ questions included issues related to lack of concentration in schools due to no walls; rats and mice in the school; the need for extra tutoring and teachers; unsanitary bathrooms in schools; security on metro buses; surveillance cameras at street intersections; neighborhood watch programs; curfews for youth; and, other questions relating to health insurance and affordable housing.

All of the candidates offered numerous proposed solutions to the many problems raised by the girls. In response to the problems of rats in the school, Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander planned to work with Allen Lew, head of the new Office of Public Education School Modernization to “ensure that our schools are rodent free.” She encouraged students to “e-mail [her] every time a rodent is seen in a school.” Ward 8 Candidate Howard Brown offered a different solution: “I would recommend that the school include rodent and pest control in the curriculum. I would propose an educational program that teaches the science of why rodents dwell in our facilities, and how to eliminate the problem.” Ward 8 Candidate Charles Wilson said he, “will work with the District rodent task force to rid our schools of mice, rats and other rodents.”

I spoke up and noted that while it is important to examine the candidates’ responses to these problems, it is essential for the D.C. community—including all elected officials—to take note of what these girls are experiencing.  The D.C. Women’s Agenda believes that these questions go to the heart of the policy matters that must be addressed when the DC Council enacts legislation addressing problems of youth in our city.  We will continue to bring these concerns to all of the newly elected and sitting officials in the Council this fall, I explained.

The report, 2008 Election Guide/ Supplemental Questions and Candidates’ Responses from Girls in Wards 7 & 8, details candidates’ responses to questions that came directly from girls in Wards 7 and 8. The guide is designed to help voters understand candidates’ positions on girls issues related to schools and libraries, safety, health, and housing.

Debbie Billet-Roumell is the coordinator of the DC Women’s Agenda, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation that is a coalition of advocacy organizations, service providers, and individuals working to promote the advancement of equality, safety and well-being for women and girls in the District. It is chaired by the DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women.

The Election Guide is available online or by requesting a hard copy at DBRoumell@wowonline.org.