Greetings,
I hope that all of you are well and enjoying the spring. I am writing to invite all of you to a very exciting Annual Membership meeting on May 6-7, 2006 at Pritchard Beach Bathhouse. I hope that you are able to attend.
Annual meetings are an exciting opportunity for Social Justice Fund members to get to know one another, find out about each other's community involvement, meet grantees, and to attend some amazing political education trainings. This year we plan a one-day Dismantling Racism training and an evening dialogue on fighting the right.
The Political Education Program and Dinner starts at 6 PM. The members of the panel are Scot Nakagawa (Grants and Program Manager of Social Justice Fund), Amy Hertzfeld (Executive Director of the Idaho Human Rights Education Center), George Cheung (founder and CEO of Lopez & Cheung Inc.). The panel will discuss two statewide campaigns that are underway to institutionalize bigotry in our region:
In Washington, Bob Baker and "Protect Washington Now" filed I-946. If approved, this initiative will require individuals to prove legal immigration status to access public services, deputize government workers to report undocumented people to federal agencies, and criminalize failure to do so.
In Idaho, a proposal to amend the state constitution to limit marriage rights to unions between one man and one woman won the two-thirds vote needed from both houses of the Idaho legislature to be referred to voters. If approved, the amendment will codify anti-gay discrimination in the Idaho constitution. Join us for a political education session addressing the role of the right in national and local politics. Leaders will share their strategies for beating these initiatives and turning them into opportunities to build movements for change.
On Sunday we invite you to join us for a two-part, highly participatory training designed to move from theory into action. The training will be facilitated by Moira Bowman (Social Justice Fund member, past board member, staff of Western States Center) and Terrie Quinteros ( Western Prison Project).
I hope that you are able to attend some or all of the weekend's events. It is always wonderful to get together at Pritchard Beach Bathhouse and to have a great time with all of you.
In unity,
Bookda Gheisar