Hunger Knows No Recession

Almost every day New Yorkers pass by someone asking for money, in the subway, on the sidewalk, in the park. Homelessness, hunger and persistent poverty are so visible we sometimes literally trip over the poor. Most of us look the other way not because we don’t care, but because solutions to these problems seem overwhelming. More than a million people are hungry and can’t afford to buy food in New York – and that’s why Camino PR was honored to take on a client at the forefront of both alleviating hunger and offering real and compassionate help that creates a path out of poverty.

Camino client Yorkville Common Pantry (YCP) provides millions of groceries and meals each year as the largest single site for alleviating hunger in New York. But the YCP mission is not only to provide emergency food for a family, it is also to provide the realistic and compassionate care that families need to move out of poverty. Check out this video of Halana Richardson talking about YCP– it’s worth taking a few minutes to hear her story to understand the complexity of hunger in America.

As the job market worsens, YCP estimates that it will have a sharp increase of 19% in the number of people who face hunger in the coming year. Camino PR’s Andrea Hagelgans and Pablo Toledo went to YCP to help them tell their story to NBC News for a special on hunger in America. Here’s a behind-the-scenes clip of the filming.

Behind The Scenes with The Yorkville Common Pantry from Camino PR on Vimeo.

YCP is New York City’s unique provider of assistance to the hungry, including providing more groceries and meals at a single site than any other program, and helping people become more economically stable by offering assistance with obtaining food stamps and housing, preparing for employment with basic services like showers and job counseling, among other practical and compassionate services. They even provide cooking classes to make help people eat healthy and stretch food stamp dollars. Camino PR was thrilled to partner with a community organization that takes a holistic and compassionate approach to hunger.

YCP won the prestigious Robin Hood Heroes award this month, which includes a $50,000 grant. That’s a huge honor, but more donations are needed to meet the skyrocketing need for basic food assistance. According to Stephen Grimaldi, executive director of YCP, “in this dismal economic climate many families throughout New York City face a bare table. Families of all means should be able to celebrate the holidays without choosing between paying rent or buying food.”

This holiday season consider supporting Yorkville Common Pantry or local food banks in your area.

Talking about abortion in Mexico

Mexico City pays for early abortion for any women who seeks it.  Contrast that to the U.S. healthcare reform efforts, which have devolved into a debate over how best to reassure taxpayers that federal funds will not be used to pay for women to access abortion.

We can learn a lot by studying the communications strategies of Mexican health advocates, who a few years ago defied all odds and legalized first trimester abortion in Mexico City. “We didn’t take the streets, we took the media”, observed Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes, one of the primary leaders of the Mexican legalization movement.

We recently sat down with Sanchez Fuentes when she was an honored guest speaker at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health gala.  We asked her to talk about what communications strategies broke through the political and religious barriers that had thwarted efforts for decades to legalize abortion anywhere in Mexico. GIRE, the national Mexican organization headed by Sanchez Fuentes, has a long road ahead to further liberalize legal access to abortion in Mexico.  The political and legal backlash to the Mexico City gains in other Mexican localities have been severe.  But what is clear is that GIRE and their allies are walking down a different message road than U.S.-based abortion supporters, and creating public support for legal abortion within a very different values context.

You can watch the interview with Sanchez Fuentes here.

The first thing that might surprise you is the amount of support that exists for legal abortion among Mexicans.  In the United States, the conventional wisdom often is that Mexicans on both sides of the border are guided by Catholic doctrine on abortion.  While the influence of Catholic leadership must be seriously considered, this blanket assumption needs another look.  A recent poll by the Mexican government found that 62% of Mexicans say they “don’t believe the government should intervene in a woman’s right to choose.”  In Mexico City, a poll commissioned by the Population Council found that  66% of residents “thought the city’s decriminalization laws signaled a step forward for the country”.  In media interviews, Catholic leaders in Mexico bemoaned the practice of Catholics straying from church doctrine and warned healthcare providers that they will go to hell for providing abortion.  In what may be a sign of Catholics separating their decisions on abortion from their religious beliefs, one Catholic abortion provider in Mexico City said she may end up going to hell, but not for providing abortion care.

Recent polls in the United States show some movement in public opinion among Latinos, but more research is needed to fully understand the real views of this demographic. Pew’s latest poll on abortion attitudes found that “while whites have become significantly more pro-life, the movement among Hispanics has been primarily into the undecided camp”.

Sanchez Fuentes described what has – and what has not – been effective in abortion messaging among Mexicans.  Their best message focused on the decision, and who had the right to make it.  This dialogue was grounded in human rights language, connecting human values to the decision-making process.  Rather than focusing on an individualistic perspective, such as the interruption of a life plan, their messages focused on the complexity of the decision, such as when and how to start a family.  They took on opponents with a messaging campaign about “life” and “family”  taking ownership of the complexity of those concepts.

These message strategies are in synch with a recent worldwide survey of attitudes about human rights.  Mexico led the world in support for women’s right to have full equality compared to men as well as the desire to have government play a larger role in preventing discrimination against women.  In contrast, respondents in the U.S. strongly endorsed the concept of gender equality but did not favor greater government efforts to achieve equality.  A survey of attitudes is a great distance from lived realities, but it may demonstrate an opportunity to center reproductive health access in a human rights message model.

Sanchez Fuentes suggests that U.S. and Mexican movement leaders come together to learn from each other.  A cross-border summit on messaging and reproductive health could, among other things, help us deepen our understanding of promoting a values-based discussion in political climates that are deeply impacted by religious doctrine.  As Mexico lurches forward in liberalizing abortion access while the United States teeters on the edge of backsliding, such a cross-border convening could be a powerful strategic investment.

CNN.com exclusive: Latinas Need Voice In Abortion Debate By Silvia Henriquez, NLIRH!

In this exclusive Op-Ed for CNN.com/Opinion, read by 40 million people every month, Ms. Henriquez highlights the growing political power of Latinas and demands reproductive justice for the millions of women across the United States in danger of losing abortion coverage as a result of anti-choice politics in health care reform.
“Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from Latinas and their families who were outraged by proposed amendments that could potentially roll back our ability to access safe abortion care. This amendment would make a legal medical procedure financially inaccessible for many women – even those who prior to health care reform had abortion coverage through their own insurance if that insurance is then offered in the public exchange.

“Latinas called their senators and wrote letters on behalf of daughters, sisters, aunts and mothers in their communities, urging policy makers to vote for health care reform that includes coverage for abortion, and provides health care access for immigrants.

“Opponents argue that more women will be covered under overall health care reform, as if that should satisfy us. The fact remains: if millions of low-and moderate income women covered under a new federally subsidized health system can’t access abortion care from an insurance plan bought even partly with federal support, policy makers are essentially telling them that they do not matter—that the reality of their lives must be ignored.  The legacy of health care reform should not be to send women back into the shadows for a procedure allowed under U.S. law. We have worked too hard to reform our health care system for women to be worse off than they were before.”

Check out the full piece at http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/11/henriquez.latina.abortion/index.html

CNN.com/Opinion features national voices including Congress members, journalists, and academics.

And last week’s New York Times published a Letter to the Editor from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH)!  In response to Cardinal Mahony’s earlier Op-Ed, Coverage without Borders, Silvia Henriquez wrote, “The lesson learned from the last three decades of misguided federal policy on abortion is that creating a two-tier system of access to health care is unfair, punitive and harmful.”

Here’s the full letter:

To the Editor:

Re “Coverage Without Borders,” by Roger Mahony (Op-Ed, Dec. 8):

Cardinal Mahony’s article in favor of health care access for immigrants is an important message to elected officials grappling with reform legislation. Sadly, I couldn’t help note the irony of advocating on behalf of immigrants, while in the same breath urging policy makers to deny reproductive health care for millions of women. Over half of all immigrants are women.

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health knows very well the devastating impact of making abortion elusive for those who can’t pay with personal funds. Latinas are among the poorest in this country and tend to lack access to health insurance in higher numbers than other groups. In fact, one in four women living in poverty who wants to choose abortion can’t because politicians prevent federal tax dollars from covering the procedure.

The lesson learned from the last three decades of misguided federal policy on abortion is that creating a two-tier system of access to health care is unfair, punitive and harmful.

To quote Cardinal Mahony: “To allow people’s basic health needs to be trumped by divisive politics violates American standards of decency and compassion.” We couldn’t agree more.

Silvia Henriquez
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
New York, NY

Congratulations to NLIRH and its campaign for real health care reform for women and immigrants.

CPR connects California reproductive justice issues on HuffPo-LA

Camino client California Latinas for Reproductive Justice (CLRJ) debuts today on HuffPost-L.A. helping to launch the new site! CLRJ executive director takes a hard look at the local impact of  national health care reform debates on women and immigrants, particularly California Latinas, in Stupak: The Worst Case Scenarios for Latinas.  CLRJ and ACCESS/Women’s Health Coalition recently held a successful statewide call-in day of action to raise California voices to demand health care reform efforts include the needs of women and immigrant communities.

Last week, The Huffington Post launched HuffPost L.A., a new site designed to examine California and Los Angeles politics and culture. According to Arianna Huffington, “we intend to make HuffPost LA a must-click destination for engaged Angelenos looking to keep up with the latest on all things LA. And we’ll share the stories of the people whose lives are affected by the issues in the news: foreclosed homeowners, families battling wildfires in their neighborhoods or water main breaks in their front yards, parents searching for the best schools, and small business owners driving the city’s economic recovery.” Recent posts include those by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and other political, entertainment, and non profit figures in Los Angeles and California.

Congratulations CLRJ!

Click here to read the full post.

Camino Client Debuts on Huffington Post

Camino client NLIRH debuts today on The Huffington Post, the most prominent liberal blog in the nation with an estimated  5.6 million visitors.  In 2008, The Huffington Post gained the most news readers of all news outlets.  Sylvia Henriquez made a forceful case in her op ed for changing the national dialogue on teen sexuality.  The article stems from their recently published White Paper on Latina Pregnancy, which makes the case for a reproductive justice framework.  Congratulations  National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health!   Click here for the full article.

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