Monday, May 4, 2009

Journal 13 Four organizations the reinforce and support cultural diversity

Four organizations available in reinforcing others toward behavior that support cultural diversity are:

1. The Human Rights Project (HRP) is one of eight projects at the Urban Justice Center, a non-profit anti poverty organization. HRP attempts to situate domestic poverty and discrimination issues within a human rights framework. The Urban Justice Center serves New York City's most vulnerable residents through a combination of direct legal service, systemic advocacy, community education and political organizing. They often defend the rights of people who are overlooked or turned away by other organizations. We reach a wide-ranging client base through our Projects. Projects include:
Community Development
Peter Cicchino Youth
Domestic Violence
Sex Workers
Homelessness Outreach & Prevention This tells you a little bit about this program.
"We Want to Work: Challenges to Self-Sufficiency in New York City's Workforce-Development System," March 2009 Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project at the Urban Justice Center joined with job-seekers to release a new case study: We Want to Work: Challenges to Self-Sufficiency in New York City's Workforce-Development System, which examines how public assistance and food stamps clients fare as they engage in work activities. The case study found that poor New Yorkers want to work, have skills and strengths to contribute to the workforce, and are interested in high-growth job sectors. The study concluded that New York City's Workforce Development System falls short of its goal of helping low-income people get out of poverty and attain self-sufficiency because of its "work-first" approach which emphasizes immediate, low-wage jobs.
Street Vendor
Human Rights
Veterans & Service members
Mental Health

2. African Services Committee: was founded in 1981 by a group of African refugees to provide resettlement assistance throughout the New York metropolitan area. ASC provides relief and assistance for diverse ethnic, immigrant and refugee groups in need of food, housing, medical care, legal services and other supportive counseling. Some of their programs are listed below:
HIV/AIDS, STD and TB Care
Support for Immigrants
Get Involved
Free HIV, TB and STD Testing
HIV Prevention
Support for People with HIV/AIDS
Services for Families
Our HIV Programs in Ethiopia
Visit our Food Pantry
Learn English
Get Low-Cost Care at a City Hospital
Talk to a lawyer about Legal & Immigration Issues
Community Health Screenings
"Deepening Our Roots"The Capital Campaign for ASC
Donate Now to Support Our Work
Subscribe to Our Mailing List

3. People's Movement for Human Rights Education:
Founded in 1988, the People's Decade of Human Rights Education (PDHRE-International) is a non-profit, international service organization that works directly and indirectly with its network of affiliates - primarily women's and social justice organizations - to develop and advance pedagogues for human rights education relevant to people's daily lives in the context of their struggles for social and economic justice and democracy.

Learn about the holistic vision of human rights:
Every woman, man, youth and child has the human right to a life in dignity. The human rights framework is a practical, effective tool to belong in community with dignity for all. Explore the 24 issues below, to learn human rights related to social and economic justice and injustice, breaking through the vicious cycle of humiliation. Discover how learning about human rights can put power in your hands to achieve social change. Learn what obligations and commitments your government has made to ensuring the realization of human rights for all, and hold your government accountable. Know your human rights, and claim them - become a mentor and a monitor!

the aged children development differently abled discrimination education
environment ethnicity food health housing indigenous peoples
livelihood & land migrant workers minorities peace & disarmament poverty race
refugees religion sexual orientation sustainable development womenwork & workers

4. New York Civil Rights Coalition:
The New York Civil Rights Coalition (NYCRC) is an organization of people concerned with kindling in Americans a spirit of unity and commitment in achieving a truly open and just society, where the individual enjoys the blessings of liberty free of racial prejudice, stigma, caste or discrimination. In this regard, NYCRC works purposefully to encourage people and institutions to take affirmative steps to achieve an integrated society - inclusive neighborhoods; strong, diverse, and interracial educational systems, both public and private; equal opportunity in employment and voting rights; and unfettered participation in the civic affairs of our democracy.

Projects include:
About Unlearning Stereotypes Testimonials Volunteer Request Information
About Unlearning Stereotypes -- Civil Rights and Race Relations Project
The Unlearning Stereotypes -- Civil Rights and Race Relations Project of the New York Civil Rights Coalition is a schools-based program that helps equip students with the critical thinking skills and information they need in order to challenge common stereotypes and myths about people because of their color, religion, national origin, disability, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. The program was initiated in December 1989, following the racially-motivated killing of Yusef Hawkins, a black teenager, by a group of youths in Bensonhurst, a predominantly white section of Brooklyn. We developed a special course on "civil rights and race relations" to be taught in the high school in Bensonhurst. To teach the course, we dispatched two lawyers, a black and white team, who took over a regular high school class at the school, once a week, every week for an entire semester. From that single class at one high school, the New York Civil Rights Coalition's Unlearning Stereotypes -- Civil Rights and Race Relations Project program has grown into a city-wide project involving dozens of volunteer teachers each semester who are recruited and trained by us and placed in some 40 public schools, in every borough of New York City, including two junior high schools in Manhattan. These volunteer teachers include lawyers, law students, police officers, family court judges, and people from diverse occupations and professions. They are assigned to each school as a team -- usually bi-racial and co-ed -- to meet with the same high school or junior high school class every week during the course of a semester. Our volunteer teachers do NOT lecture, and they do NOT proselytize. Modeled after our pilot program in Bensonhurst, our volunteers use Socratic teaching methods, role-playing, and courtroom scenarios, including mock trials, along with debate exercises, to engage the students. Through these methods, students who were once "passive learners" become interactive learners, avid debaters, reasoned discussants, and thoughtful conversationalists. Backed up by a curriculum that is always changing and keeping pace with new knowledge and developments in race relations and current events, NYCRC's Unlearning Stereotypes -- Civil Rights and Race Relations Project is an effort to involve professionals, law and graduate students, community leaders and concerned citizens in a school-based program that can help improve race relations among youth. It is a much heralded program that engages students in discussions that carry over to the cafeteria, the schoolyard, their neighborhoods, and back to their homes. As they continue to talk about human relations problems and social issues, the youth of our city begin to see that the strands of our diversity are the bonds of our commonality as human beings. Because we ask that they refer to each other by their names, students from various neighborhoods and backgrounds get to know one another and, thereby, once seemingly impenetrable barriers fall. There is laughter in the classroom as well as vigorous, animated discussion. Through our classes, and because of the empathy, motivation and skillfulness of our energetic and devoted volunteer teachers, students learn from each other, and examine the underlying causes of intergroup conflict; in the process they also learn about civics, civil rights, and world and American history. Students are not graded; instead they evaluate the program at semester's end, through written evaluations, which they submit anonymously to the New York Civil Rights Coalition. The program is supported by tax-deductible private donations, from foundations, corporations, and the public at large. Questions about the New York Civil Rights Coalition's Unlearning Stereotypes -- Civil Rights and Race Relations Project may be addressed to the program's administrator, Michael Meyers, Executive Director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, at (212) 563-5636 or the Acting Project Manager, John Nidiry, at (212) 563-5636. Requests for information can also be made through our website.