The Overbrook Foundation

Rainforest Alliance and Hershey Focus On Responsible Cocoa Community Programs

2012-01-31T13:53:00.003-05:00

The Rainforest Alliance is teaming up with the Hershey Company to expand and accelerate programmes to improve conditions in cocoa communities in West Africa. According to Hershey, U.S. consumers will be able to purchase Hershey’s Bliss products with 100 percent cocoa from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms later this year.

Rainforest Alliance Certified farms have met comprehensive sustainability standards that protect the environment and ensure the safety and well-being of workers and their families, as well as communities. While working with farmers to improve agricultural practices, Hershey and the Rainforest Alliance will also prepare them for the future by using training programs to reduce child labor and increase school attendance.

“We support Hershey's comprehensive approach to sustainability, through educating cocoa farmers on best practices and improving conditions for cocoa farming communities in West Africa,” said Tensie Whelan, President of Rainforest Alliance. “We are thrilled to be working with Hershey to bring their sustainability commitments to life, from cocoa farms in West Africa to store shelves across North America.”

Bill McKibben and the Keystone Decision

2012-01-23T16:09:00.006-05:00

For those of you following the progress (or glorious lack thereof) of the Keystone XL Pipeline, blogged about here last Wednesday after President Obama's statement, you may have felt the sweetness of victory tempered by the President's lukewarm reasoning for denying the application. Without explicitly mentioning the devastating environmental impacts of tar sands oil extraction, without mentioning the millions of industry dollars lining the pockets (and weighting the opinions) of Republican representatives pushing for the Keystone deal, without mentioning the vulnerable habitats that would have been affected by the positioning of the pipeline, the President's statement placed the blame squarely on timing. From a reading of the statement, with no background on the issue, a novice would chalk the application denial up to bad scheduling rather than bad practice.

"This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline," says Obama's statement, "but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people."

While happy with the end result, many environmentalists remain trepidatious, worrying that the real reasons thousands circled the White House in protest last November have been glossed over.

Meanwhile Bill McKibben, founder of Overbrook grantee 350.org and a central rallying voice behind the Keystone protesters, is not resting on his laurels. A great profile by writer Barbara Moran in yesterday's Boston Globe goes behind the scenes with McKibben, and a piece in the Huffington Post by McKibben himself from earlier this month portray a soft-spoken, inadvertent leader who has his facts straight. In the Huffington Post piece, McKibben expertly links oil industry subsidies, campaign finance and the Chamber of Commerce to the climate crisis.

WITNESS's Obscura Camera

2012-01-23T10:25:00.006-05:00

Overbrook grantee WITNESS, a human rights organization promoting the use of video advocacy, has sent us information about media coverage of their new video technologies to assist human rights defenders and civilian journalists in documenting human rights abuses. In partnership with The Guardian Project, Witness has developed Secure Smart Camera and its first version “Obscura Camera”, which offers privacy and anonymity to both those filming an event and those in the video who may be putting their lives at risk to protest human rights abuses or injustice. Responding to the organization’s findings in its Cameras Everywhere Report and the increase in the use of video in protests during 2011’s popular uprisings (ie: the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movements), WITNESS hopes to minimize reprisals for filming human rights abuses. Obscura Camera will allow filmmaker activists to hide the identity of the filmmaker and faces in the crowd with boxes covering images or distorting faces through a program on their cameras or cell phones. “The Future of Protest Video", a multimedia article on the TheEconomist.com, clearly explains the details and the value of this technology to activists. It also introduces InformaCam, a plugin for Obscura Camera, which can embed information of the exact location and time of the video so that a spontaneous video may be regarded as more acceptable for use in court cases or advocacy campaigns. Clearly, Safe Secure Camera has the capacity to help video activists in multiple ways based on their immediate needs.

Overbrook supports WITNESS because of its use of modern technology to defend human rights defenders and provide these activists another tool for documenting critical human rights violations As the use of video to document these abuses increases, it is critical that those involved with these movements can be protected and, as a result, it is wonderful to hear that this program is getting so much positive feedback. For more information, this project has recently been featured in articles like The Economist’s Visibility for all, Forbes Magazine’s New York Flexes Its Tech Cred and Wired UK’s 25 big ideas for 2012: Always on sousveillance.

President Obama Denies Permit for Keystone XL Pipeline

2012-01-18T17:23:00.003-05:00

Today marks a tremendous victory for environmentalists and all Americans as President Obama officially announced his denial of the permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline. (Click here to read the President's official statement.) The Overbrook Foundation is proud to be among those committed to preventing the construction of a pipeline which presented such a great threat to our environment and national interests. Most importantly, activists like Overbrook grantee 350.org should be proud of this accomplishment after they worked tirelessly to convince and mobilize so many Americans to take part in a committed movement fighting this pipeline. As one 350.org blogger wrote today, "Make no mistake, for all of us who have been protesting the project, this is a major victory. As late as October, a poll of 300 ‘energy insiders’ in Washington by the National Journal found that 97% thought the pipeline permit would be granted. We tipped the balance in a major way.” This statement and the coverage of the pipeline over the past few months reminds us that this win is particularly important in light of the uphill battle against the oil industry’s deep pockets and strong political influence. Energized by this victory, many in the environmental community have thanked Obama for sticking up for the American people and look to continue activism to promote better environmental practices and fight climate change in 2012.

If you want more information on the trajectory of this movement and commentary from Bill McKibben, please watch 350.org's video on the fight against Keystone XL. While it was made a couple of months ago, the video continues to be an important reminder of this environmental victory. We are very happy to share this news with our readers and congratulate our grantees on a job well done!

Overbrook Grantees Join National Campaign to Save 1 Million Pounds of Paper by Earth Day

2012-01-18T14:34:00.002-05:00

Two Overbrook environment grantees, Catalog Choice and Environmental Paper Network, have teamed with Manilla, a free online and mobile service to manage bills, for the 2012 Paper Diet - a campaign to help consumers and businesses reduce their use of paper. The campaign's goal is for Americans to "lose" more than 1 million pounds of paper, while saving 13,000 trees, by Earth Day (April 22).

Just by opting out of unwanted catalogs and other advertising mail, Americans can lose half their paper weight. Other ways to lose include going paperless with direct mail, bills, and account statements. Catalog Choice, a service that helps people suppress unwanted catalogs, direct mail, and phonebooks, is a great tool to help in the challenge.

Consumers and businesses interested in taking the 2012 Paper Diet can pledge via Facebook by posting a digital badge on their page and by stopping their unwanted paper mail. The dieter who loses the most paper weight will receive a Paperless Toolbox, which includes an iPad, an iPad pen, a Kindle, Paperless Post stamps, and a shredder.

National Sexuality Education Standards Released in January 2012

2012-01-17T10:42:00.004-05:00

After two years of development and coordination among researchers, national organizations on health education, doctors, public health professionals, teachers, young people and representatives of social justice and reproductive health organizations, National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K-12, the first report to compile standards for sexuality education, has been released. In response to the inconsistent and uncoordinated teaching of sexuality education across different states and school districts within the U.S., this publication provides a minimum base level of age-appropriate sexuality education for students in K-12. Major authors of the project are American Association for Health Education, the American School Health Association, the National Education Association Health Information Network, the Society of State Leaders for Health and Physical Education, and the Future of Sex Education Initiative (with the involvement of Overbrook grantee Advocates for Youth).

These guidelines are meant to assist teachers in translating "an emerging body of research related to school-based sexuality education so that it can be put into practice in the classroom.” The report presents a rationale for sexuality education in schools citing parental desire for this curriculum and statistical information on improved graduation rates and school performance, an opportunity to minimize bullying in schools, increased empowerment for students and adolescents, and a link to decreased rates of sexually transmitted infections and unintended teenage pregnancy. However, the majority of the report outlines basic lessons, goals and content to be covered in each grade. The seven topics in these standards include anatomy and physiology, puberty and adolescent development, identity, pregnancy and reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, healthy relationships and personal safety. Despite maintaining a health focus, these standards contain extensive requirements for teaching about gender identity, sexual orientation, bullying, sexual assault, different family structures, proper anatomy and respect.

Many of the Overbrook Foundation’s Reproductive Justice grantees, including Advocates for Youth, stress the importance of comprehensive, quality and age-appropriate sexuality education for their constituents in all schools regardless of resource allocation, the community served or the geographic location. So, we are pleased to hear about grantee progress in this area. While the impact of these recommendations is yet to be seen, these standards are an important step towards making quality sexuality education more widely available to American children and adolescents. Access to this information will help individuals to make informed choices about their own sexuality and their relationships with others.

Please click here if you are interested in an article describing the response and a more complete summary of the new standards. It includes comments from Advocates for Youth President, Debra Hauser. If you are interested in the details of the standards, please download the full version of this publication.

National Ocean Council Plan of Action

2012-01-13T11:43:00.003-05:00

The Obama administration released an "action plan" yesterday, in the form of a 118-page report, that expands upon the inter-agency National Ocean Council announced in the summer of 2010 (and blogged about here!)

The over-arching idea behind the Council is to increase collaboration, efficiency and data-sharing in a science-based approach to marine spatial planning. This way, areas deemed too fragile or critical for marine life will be zoned as off-limits for drilling, fishing, shipping and other uses. Federal agencies will share all non-confidential information on a publicly-available web site.

While the new action plan is a solid step toward the development of a national ocean policy, there is some trepidation that the Council will just create more bureaucracy, and also that it will be used more as a tool for developers than as a support for marine conservationists. For example, one of the objectives of the Council is to provide response plans for potential oil spills in the Arctic Ocean, since new shipping lanes and drilling spots are opening up due to increased melting of sea ice -- (this with apparent disregard for the fact that the ice is melting because of our reliance on oil and other greenhouse gas-producing fuel sources!)

But, if oil exploration and other industrial uses are inevitable, a streamlined agency overseeing the marine areas involved can provide faster and more comprehensive recommendations and responses.

Said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (and Overbrook grantee), "Every day, decisions are made about the industrial use of our oceans, and most of them are made on a 'first come, first served' ad hoc basis." An inter-agency council and national ocean policy can only help provide a longer-term, big-picture view of our oceans.

Read Cornelia Dean's NYT Green blog post here.

Reports on Journalists Killed in 2011

2011-12-28T10:34:00.001-05:00

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has published its annual Killed in 2011 Report documenting the number of reporters who have been killed as a result of circumstances directly related to their work as journalists. While journalist deaths were highest in countries in the Middle East, the report also reveals that safety for journalists remains a big challenge in Latin America. In the most dangerous Latin American country for journalists, Mexico, three Mexican journalists were killed and CPJ continues to investigate four journalist deaths that may have been related to their professional endeavors. In 2011, further Latin American journalist deaths are reported in Brazil, Peru and the Dominican Republic. The website and the report also highlight a new increase in the targeting of journalists who use social media to promote democracy, freedom of information and human rights. In one particularly gruesome case, a Mexican blogger was found murdered for her work to uncover the activities of criminal groups. These deaths as well as the related “disappearances” and threats that menace Latin American journalists confirm the need of work of our grantees to defend members of the press and their right to free speech in Latin America.

In addition to the formal report, the CPJ website shares a series of maps and charts with data about the professions of the journalists killed, the types of stories they had been covering and the type of groups or circumstances that have been in their death. Based on these descriptions, many of the killed Latin American journalists had been involved in reporting on criminal organizations or government corruption. This accessible and thorough statistical analysis should bolster the ability of the Committee to Protect Journalists to effectively use this report in their advocacy work to prevent impunity for those harming or imprisoning journalists.

The Overbrook Foundation has maintained a strong dedication to defending human rights defenders, including supporting organizations promoting press freedom in Latin America. This advocacy tool should help CPJ and others to continue to support these rights in 2012. Freedom of speech and freedom of press must be defended if a broader population is to fight injustice; challenge local, national and international power structures; and defend their own safety and human rights. The data compiled in this report reminds us of how much work there is to be done to ensure the safety of journalists around the world, particularly in Mexico and the rest of Latin America.

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's report - "State of the Utility Bill"

2011-12-23T12:20:00.001-05:00

While we have not had the opportunity to write about it until now, Overbrook Staff would like to highlight the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's (ACEEE) November report on “The State of the Utility Bill”. This report provides an academic look at the history and evolution of the utility bill, statistics on the type of information that consumers can generally find on their bills, and an analysis of this data with an emphasis on possible improvements to increase sustainable electric, heat and water consumption. It positions the utility bill as a communication device rather than yet another monthly bill to be paid. While many utility bills include previous month and previous year comparisons of energy use, this report explores a need for increased context of the consumer’s energy use. Report authors found that almost 90% of the bills were missing "pro-efficiency messaging, energy efficiency-specific tips and contacts, and peer comparisons - that may motivate consumers to take energy-saving actions”. They have discovered differences in energy savings between consumers based on the frequency of publication, the content and the precision of the information found in the bills. Not only does this report shows consumers what numbers they should look at when attempting to decrease their own utility consumption and costs, but it also offers concrete arguments and steps for the revision of utility bills by the utility companies.

The Overbrook Foundation is proud to have supported the research and writing of this important report as part of our Environment Program's focus on domestic sustainable consumption and production. This valuable tool can now be used by activists, consumers and members of the utility industry to improve utility bills in the future. ACEEE hopes that small changes in bills reaching millions could have a significant impact on American consumption habits. Foundation Staff has learned that the report had already been downloaded 405 times in the first few weeks after its publication, so we hope the success of its transmission and impact continues and expands. Despite difficulties to change behaviors, we are excited to be a part of the process to identify critical spaces that can have real impact on American consumption.

Click here for a link to the ACEEE blog where Ben Foster, one of the report's authors, has summarized the findings and implications of the fuller report. While, you can also download the complete version of "The State of the Utility Bill" by clicking here and following the instructions on the web page.

Overbrook Grantees Working to Stop Tar Sands

2011-12-16T11:39:00.003-05:00

Overbrook environment grantee ForestEthics is in the news today, hailed in Mother Jones (also an Overbrook Foundation grantee through the Human Rights Program) for its campaign work against tar sands. Canadian tar sands have been a contentious and ubiquitous subject of late, since they would have been the source of fuel funneled through the proposed Canada-to-Gulf of Mexico Keystone XL pipeline. Due in large part to fierce campaigning and activism by 350.0rg, another Overbrook environment grantee, plans for building that pipeline have been indefinitely postponed.

Tar sands can bring a carbon footprint up to 70 percent greater than other sources of crude oil, and increased development in Canada would lead to the clear-cutting of hundreds of thousands of acres of boreal forest. Click here to see Mother Jones' map of the 50 refineries in the U.S. that use tar sands oil, data compiled by ForestEthics. And thanks to ForestEthics for its anti-tar sands campaign, which so far has gotten 13 commitments from U.S. companies to stop using oil from refineries sourcing from tar sands!

Click here for a bleak but visually stunning view of tar sands from above in a National Geographic photo essay.

NRDC's Extreme Weather and Health-related Costs Maps

2011-12-09T15:01:00.003-05:00

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an Overbrook grantee, has released an interactive "Extreme Weather Map" of the United States detailing thousands of events including floods, record-breaking temperatures, unprecedented snowfalls and more since the start of 2011. The map can be frozen at a specific time in the year, or it can play through the ebb and flow of extreme weather from January through October 2011. As the saying goes, a picture's worth a thousand words, so with luck this fast-forward meteorological view of the United States will impress upon Americans that climate change has come home, and mitigation and adaptation are not to be postponed.

Take a look and press PLAY to see the year's activity in motion: NRDC's Extreme Weather Map

NRDC also released a map tracking the health issues related to extreme weather events, resulting in some extreme costs for the United States. Click here to view the health map.

Environment Grants Awarded in December!

2011-12-09T14:58:00.001-05:00

At its December Board of Directors Meeting, The Overbrook Foundation voted to award a total of $698,000 in grants to 13 organizations working to conserve Latin American Biodiversity, foster sustainable consumption and production practices in the United States or publish on environmental or conservation issues across various media platforms. Further investigation of these organizations and their Overbrook supported projects reveals the unique work that each group contributes on a diverse array of environmental issues.

For its biodiversity conservation program, Overbook will award six grants for a total of $293,000. The Foundation will support Amazon Watch with $40,000 grant for its Ecuador Rainforest Protection Program, IMAFLORA with a $43,000 grant for Biodiversity Conservation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest through Improvements to Cocoa Production and ISEAL Alliance with a $25,000 grant. In Mexico, People and Plants International will use a $60,000 grant to promoting community-based forestry and conservation in Central Mexico and Pronatura Noroeste A.C. will use a $50,000 grant to protect the Cabo Pulmo National Park Region, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Wildlife Conservation Society will receive a $75,000 grant to continue its work conserving Natural Resources and Improving Rural Livelihoods through Community-led Production Systems in the Pantanal and Cerrado of Brazil and Yasuni National Park, Ecuador.

For the Foundation's environmental media program, the University of Washington Foundation is awarded $45,000 grant for Conservation Magazine's 2012 Workplan.

The Overbrook Foundation's commitment to sustainable consumption is furthered with a $75,000 grant to Catalog Choice, a $25,000 grant to the DC Project, a $40,000 grant for ForestEthics, and a $45,000 grant for GreenBlue Institute. Other awarded grants include $125,000 for Global Development Incubator for its project on a strategic analysis of structures and mechanisms to enhance cohesion in conservation community and $50,000 for In Our Backyards (ioby.org) to improve its marketing strategy.

As in previous blog posts announcing these grant awards, you may click on any of the names of the organizations in this post to be transferred to their websites for more information on them and their work. The Overbrook Foundation Staff congratulates these organizations on their new grants and looks forward to the execution of these exciting projects in a time when environmental issues continue to be extremely pressing.

Human Rights Grants Awarded at The Overbrook Foundation's December Board Meeting

2011-12-08T13:02:00.003-05:00

At its final Board Meeting of 2011, The Overbrook Foundation’s Board of Directors approved 14 grants totaling $550,000 for the Human Rights Program. The Foundation applauds these organizations for their existing achievements and it looks forward to their progress in promoting human rights and social justice in the upcoming year with this added support from The Overbrook Foundation.

The Foundation’s work to build a Domestic Human Rights Movement will be furthered through the approval of a $50,000 grant to the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative.

A grant of $25,000 will be awarded to Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders for its project to challenge the constitutionality of the Defense Against Marriage Act as a part of the Foundation's efforts to promote marriage equality in the United States.

To honor our commitment to Reproductive Justice in the United States, Overbrook will award grants to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women for $25,000 and to the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum for $30,000. Additionally, Overbrook approved a $40,000 grant to the Third Wave Foundation for its work on Reproductive Health, a $50,000 grant to the Tides Center/Groundswell Fund’s Catalyst Fund and a $30,000 grant to the Western States Center for its Gender Justice Initiative.

To promote nonprofit media in the United States, Overbrook will award grants to Breakthrough USA for its work on human rights-based videos and interactive games, to the Center for Public Integrity for investigative reporting on the money in American political campaigns, and to the New Press for its publication and promotion of books related to Human Rights in the United States. The Foundation will support these organizations with grants of $45,000, $45,000 and $35,000 respectively.

Four of the approved grants fit into the Foundation's International Human Rights program offering support to advocates of Gender Rights and Human Rights Defenders in Latin America. Disability Rights International will receive a $50,000 grant to build capacity of activists to prevent and end violence against women and girls with disabilities in Mexico and Guatemala, and Ipas will receive a $40,000 grant for advocacy and action on abortion policy in Latin America. To support their work with Latin American Human Rights Defenders, Overbrook will also award Front Line with a $50,000 grant for the protection of Latin American Human Rights Defenders and Reporters Without Borders with a $35,000 grant to defend freedom of information in Latin America.

Again, we are proud to support these organizations that are tirelessly working to advocate for and protect a large variety of critical human rights for people in the United States and Latin America! More information about 2011 grantees will soon be posted on The Overbrook Foundation Website.

Women's Human Rights in the New York Times

2011-12-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

Last week, The New York Times published a front-page story on the state of women's rights in Afghanistan, specifically focusing on the experience of one woman who was imprisoned for engaging in premarital sex when she was raped and was then released under the condition that she marries her rapist. Responding to this article in “Advancing Women’s Rights”, June Zeitlin, director of the CEDAW [the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women] Education Project at The Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, writes:

To the Editor:

As you note in “For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs Into Unforgiving Wall of Custom” (front page, Dec. 2), Afghan government decisions on women’s rights are more critical now than ever as American forces prepare to leave Afghanistan.

One way the United States could really advance the “unfinished business of advancing women’s rights” in that country is by ratifying the international women’s rights treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Women’s rights opponents in Afghanistan and elsewhere now can question our commitment by pointing out that we are one of only six countries in the world (with Iran, Somalia, Sudan and the Pacific islands Palau and Tonga) that have failed to ratify the treaty. Ratification would show that we are ready to walk our talk for women in Afghanistan and worldwide.

(This article was found on page A28 of The New York Times on December 6, 2011)

The Overbrook Foundation is pleased to see this major publication providing coverage of our grantee’s issue areas and the issue of the United State’s refusal to ratify CEDAW. June Zeitlin has appropriately argued that the US decision to ratify this treaty could have a significant impact on human rights for women both in the United States and around the world. In only a few short paragraphs, Zeitlin identifies the United States’ hypocrisy around providing leadership on women’s human rights issues. Moreover, she explains the important link between our stance on women’s rights and these abuses in Afghanistan, a connection that is easily overlooked when reading an article about injustice in extremely different cultural contexts. The Overbrook Foundation hopes that Zeitlin’s message was received and shared by New York Times Readers because a US ratification of CEDAW, an important step for gender rights and human rights, can only be achieved with significant support among the US citizens and politicians.

EDF's Climate Corps mentioned in Financial Times

2011-12-07T16:23:00.003-05:00

Environmental Defense Fund's Climate Corps, an Overbrook-funded program, was mentioned in the Financial Times late last week for its innovation and success saving businesses operation costs through energy efficiency measures. The United States lags behind many other countries in its efforts to adopt clean energy, especially in response to the Solyndra scandal and the financial crisis (green tech is often believed to be more expensive than "traditional" energy sources, although hefty health and environmental costs are frequently left out of the equation when calculating those comparisons.)

One program that has emerged as a leading example of how energy efficiency can save businesses significant funds is Climate Corps. Climate Corps is an internship program through EDF that matches business school students with large corporations to identify areas in which those companies can save energy. The appeal for businesses are the financial savings; the appeal for the rest of us is the proof that energy efficiency really works, and the confidence that programs like Climate Corps will push popular U.S. opinion toward a more universal acceptance of clean energy in the United States.

According to the Financial Times article, Climate Corps interns have saved businesses $1 billion in operational costs since the program's inception. In 2011 alone, the savings were $650 million and, most importantly, 440,000 tons of CO2, equivalent to removing 87,000 vehicles from the road.

To read the Financial Times article (Climate Corps is mentioned toward the bottom), click here. Free and fast registration on the Times' site allows a full read of Sarah Murray's article, "Green Technology: Clean Energy Feels the Pinch."

Mr Heck says: “Energy efficiency investments make economic sense and for people who can afford the investment to install them, they’re an even better deal now because they’re saving

Victory for L.A.A.N.E. and a Step Toward a Greener Economy

2011-12-07T15:39:00.008-05:00

Back in January 2011, I blogged about Overbrook grantee L.A.A.N.E., the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and the widely-read report that organization released through its Don't Waste L.A. program. The report detailed a litany of problems with the trash hauling system in Los Angeles -- everything from dirty, gas-guzzling trucks to poor working conditions to overlapping, disorganized, carbon-heavy truck routes. Several months later, on its June docket, the Overbrook board considered and agreed to support Don't Waste L.A.

It seems Overbrook's support, along with the efforts of a large coalition of funders, green groups and individual activists, has come to fruition. Yesterday's Daily News reported that the L.A. City Council voted to give private trash haulers in the city a five-year warning: the current "free for all" for city trash haulers will be converted into a private franchise system in which hauling companies will compete for the city's business. Requirements for contracts will include clean vehicles, good, green jobs for employees (including better wages and safer working conditions), more comprehensive, enforceable recycling, and re-tooled collection routes that eliminate overlapping to save on unnecessary emissions. Franchise fees will go back to the sanitation department of the city.

This is a solid victory for LAANE and its coalition partners! And, since one Don't Waste L.A. objective is to implement a program that can be replicated in other large metropolitan areas, the L.A. City Council decision is good news for the entire country.

WITNESS's new video toolkit

2011-12-07T15:30:00.001-05:00

WITNESS has released its new video toolkit, which consists of a series of videos, documents and personalized web pages designed to help Human Rights Defenders plan and film thoughtful, effective advocacy videos. With its commitment to new communications platforms and organizations that support Human Rights Defenders, The Overbrook Foundation is excited about the release of this internet tool and its potential impact on the human rights field and grassroots human rights advocacy work. After working on video advocacy projects with human rights-based organizations in 80 countries for over a decade, WITNESS is in an ideal position to share its best practices and lessons learned with organizations or citizen journalists who may be creating their first advocacy video. While WITNESS Staff may only have the time or resources to train a finite number of organizations, this series of 35 videos can be viewed by a much larger audience. As a result, WITNESS’s impact can grow and more activists will be able to take advantage of the organization’s expertise.

This toolkit includes step-by-step videos and online forms so that users can track their progress and consistently review the objectives of their videos to maintain their focus. It also helps individuals to identify their target audience and optimize the timing for their video’s release. Using interactive videos and a multitude of case studies, the toolkit addresses the need to craft smart objectives for the video, to identify a persuasive messenger and message in the videos, and to pinpoint the outcome or action they hope to inspire in viewers of the video. Additionally, these pages and videos helps users to tackle the difficult decisions of how to show their videos to the target audience and how to integrate this advocacy tool into broader campaigns for human rights. WITNESS continues to welcome feedback on these videos to improve the quality of the program and it plans to release the toolkit in several more languages in 2012. Learn more at http://videoplan.witness.org/.

(The information found in this blog post was either sent to us from WITNESS or found through the author’s personal exploration of the toolkit’s videos.)

DRI Director in Mexico Awarded National Youth Award

2011-11-30T11:13:00.001-05:00

Sofía Galván, the Director of Mexico and Central America for Disability Rights International (DRI), will receive the National Youth Award from the Mexican government in December. This award, Mexico’s highest public honor, is given to a young person whose career has already improved his/her communities and inspired others in his/her generation. Ms. Galván has been honored because of her work as a lawyer and advocate to defend, promote and educate others about human rights, including the human rights of adults and children with disabilities in Mexico through her work with Overbrook Foundation Grantee DRI. Her achievements include her support of the establishment of Colectivo Chuhcan, the first Mexican advocacy organization run by people with psychosocial disabilities, and her efforts to publicize the human rights abuses against people with disabilities living in psychiatric facilities, orphanages and other institutions to a larger public. This information has been documented in a recent DRI report, Abandoned & Disappeared: Mexico's Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities. After investigating abuses and contributing to the writing of this report, Galván will use it to train other human rights advocates and government officials so that they can protect this population and understand issues that are specific to Mexicans with disabilities. The Overbrook Foundation congratulates Ms. Galván on her award and her fight to defend human rights for the adults and children with disabilities who have been forgotten by others in their communities.

2012 Human Rights Institute at the Urban Justice Center

2011-11-29T09:43:00.008-05:00

The Urban Justice Center’s Human Rights Project has opened the application period for its 2012 Human Rights Institute. Over the course of this three-day fellowship, participants will learn how to incorporate a Human Rights framework into their own advocacy work around domestic economic and social justice issues. Not only will participants learn more about human rights treaties and arguments, but they will also be provided with concrete tools and methods for integrating these models into their own organizations and communications efforts.

This great opportunity will take place in New York City from March 28^th to March 30^th 2012. The deadline for applications is January 9, 2012 for those seeking scholarships and January 16, 2012 for those who will not ask for financial assistance.

As The Overbrook Foundation strongly supports the development of a United States Human Rights Movement, we believe that it is important for organizations like the Urban Justice Center to offer workshops and trainings in the use of human rights arguments for new activist leaders. In addition to providing the capacity for participants to teach the populations they work with or others in their own organizations, this fellowship has the potential to create valuable connections and partnerships between organizations across a variety of economic and social justice issue areas.

For more information or the application form, please consult the Human Rights Project’s website: http://www.hrpujc.org/ The information found on this blog post comes from this site and emails received from this grantee.

Recycling in the US - Job Creation and Environmental Protection

2011-11-29T09:42:00.006-05:00

On November 16, the United States Senate unanimously voted to pass Senate Resolution 251, which aims to increase and expand recycling programs across the United States. In response to slowing rates of increases in US recycling, this resolution expresses the Senate’s support for government policies that promote recycling by rewarding businesses and communities that choose to recycle their goods or create goods made from recycled products. The resolution also stresses the importance of investment in research and development to improve technologies for recycling materials and removing contaminant materials from products that currently prevent them from being recycled. This resolution emphasizes that growing the recycling sector will assist the American economy by creating jobs in the floundering American manufacturing sector.

Several of The Overbrook Foundation’s grantees supported the development of this resolution and took leadership roles in advocating for its support in Congress, including an initiative by the Environmental Paper Network’s RePaper Project, seeking a 75% paper recovery rate for recycling by 2015. In fact, you can learn more about this resolution and the next steps to promote recycling on the Environmental Paper Network’s blog, which also contains the press release from sponsoring Senators, Tom Carper and Olympia Snowe.

Additionally, Overbrook grantees have been involved with a new publication on recycling and its potential to create jobs, More Jobs, Less Pollution: Growing the Recycling Economy in the U.S. This report was released on November 14 by Overbrook grantees the NRDC (Natural Resource Defense Council) and GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) along with other partners from unions and environmentalist organizations. Through this publication, readers will acquire a greater understanding of why this is a critical moment for all Americans to advocate for and personally engage in recycling. It shows how an overall waste diversion rate (recycling rate) of 75% through 2030 will improve both our economic future and our environmental future. To put these numbers into perspective, the current overall waste diversion rate is 33% and if the level of growth in population, resource use and personal recycling remains constant, the overall waste diversion rate would reach 41% in 2030. Obviously, reaching these target levels of recycling would require policy shifts and individual lifestyle changes. However, the payoff would include the creation of 2.3 million jobs in the United States, lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions and of general pollution or toxin levels, and a decrease of ecological pressure associated with the depletion of nonrenewable resources. While this report contains information on environmental factors, it also intentionally taps into the current national attention on the economy by highlighting the potential creation of many more jobs if we change our disposal methods. For instance, waste management systems currently employ fewer individuals than recycling systems or plants manufacturing goods from recycled materials.

The Foundation is deeply concerned with sustainable consumption so we truly hope that this resolution is a step in the direction of increased attention to recycling issues. As echoed in the report, this is a critical moment where we need to grow recycling capacity rather than continuing to use incinerators or other inefficient waste disposal mechanisms in the United States. The inclusion of information on job creation may create a larger coalition of people willing to act on recycling and support the work of our grantees to improve recycling practices, recycling policy, and the implementation of environmentally-friendly packaging programs.

The Foundation Center's New Report on Social Justice Philanthropy

2011-11-28T10:29:00.002-05:00

As its title suggests, “Diminishing Dollars: The Impact of the 2008 Financial Crisis on the Field of Social Justice Philanthropy” explains the effect of the economic crisis on the US philanthropic community, a community which includes The Overbrook Foundation. This Foundation Center publication projects that foundations supporting social justice will only be able to return to 2008 funding levels in 2015. After polling several foundations, the Foundation Center found that small foundations (with less than $50 million in assets) struggled most to recover from the crisis and that they experienced a greater decrease in grantmaking dollars than larger foundations. Other findings reveal that nonprofit organizations have found it more difficult to attract new funders and that some foundations are unintentionally shrinking their endowments to continue promoting their mission and honoring obligations to traditional grantees.

Offering suggestions to funders dealing with these shifts in funding levels, the report recommends implementation of financial analysis that incorporates future assets and comprehensive grantmaking projections to manage volatile endowment levels. It also advises frequent and transparent communication between foundations and their grantees so that lower levels of support can be anticipated by grantees. Furthermore, the report's authors encourage foundations to provide financial management and resource development support to grantees so that these organizations can continue to function despite the reductions in foundation support.

This depiction of social justice philanthropy reinforces The Overbrook Foundation’s current focus on making extremely strategic funding choices, continuing with responsible budgetary planning and engaging in good communication with grantees organizations. While many of the findings and recommendations were known to us, the report has provided several interesting ideas and themes to consider over the next several years. In addition, it might serve as a good resource for Directors and grantees to further understand the challenges that face The Overbrook Foundation and other foundations in this economic climate.

Click here to read the full report: http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/diminishing_dollars2011.pdf

Human Rights Abuses in Mexico's "War on Drugs"

2011-11-16T18:08:00.000-05:00

On November 9, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report describing the rise in human rights abuses in Mexico since President Calderon launched the war on drugs and organized crime five years ago. This new report, called Neither Rights Nor Security Killings, Torture, and Disappearances in Mexico's "War on Drugs", follows the surge in violence in five states resulting from the actions of both drug cartels and government actors. HRW reveals that the government's public security policy has led to an increase in human rights violations, rather than accomplishing its intended goal of restoring and guarding public safety.

Based on credible evidence, the authors have identified 170 cases of torture, 39 "disappearances" and 24 extrajudicial killings. Many of these human rights abuses involved security forces and often included attempts to cover up these events rather than launching proper investigations. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch identified an increased scale of human rights abuses. For example, 4,803 complaints of abuses by soldiers against civilians have been filed with the Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission between 2007 and 2010 (up from 691 complaints between 2003 and 2006). Decrying the impunity of these abuses, Human Rights Watch investigates the failure of the government, security forces, prosecutors and medical advisers to challenge these actions. While this report does not ignore the violence stemming from the drug cartel's activities, it strives to show how those who claim to protect Mexican citizens have failed to enforce standards of due process or to investigate many of the abuses perpetrated against their constituents. The report also addresses the failure of Mexico's Human Rights Institutions to effectively help those who have been detained or killed or to support their families and friends, ignoring the suffering and serious consequences of trauma in this population. Additionally, HRW critiques the societal discourse that frames abuses like torture and disappearances as targeting only those who were mixed up in organized crime, when that is not always the case. A shift in this discourse and the efforts to help the families of victims is needed for adequate pressure to be put on government and military forces to stop the abuses.

Click on this link for the press release: http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/11/09/mexico-widespread-rights-abuses-war-drugs.

If you would like to view the full report, you can download it here: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/11/09/neither-rights-nor-security-0.

Environmentalists Block Keystone XL Pipeline!

2011-11-11T09:29:00.003-05:00

After months of following the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline, we are happy to write of a huge win for Americans and for the preservation of our environment. The Obama administration has announced that it will postpone any decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 election,. Many believe that this delay will essentially block the project from ever going forward. You can read more at the following link to the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/us/politics/administration-to-delay-pipeline-decision-past-12-election.html?_r=1&hp.

This victory reminds us at Overbrook of the importance of philanthropic giving when Foundation's are faced with time-critical projects at tipping points for domestic environmental progress. However, the real credit for this win goes to environmentalists. We particularly applaud the tireless work of Overbrook grantee 350.org and its Tar Sands Action project. Tar Sands Action's Bill McKibben explains that six months ago almost nobody had heard of TransCanada or the Keystone XL pipeline. In the past months, activists have successfully brought this subject to the attention of many Americans by incorporating their research on the environmental ramifications and their concerns over the government's response into the public debate. To achieve this change, the Tar Sands Action and its partners have created a powerful movement through collecting online pledges against the pipeline, helping to organize last weekend's march at the White House, mobilizing legislators at the state and national levels and bringing together unlikely partners to join in the fight. We can't wait to see what this energized group tackles next!