Agenda Item 2c3_Equity Mini-Grant Awardees — original pdf

Backup

Organization Project Description allgo’s QPOC Health and Healing Symposium will create a vital opportunity for Queer People of Color (QPOC) to connect to and benefit from culturally specific health and wellness information, resources, services, and practitioners, addressing the structural barriers that create significant health disparities for QPOC. Free health screenings: blood pressure, sugar/diabetes, HIV/STI testing; workshops: mental health, nutrition, wellness, harm reduction; and healing services: acupuncture, massage, y allgo In 2020, Austin Bat Cave’s (ABC) East Side onsite after- school program (East Side) will provide free one-on-one and small-group creative writing, tutoring, and homework instruction to 60 students from low-income families on the east side of Austin. We will serve 30 students each semester: 15 students from nearby Blackshear Elementary and 15 from Kealing Middle School. We will employ a 1:5 tutor-student ratio and our instructors will help students complete homework and learn the writing process. Austin Bat Cave Impact on Equity Research and experience demonstrate that culturally specific approaches are necessary to interrupt the ways that systemic racism, heterosexism, and transphobia impede full participation in the benefits of health and wellness services and increase the allostatic load for those bearing the brunt of these oppressions. Through this project, QPOC will be able to create meaningful connections with local QPOC health and wellness practitioners while also receiving direct health services and current culturally specific research based health and wellness information that will have long lasting benefits and lead to life changing outcomes. With approximately 72 percent of students from our partner schools at-risk and 83 percent economically disadvantaged, ABC programs address an accessibility gap in Austin, which was named the most economically segregated major metro area in the U.S. (Badger, 2015). Our mission is to empower young voices and to create educational opportunities for those who have experienced marginalization due to economic status or identity-based discrimination and create an inclusive arts community. Youth arts education programs like ABC’s have been proven to be the most significant predictor of future arts creation and arts attendance (NEA, February 2011). In 2020, 60 under-served youth will participate in the East Side program. East Side creates a safe space and positive learning environment for youth during the high crime after- school hours, thus keeping our community safer, and sparks in our students a lifelong pursuit of arts experiences and creation. Outcome Areas Impacted Funding Amount Economic Opportunity and Affordability; Culture and Lifelong Learning; Health and Environment; Safety $10,000 Culture and Lifelong Learning $9,845 This initiative directly aligns with the Roundtable’s strategic goals to engage the Austin/Travis County community to better understand the impacts of incarceration and successful reentry, and to eliminate unnecessary collateral consequences and social stigma that impede reintegration and increase the likelihood of recidivism. This initiative also aligns with the City of Austin’s aim to fund projects focused on eliminating structural barriers and/or improving the quality of life for the City’s most vulnerable populations. The Roundtable’s mission is to be a robust collaborative promoting safe and healthy communities through effective reentry and reintegration of formerly incarcerated persons and individuals with criminal histories in Travis County. We envision the following impacts of our work: policy and practice changes that lead to reductions in recidivism and revocations from community supervision with the ultimate aim of reducing the number of incarcerated persons in Travis County; improved access to housing, job opportunities, and physical and behavioral health care for persons with criminal backgrounds in Travis County; and shifted public perception of people with criminal justice involvement so that every person in Travis County understands that people with criminal histories are contributing members of society. The Reentry Roundtable is planning to host a community reentry simulation event targeting attendance by criminal justice system leaders, area employers, local policymakers and community leaders. The goal of the simulation is to help community members and decision makers gain an understanding of the significant obstacles faced by persons upon release from incarceration, and to highlight the role of system coordination and planning to promote successful reentry. Austin/Travis County Reentry Roundtable Taking applications from high school youth and adults from 78744 to attend a 2 weekend academy to visit college campuses and hear from previous and current community civic leaders in 78744 to build their leadership skills to be the next generation of leaders and to obtain a college degree. The 78744 area known as Dove Springs per the 2017 Us Census states only 6% of people from age 18-24 have a college degree of the 5,062 living in 78744. This academy will help this number grow which will in turn increase their income. Dove Springs Proud Culture and Lifelong Learning; Safety; Government that Works for All Economic Opportunity and Affordability; Culture and Lifelong Learning; Government that Works for All $10,000 $9,845 EGBI proposes to deliver the 16-week Entrepreneurship4All (E4All) in Spanish in 2020 for 10 - 16 like-minded entrepreneurs who would benefit from peer-to-peer support to grow or expand their work. The program includes a Kickoff; 3 Workshops; and Cohort, a gently-facilitated opportunity to design a 90-day plan and meet weekly to problem solve with your peers and celebrate successes with each other. The first E4All in English will occur in the fall of 2019. Economic Growth Business Incubator Family Eldercare will facilitate quarterly community meetings, engaging the expertise and lived experience of local care attendants to identify shared challenges and goals to address health and income inequities. Meetings will include clips of the CARE documentary (caredocumentary.com) as well as discussions led by the participants. Results will include a final report with recommendations as well as the launch of an innovative grassroots movement in Austin, led for and by care attendants. Family Eldercare EGBI provides training, coaching and support services to aspiring and existing business owners to start or grow their business, folks who face barriers like language, finances and knowledge. Our goal is for clients to be profitable, sustainable and an asset to the community. Last year alone, we served almost 300 clients of which 2/3rds were women, 2/3rds were Hispanic, and 2/3rds had income less than 80% of area median income. Our services are available in English and Spanish. Our clients dream of succeeding with lifestyle businesses in areas such as landscaping, construction, cleaning, food, arts and crafts, health and wellness, etc. Care attendants and their clients are often forgotten in our communities. Despite being one of the fastest growing professions, more than half of care attendants earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level. Additionally, this workforce is primarily composed of women of color and immigrant women who experience the intersection of structural racism and gender inequity. As a result of these and other stressors, they face physical and mental health issues which can in turn affect the quality of care they are able to provide to their clients. "Giving Care Attendants a Voice" will promote economic opportunity and health by advocating that care attendants are paid fair wages and that their clients receive improved quality of care. Our goal is to bring people together around a meal, giving them a voice to share what needs to be changed and how we can move forward together. Economic Opportunity and Affordability $7,500 Economic Opportunity and Affordability; Health and Environment $7,810 To strengthen that pipeline from Latinitas clubs, camps, workshops and conferences to jobs in Austin’s economic sector, this year Latinitas launched its first certification program in coding: Code Chica. 10-20 teen graduates leave this 8-week advanced coding ramp up certification, 4 times a year, knowing how to develop a website from conception to code, a network of tech professionals from some of the nation's biggest companies and access to available coding school scholarships for women. The future is female and with 80% of Austin ISD’s incoming kindergarten being Latino that female in Austin is Latina. Austin is #1 for places to live, startups and for global tech companies to take root. Yet, Latinas make up less than 1% of Austin’s tech workforce, less than 3% of media jobs and are sparsely represented in the city’s most thriving economic sectors and leadership positions. Latinitas understands it takes more than advertising a coding class to get girls interested in tech and that the challenges of inclusivity in the tech sector is a real hurdle for girls and women of color - that 41% of women leave computer science fields as a result of discrimination. Latinitas Economic Opportunity and Affordability $10,000