Pacific Mountain Region Programs
Peace Education
AFSC provides support and leadership to strengthen and broaden
a peace movement that bridges many issues and engages many communities.
The Peace Education Program works with peace organizations and local
communities to organize nonviolence programs for youth, interfaith
dinners for women and religious leaders, speaking events, public
actions, and popular education programs that include music and art
to engage youth more effectively.
Middle East Peace
For more than thirty years, AFSC has brought Arabs and Israelis,
Jews, Christians and Muslims together in common cause to work for
justice and peace in the Middle East. In this region, the Middle
East Peace Program is a clearinghouse for Middle East work in the
Greater San Francisco Bay Area, organizing speaking tours, public
events, and education campaigns and working for change in policy
and practice to ensure Israeli security and Palestinian self-determination
and to end the US war against Iraq.
EMAP
AFSC's Emergency and Material Assistance Program collects and distributes
materials for communities in the crisis of war or natural disaster.
The project also promotes advocacy of international concerns, such
as debt cancellation, and conducts public events that touch upon
AFSC's history or our work overseas.
African Initiative
AFSC's Africa Initiative brings attention to African Voices. In
this region, the African Initiative conducts a campaign for African
debt cancellation and media work to support dialogues in the US
about reparations to African Americans.
Homeless Organizing Project
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"This is the housing that protest
built." |
More than 100 homeless vendors earn income by selling Street
Spirit, Oakland's homeless newspaper. But the paper's
larger accomplishments are giving homeless people a voice through
their poetry, art and cartoons, news and feature stories, and providing
homeless people and their advocates with an important organizing
tool. For many activists, Street Spirit 's 30,000 reader
distribution provides them the most far-reaching public educational
outreach available for homeless rights campaigns.
Criminal Justice
AFSC promotes alternatives to incarceration, educates the public
about new justice paradigms, and puts a human face on prisoners
through story-telling, artwork, and public demonstrations. AFSC's
Criminal Justice Program conducts research and evaluation of existing
criminal justice policies, develops public education materials,
and sponsors art exhibits, publications, and speaking opportunities
which help get the word out about prison issues.
Death Penalty
AFSC's Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project mobilizes
people of faith in a drive to abolish the death penalty in California
and other US states that still execute. The program helps people
learn about their own religion's teachings on the death penalty
and provides ideas, resources and common strategies for the struggle
against the death penalty by people of faith.
Mindzeye
Mindzeye uses hip hop and the arts as an organizing tool for social
change. By gathering youth to cultural events, the program lifts
up information about key public policy issues related to police
policy, racial profiling, age discrimination, juvenile justice and
other issues and mobilizes youth in action.
Asian Pacific Youth
The Asian and Pacific American Community Program helps Asian and
Pacific American youth understand the economic, political, and cultural
issues that work on their communities. The program brings together
Asian and Pacific Islander youth from around the Bay Area to develop
their leadership and community organizing skills through a year-round
series of trainings that include role playing, school and community
campaigns, rap sessions on identity, cultural exchange, and community
theater and arts.
American Indian
Indian communities consider youth involvement imperative to their
social and spiritual health. AFSC helps Indian youth find a place
in community-wide concerns. Staff share resources, techniques, and
organizing skills that make community activities more accessible
to youth. The program also helps bring Indian youth together with
Indian elders and with youth of different communities, both Indian
and non-Indian.
Proyecto Campesino
AFSC's Proyecto Campesino has long supported farm
workers in their quest for humane working conditions, safer housing,
affordable health care, and the recognition due them as some of the
hardest working members of our society. Proyecto Campesino now conducts
citizenship classes in Tulare County communities and assists students
with citizenship applications and special problems in the process.
Through the classes, the program helps immigrants organize on local
civic issues. 208 West Main Street, Suite M, Visalia, CA 93291. (559) 733-4844.
Pan Valley Institute
AFSC's Pan Valley Institute provides refugees and immigrants a
place to gather, learn from each other, and rebuild their communities:
one conversation, many languages. The Institute brings immigrants
together for education, training, and cross cultural networking
and provides the opportunity to build networks and develop strategies
for creating a strong public voice. 1440 West Shaw Avenue, Fresno, CA 93711.
(559)-222-7678.
Project Voice
A nationwide AFSC initiative, Project Voice draws together this
region's immigration programs and other immigrant rights groups
to bring local immigrant leaders to the table to participate in
shaping national policy.
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