Fostering equity, racial healing and keeping children healthy
December 16, 2022
In 2021, Native American women working full-time were paid about $0.57 for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men, reports the National Women’s Law Center. In 2020, the difference was $0.60. WKKF grantee Native Women Lead addresses this worsening wage inequality for Native women by enabling economic mobility. Thanks to the organization’s Matriarch Creative Fund and Restorative Fund, Indigenous women entrepreneurs can access low-interest loans to build their small businesses in all industries, including photography and fashion. Indigenous women-led nonprofit awarded $10 million in national #EqualityCantWait Challenge! last year that helped launch “The Future Is Indigenous Women” initiative, which aims to build support systems for Indigenous women in business through fellowships, training, loans and other resources.
Detroit beneficiary North End Woodward Community Coalition (NEWCC) provides free Internet access to 400 families from hubs installed in local neighborhoods in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. NEWCC’s Equitable Internet Initiative is doing this to combat digital redlining, the practice of Internet service providers offering extremely slow Internet speeds to communities where people of color live at similar rates charged in nearby affluent communities for much faster speeds.
An inspiring example of racial healing and narrative change is unfolding in Chicago. Little Black Pearl is a cultural arts center rooted in the Black community in the North Kenwood Oakland neighborhood. Its founder, Monica Haslip, who is also a racial healing practitioner and a long-term partner in WKKF’s national Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation efforts, is establishing a new collective space that invites people to “feel a sense of belonging to feel in an environment that is creative and inspiring.”
Zeynep Tufekci wrote a column about Partners in Health (PIH) co-founder Paul Farmer, who died unexpectedly early this year. The piece first appeared in The New York Times and was republished in The Berkshire Eagle. Tufekci became a dedicated donor to PIH after reading about the organization’s pioneering work in Haiti and elsewhere in Farmer’s 2003 biography, “Mountains Beyond Mountains.” Tufekci wrote, “I am writing my check to PIH not only because of their good work in some of the most difficult places around the world, but also in the hope that Paul Farmer’s legacy of treatment, respect and empowerment to all patients may endure and even flourish.” WKKF is a long-time supporter of PIH’s work in Haiti.
A federal policy change during the pandemic helped keep millions of children enrolled in Medicaid, leading to a decline in uninsured children across America. A new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families, a WKKF grantee, highlights this improvement as a “bright spot during the dark days of the pandemic,” according to Joan Alker, executive director of the center and lead author. of the report. Children in Oklahoma saw the biggest improvement in the nation, thanks to Medicaid expansion and ongoing Medicaid coverage measures. Still, children are at risk of losing coverage when federal protections expire, expected sometime in 2023.
How can cities help build a more resilient food system? By prioritizing financial support for more local “farm-to-fork” supply chains, environmental sustainability, nutrition and worker and community well-being. This is according to Paula Daniels, co-founder of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a WKKF beneficiary. A total of 24 cities and 60 public institutions, including school districts, are leading the way with more than $1 billion in food purchases aimed at rethinking the way food procurement can transform a system.
