Activism Blog 2

Activism:  YAYA and many members of the global class traveled to the farmworker community of Fellsmere and worked in their organic community garden. We worked hard on the plot of land and were able to clear it of most trash, weeds, and large roots and twigs. We shared two meals with many members of the community and had a soccer game with the Fellsmere kids. We were successful in our fundraising and were able to donate several tools to the community, which we used while working in the garden.

Our material accomplishments were met by showing up to work, with tools, however my real goal in the trip was to communicate with the people that I met in Fellsmere. I feel that I got a really good start creating a dialogue with the Fellsmere community; I introduced myself to Yolanda, the leader of the community garden, and made sure to express my gratitude to her and Fellsmere for their accommodation and hospitality, particularly for the food she made for us from ingredients that she grew. If you feed me, I will never forget you. Now that I’m learning more about food security in relation to both the farmworker movement and transnational feminism, I am able to observe Yolanda’s work from a broader, more contextual standpoint, and take notes on how she is working from local to global, how she is building her own community, and solidarity networks with others.

Reflection:  The garden is located on an empty plot of land on a generic block in Fellsmere.  Yolanda’s daughters and nieces, who sustain the garden, see the importance of involving the neighboring homes in the project, and took a small group of class members on a door-knocking trip around the block. Ashleigh and I were asked to go because the women thought that because we are both generally good-natured and easy to talk to, we could be assets in speaking to younger members of the community and expressing the importance of their involvement in the garden project.

This situation is one concrete example of a trend I’ve been noticing in my experiences with activism: communication is probably the most important skill in doing this work. I feel really encouraged while watching Yolanda organize; she is not an intimidating figure. She is kind, loving, funny, and caring. She is also incredibly confident in what she does, and she expects us to acknowledge her and learn from her. Naples and Desai stress “the empowerment of women in local communities that result from their activist engagement in transnational networks and local community actions” (Naples and Desai 37). I see this at work in Fellsmere, and I see it in myself in my involvement with YAYA.

Reciprocity:  Becoming involved with YAYA has given me opportunity to meet and learn from women like Yolanda from Fellsmere and Sylvia from AMA, the Alliance of Active Women. These women DO global and transnational feminism every day. They show me what it can look like. Learning what is effective in terms of communication and organizing through lived experience, and seeing that I have some of those skills and know how I can improve them, is incredibly empowering.

Naples, Nancy A. and Desai, Manisha. “Women’s Local and Translocal Responses.”

Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and

Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York:

Routledge, 2002. 34-41. Print.

Girls Like Us Assignment 1

“When we think about children who are sexually exploited in other countries, we acknowledge the socioeconomic dynamics that contribute to their exploitation—the impact of poverty, of war, of the sex industry” (Lloyd 34).

This quotes is referring to the differences in the construction of the sex industry at a global level, where it is viewed as an issue of trafficking of human victims who are exploited, and at a national level, where here it is an issue of sex workers and prostitutes who have chosen this as their profession.

Denying the existence of systems of oppression relating to sex workers in the US is a reflection of classism and racism. There is an idea in this country that the poor are in such a state because they are lazy or happy in that position, and could choose social mobility if they wanted. This is also a sex-negative society that stigmatizes anything outside of the heteronormative Christian image of sex. The illusion of choice is convenient for US society, as it allows us to criminalize victims of sex trafficking and violence and lock them away, out of our sight.

It is not inherently bad that we view children who are sexually exploited in other countries as victims, however it is problematic that we do not extend this to children here. This one-sided view reinforces a hierarchy of nation and culture, constructing global victims as more vulnerable and in need of protection. This hierarchy can be seen on many levels, one being the constructed difference between victims and criminals, applying choice to criminals who may not have any, while denying choice to the victim, who has been made helpless. This helplessness is very problematic in that it denies agency, as “victimhood absolves us from having to decide to have good lives” (Morales 284). This denial of choice to the global victim constructs a person who is already irreparably damaged, unable to attain humanity because of their abuse, and because they never had any in the first place, being from “that part of the world.” The US child prostitute, who is rarely viewed as a child, is automatically attributed the autonomy of choice because of her/his higher place in the hierarchy of national and socioeconomic location. It is this denial of victimhood that disallows her/him to achieve autonomy by choosing to no longer be a victim.

I see this same hierarchy existing within the context of good vs. bad victims. To be a good victim means that you have to be international, someone who has been kidnapped and moved for exploitation, and is completely in the hands of the benevolent US government, who will rescue them. A bad victim resists the figures of authority in the US and tries to blame society for their situation, rather than admitting that it was their bad choice to enter such a disgusting line of work.

I noticed the hierarchy in the article we read in class, when Petro claims that the exploitation of the images of the women is “more troubling” when done by Rachel Lloyd than by Joan Rivers (Petro 1). This assumes that experience is quantifiable and that proximity to the issue of human trafficking is measurable. This statement places more responsibility on Rachel Lloyd and others with first-hand experience to “tell their own stories” and to do it more correctly than every one else in the world, who are all implicated in this system.

Lloyd, Rachel. Girls Like Us. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. Print

Morales, Aurora Levins. “Radial Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood.” Women’s Lives:

Multicultural Perspectives. By Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 283-284. Print.

Petro, Melissa. "The H-Word: Rachel Lloyd vs. The Fashion Police." Bitch Media. Bitch

Magazine, 6 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-h-word-rachel-lloyd-vsjoan-rivers-the-fashion-police>.

Campus Engagement 2

YAYA held Part 2 of their event, Bridging Communities: LGBTQ and Immigrants, its purpose to show the intersections between the issues faced by both communities. Part 2 consisted of a discussion panel of undocumented persons, people who have undocumented family members, and queer individuals. After the panel, I still feel that these intersections could be dismantled further, so I’m glad that YAYA has decided to continue with the series.

Panel members talked about personal experiences with immigration, detainment, and the Secure Communities Program. I hear many nightmarish stories about immigration and detainment nightmares, but they’ve been just that—nightmares, stories that scare you, but from which you wake, into a world where the terrible isn’t real, it doesn’t exist. I have always had the privilege of closing the paper, turning off the tv or radio, and having to face no other reminders of issues of immigration and detainment.

People hear stories like this: a man, who had valid, legal visa to live and work in this country, was detained after failing to switch lanes with a blinker, confused for another man with the same name, held in a detainment center for eight months, during which time he could not see his wife or two young children, causing him to lose his business.

But now I hear this story, and its told to me by my friend, about his uncle, who lives where I live, and I feel the bad thing from that dream, the sad ending, creeping closer to me. As if I were ever apart from it. I keep having to remind myself that terrible thing, always allowed to seem so far away, has been here the whole time, I was just not looking at it.

On one level I know that I am implicated within the system that allows for such failures such as our current immigration system. It’s a challenge, however, to precisely identify my place within this operation. I don’t just want to be sympathetic to a cause; I need to know my implications—what’s at stake for everyone?

The structure of this event—analyzing immigration through the lens of the LGBTQ movement—benefits me by using concepts that I am familiar with within LGBTQ issues and applies them to immigration, with which I am less familiar with at a macro level.

Detainment and deportation doesn’t happen exclusively to those who are undocumented. While this rhetorical path doesn’t begin to address the flaws in the immigration system as a whole, the current system has obvious hypocritical failures.

A system with so many inherent flaws that allows for such error, and is built to sustain the loss of human life and well being that it causes, is inevitably unjust.

I can see parallels between immigration and detainment failures and the recent rise in LGBTQ teen suicides. The schools resist a change in the dialogue about bullying, preaching tolerance rather than acceptance, at best leading to an outcome of benign ostracization or tokenization based on media-enforced stereotypes. But when kids end their lives after no action is taken to stop daily harassment, let alone cycles of othering, fetishizing, and criminalization, deaths are labeled isolated incidents, happening because of the failure of an individual and their family. If any external blame is placed, it’s on one teacher or one peer, who is just another child existing in the same system of abuse and oppression.

School bullying seems very similar to immigration in that both involve systems that rely on discrimination and fear within the most vulnerable. The dominant party feels safer with ‘the others’ out of the community, either physically removed or socially outcast.  

I think I’m going to suggest this for Part 3 of Bridging Communities, as something to investigate further... 

Activism Blog Post 1

Activism

My contact with the community partner YAYA has increased recently, as I am now the Vice President of YAYA. I now attend all YAYA meetings and events, help to plan, facilitate, and coordinate these events and meetings, and make calls to all members, including members of the Global class, to remind people of events.

I wrote a reflective report for the YAYA website on Part 1 of Bridging Communities: LGBTQ and Immigrants, an event for which I was also the designated photographer. Later in the week was Part 2 of Bridging Communities. I arrived early to help with set-up and was stationed at the welcoming table. It was my responsibility to explain what YAYA is and does and collect sign-ons, or the names and contact information of those interested in the organization. This was a good opportunity to practice my “rap,” or very brief but comprehensive synopsis of YAYA.

One interesting new aspect I’ve noticed recently is the change in my relationship between YAYA and the Global class. When I make phone calls for YAYA I develop a certain “phone voice,” which is very different in tone and formality from my usual way of speaking. Interpersonal relationships between women’s studies peers are already unique, as you may or may not/NOT be friends outside of the classroom, but still generally maintain a respectful and academic tone in the classroom. Through this project I have developed closer relationships to many of my classmates, but now that I speak to them at times as a representative of YAYA, a new layer of professionalism must be navigated through my communication.

Reflection

This week I encountered many instances where I could see the politics of naming at work. Every week I talk to my mom on the phone and update her on what I’ve been doing; she’s really proud of me this semester and likes to learn about the issues I’ve been learning about/working on “in all of those clubs I’m in,” as she puts it. I told her about the Bridging Communities event and tried to explain how LGBTQ and im/migrant issues intersect. Discounting my family’s numerous discussions on the T and Q in LGBTQ (these always happen at Ling’s Chinese Buffet and involve 5 outspoken Jews violently/valiantly wielding chopsticks, in the name of Western Science), I notice a problem when my mom uses the words “migrant” and “immigrant” interchangeably when talking about all farmworkers. I have a difficult time explaining to her how to use these words “with a sensitivity to the contestations surrounding their usage and an awareness of how “relations of ruling” infuses all attempts to represent diverse…lives and diverse locations with a singular categorization” (Naples 5) without sounding like a textbook, especially when I address the issue as a language problem, to which she responds “you know what I mean.” I need to connect the role of language in systemic oppression to better explain these issues.

Reciprocity

Through this service learning project I have gained invaluable experiences in leadership and organizing, as well as new friends who are inspiring to work with, that challenge me to think critically on the ways I view race, class, feminism, and any other issues in transnational feminism. This class has opened up a literal world of opportunities to me, provided me with access to bases of knowledge that I can explore and continue to grow from for the rest of my life.

Naples, Nancy A. "Changing the Terms: Community Activism, Globalization, and

the Dilemmas of Transnational Feminist Praxis." Women's Activism and

Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By

Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 3-14.

Print.

Campus Engagement Reflection: CIW Fast for Fair Food

Emily Helm

WST 4415

Prof. Tweed

March 18, 2012

         During the week of Spring Break I participated in the Coalition of Immokalee Worker’s Fast for Fair Food outside of Publix Headquarters in Lakeland. I fasted in solidarity for six days, before breaking my fast with bread handed to me by Ethel Kennedy. Going in to the fast I experienced a lot of apprehension; I wasn’t sure why I was participating and was unsure of the integrity of my motives. I felt that my involvement was necessary because of my deep implication in the issue as a member of the Lakeland community, but I was concerned that I was being driven entirely out of guilt.

         Over the course of the week I gained an incredible amount of knowledge and insight into the farmworker movement, which encompasses a large number of global issues including fair wages, working, living, and health conditions, women’s rights, mother’s rights, and basic human freedom. It was really vital that I experience these issues. I was able to witness this movement, rather than just reading about global and transnational feminist issues in a text.

         I participated in global and transnational feminism by occupying space and being a physical presence. I literally joined them where they were at and worked with them, allowing the CIW to lead me against an issue. I showed solidarity by not allowing myself to be made complicit in farmworker exploitation.

         One day the coalition members led a workshop on the operation of the CIW. Their organizational structure consists of over 4,000 members headed by a small, core group of leaders, within which there is no hierarchy. These leaders rotate positions, which enables them to learn diverse responsibilities and organizational tactics. They encourage members and allies to take on leadership and responsibility, which builds a sense of empowerment. I experienced this firsthand: because of my community ties they asked me to speak to media about why I was participating in the fast. They worked with me to develop my own ideas into statements that reflect the CIW’s mission in a strategic fashion. They made me feel like I had an important role in their mission, as if there was something to be done that could only be accomplished by me, personally. This was really empowering, and has encouraged me to continue working with them and other farmworker and immigrant-issue organizations.

         It was really interesting to see how language plays into their mission. When naming their event and speaking to the media, they don’t use the term “hunger strike.” Rather, they call it “fast for fair food.” “Strike” connotes unions and communist revolution for some people, whereas “fast” is a term used more often for religious actions and spiritual cleansing. Using “fair food” instead of “wage increases” places focus on correcting injustice, rather than solving a labor dispute. When developing my press statements I was discouraged from using the term oppression. “It’s not that ‘oppression’ is an incorrect term,” said the Reverend Noelle Damico, who helped me work out my ideas, “we know that it absolutely is oppression. But when people hear that term, they think of radical uprisings, and that scares them.”

I have so much more to say about this, but I’ve already passed my word count, which is upsetting.

Revised SL Proposal

Service Learning Proposal

Emily Helm

March 16, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 4415

Mission Statement:

To fight for agricultural justice and improvement of women’s rights in the farmworker community through fundraising and volunteering with YAYA and communication and cooperation with our [to be determined] global partner.

Organizational Structure:

Secretary: record keeping (includes tracking attendance), maintenance of Google group

Scheduler: maintains Google calendar and plans attendance to events

Task-based committees:

• Headed by a Committee Chairperson who acts as the liaison for the committee and ensures efficiency of meetings

Community partner liaisons (2): communicate with community partners and attend YAYA meetings

Global partner liaisons (2): work with fundraising committee

Ethics Committee (3): ensures mindful action, implements “three strike” policy

Three Strike Policy:

• Failure to complete a task or attend a designated event results in one strike
• First and second strikes result in voting restrictions
• Three strikes results in a meeting with the ethics committee and Professor Tweed

Fundraising Organizers (4): responsible for coordinating an event and/or delegating responsibilities to other members to ensure that we are able to provide at least $190 (for food), 19 rakes and 19 shovels to YAYA for the community garden project.

Every member is accountable for their own attendance and participation. If a member is unable to attend an event, they must notify the scheduler. The Ethics Committee and “three strike” policy were conceived to deal with situations in which a member fails to be accountable for themselves.

Our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for, our community. We have chosen this organizational strategy because, based on the NGOs that have come before us, operating through task-based committees (where personal accountability and leadership can foster) promotes efficiency in goal achievement. Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN), as discussed in Women’s Activism and Globalization, have a similar mission. One of their goals is to “instigate change” by building community and sustaining relationships with farmworkers (144).

We also have an ethics committee to monitor our progress. In “Unlikely Godmother,” Margaret Snyder characterizes the United Nations as a “godmother,” which acted as a guardian and advocate for women’s issues (25). Our ethics committee is cognate to the UN, in that it will monitor the efficacy and ethical compliance of our project.

We are facing the global challenge of migrant farmworker rights based on local realities, specifically the lack of resources to farmworkers in the community of Fellsmere, FL. We will be participating in discussion that takes place on a global level with our global partner. By building solidarity between our local and global partners, and ourselves, we will either discover or develop new ideas to cater to the needs of the farmworker population.

Group effectiveness will be measured by involvement of the majority of class members at each event, as well as our ability to fulfill each of the goals we have set. We are also considering the individual gains of each class member, outside of the group as a whole, to be an accomplishment of overall group effectiveness. This includes phone banking with YAYA, fundraising, and planning. We will also strive to maintain sincere communication and ethical interactions with each other and our community partners. We will assess ourselves via individual surveys on group effectiveness.

Community Partner/Global Theme Profile:

We propose to address the larger systemic issues of the treatment and unfair conditions of farmworkers, focusing specifically on women farmworkers. We know that "women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neoliberalism and patriarchy" (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny those who produce the food basic, equal access to the products they produce. As the price of food increases and becomes more scarce, women become malnourished, "as they eat last after providing for their children and family members" (Desai 21). One possible way of addressing this issue is to "produce food for local consumption" (Desai 24). To lay a foundation for both environmental and production sustainability, it is key that the community eats the food it grows. Local production and consumption can also indirectly address situations of "unsustainable exploitation of workers," who are denied not only equal access to food, but also other resources, such as safe housing and acceptable working conditions (Two Years 1). By establishing themselves as producers of their own food and giving value and recognition to both the unpaid and poorly paid labor, farmworkers can pave the way for change in regard to equal access and fair treatment.

We have not yet been able to contact a global partner. However, when we do, we will be able to find out more about their needs and goals as they relate to our own and therefore participate in both shared learning and activism.

By working in solidarity with YAYA, we are supporting activism enacted “to change the oppressive social, political and economic conditions of farmworkers” (“About”). Human rights violations, such as those our local farmworkers face, are worldwide issues and are experienced in many forms across many communities. While YAYA is “[i]nspired by the principles of nonviolence of the farmworker movement,” we are inspired by the efforts of YAYA and the organization’s slant towards working with, not simply for farmworker communities (“About”). As we work with each other and with YAYA, we will cultivate ethical activism through focusing on our communicative and social interactions.

We experience many obstacles surrounding the politics of internal organization, and strive to overcome our individual walls with the understanding that we are all part of a greater struggle, a struggle that does not belong to any of us but in which we are all intricately implicated. Through a class-wide dialogue we are able to unpack many of our assumptions about the needs and desires of the community we plan to work with, thus revealing our own privileges as well as exposing our roles in perpetuating inequality by constantly recreating and reaffirming its existence (Trinh 54). Our goal is to experience knowledge from course texts by applying it in our community with regard to issues from a global perspective. If we achieve our goal, we will have worked together to gain new knowledge, insight, and perspective from women and men in a local farmworker community and organized with them in solidarity against a global women’s issue.

3. The Project Proposal:

Our intentions for this project are to forge relationships with farmworker communities on a local to global level, with a focus on women and how their lives are impacted by the work they do. We will accomplish ours goals by dividing them up between the various committees we have created. We will begin to develop a relationship with our local community partner, YAYA, by attending meetings and fulfilling their requested needs for gardening tools and long sleeve shirts. We will also be participating in the Fellsmere Community Garden Event, where we will be gardening, sharing, and preparing a meal, while also learning from one another. We will determine the needs of our global partners through email and meet whatever need(s) that they express at that time.

We will complete our service learning project via the combined resources of each of us as individuals, the resources we have available as UCF students, and the resources of our greater Orlando community. Through the expertise of YAYA and FWAF, we will be able to better understand the ways in which we can use our resources to best serve the needs of the farmworker community. Simultaneously, we will be continuously communicating as a group in order to reevaluate (and therefore possibly alter) our initial methodology, resources, and group organizational structure, in order to best serve our goals.

One of our immediate goals in supporting YAYA and FWAF in the Fellsmere community gardening day is to fundraise one shovel and one rake per student. Another goal is to fundraise the cost per person for our visit, which includes meals and transportation. We believe that these immediate goals are feasible because we have access to different types of resources that will help our fundraising efforts. For example, on-campus technology to make and print materials to advertise fundraising, as well as access to various campus organizations that may support our fundraising events. Our most important goal is to support our community partner and their sustainable relationship building with farmworker communities. Our fundraising efforts will provide the Fellsmere community with the tools that they currently need and will use in the future. We will also be providing labor within the Fellsmere community garden and helping with the upkeep of the plots, a service that FWAF has asked YAYA and our Global class to provide. We hope that through this project we help YAYA strengthen their already established relationship with the Fellsmere community, and that through our collaborative efforts, we also create a sustainable relationship with our community partner.

Individual Timeline

2/28—Attend project meeting, 3 hours

3/5-3/10—Attend CIW Fast for Fair Food

3/12—Begin the search for a global partner

3/13-3/16—Work on proposal with group

3/31—YAYA community garden day with Fellsmere community

Word Count: 1,500 exactly 

Works Cited:

Desai, Manisha. "Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment, and Globalization."

Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By

Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 15-33. Print.
Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman, Native, Other. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Print.

Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis.” Women's Activism

and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and

Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 267-81. Print.
“What is La Via Campesina?” La Via Campesina: International Peasant’s Movement. La Via Campesina

International Peasant’s Voice. 9 February 2011. Web. 23 February 2012.
YAYA- Justice for Farmworkers. YAYA, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. <http://nfwm-yaya.org/about/>.

 

Service Learning Proposal

Service Learning Proposal

Emily Helm

February 23, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 4415 

 
Mission Statement:

To engage in local-to-global activism by supporting sustainable relationship-building alongside members of the farm working community, the Youth and Young Adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry (YAYA), and La Via Campesina. Through communication and cooperation we will strive to work with our community partners towards the shared aim of agricultural justice. Furthermore, we intend to make connections from the local farmworker community to the global food sustainability movement.

Organizational Structure:
Task-based committees Hold members accountable to completion of assigned tasks Maintain effective communication with group members and community partners Committee Chairperson: liaison for committee Meeting facilitator Ensure meetings run smoothly and in a timely matter  Hold meetings with Committee Chairpersons Co-liaisons Communicate with community partners Attend YAYA meetings Secretary Record keeping Attendance Ethics Committee Ensure mindful enacting of project Oversee three strike policy Failure to complete task or attend a designated event results in one strike First and second strikes result in voting restrictions Three strikes result in a meeting with the Ethics Committee and Professor Tweed to discuss the member’s role and future participation in the project By conceptualizing the issues faced by farmworkers as systemically correlated with the adverse effects of globalization, we are modeling ourselves from the Network of Maquila Workers Rights in Central America discussed by Nancy A. Naples, as Maquila workers also face oppression in the workforce based on flawed neoliberal policies (273). In this vein, our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for our community. In the spirit of feminist NGOs that have come before us, we endeavor to work as professionals within a committed network of organizers, activists, and farmworkers to prioritize an ethic of communal involvement and service. We have chosen a model that stresses personal accountability, which is imperative to success in any cooperative situation, and we are organizing by committees with leadership positions to prioritize personal strengths, but avoid stringent hierarchy.

Our group’s effectiveness shall be assessed through measures of active participation, thoughtful communication, and shared aims of members, which work together to create group cohesion. We will also critically assess our effectiveness by considering how well we work in solidarity with our community partners and demonstrate feminist organizing as exemplified in course materials.

Community Partner/Global Theme:
We propose to address the larger systemic issues of the treatment and unfair conditions of farm workers, focusing on women farm workers. We know that “women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neoliberalism and patriarchy” (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny peasants and food producers basic and equal access to the food they produce. As the price of food increases and food is scarcer, women become malnourished, “as they eat last after providing for their children and family members” (Desai 21). One possible way of addressing this issue is to “produce food for local consumption” (Desai 24). To lay a foundation for both environmental and production sustainability, it is crucial that the community eats the food it grows. Local production and consumption can also indirectly address situations of “unsustainable exploitation of workers,” who are denied not only equal access to food but also other resources, such as safe housing and acceptable working conditions (Two Years 1). By establishing themselves as producers of their own food and giving value and recognition to both the unpaid and poorly paid labor that they do, farmworkers can pave the way for larger systemic and institutional change in regard to equal access and fair treatment.
Our local issue relates to lack of resources and tools available to migrant farmworkers. We will take steps toward providing resources and tools to them by working with YAYA on a community garden project, garden tool donation and long-sleeve t-shirt drive. We may engage our global partner, La Via Campesina, in our donation drive. Throughout this project, weekly email with the La Via Campesina will clarify how

our progress works in accord with the organization’s needs.

 Relation to Goals and Objectives for Course:

Through the creation of our project we have implemented and experienced some of the knowledge we have gained from course readings. We had to distinguish that we were a feminist movement rather than a women’s movement, as we mobilized around a goal using a platform of feminism from which to work, and are not strictly a constituency of women (Ferree 6). We had to incorporate knowledge of issue advocacy networks into our classroom to form the structure of our own organizing unit. Through a class-wide dialogue we were able to unpack many of our assumptions about the needs and desires of the community we plan to work and foster a relationship with, thus revealing our own privilege as well as exposing our roles in perpetuating inequality by constantly recreating and reaffirming its existence (Trinh 54).

We experience some of the myriad obstacles surrounding the politics of internal organization, and strive to overcome our individual walls with the understanding that we are all part of a greater struggle, a struggle that does not belong to any of us but in which we are all intricately implicated. Our goal is to experience knowledge from course texts by applying it in our community with regard to the issue from a global perspective. If we achieve our goal, we will have worked together to gain new knowledge, insight, and perspective from women and men from a local farmworker community and organized with them in solidarity against a global women’s issue.

Project Proposal

We plan to work with YAYA on their various events, specifically during Farmworker Awareness Week.
Through working together actively and effectively as a group, we plan to tackle this service learning project by breaking up into task-based groups that address specific issues in a focused manner. We assigned people to writing jobs based on personal preference and encouraged individuals to ask for opinions and constructive criticism, ensuring that tasks were assigned efficiently and assistance could be offered communally as needed. We are using our communication tools such as social media and email to make decisions and gain feedback, ensuring total inclusion. To mobilize beyond the classroom, we will encourage members to facilitate participation from members of their organizations and jobs. Educating as many people in the general community to the needs of the farmworkers of Fellsmere will encourage more volunteering, ensuring a sustainable relationship with the farmworker community with which we are working. For advertising, members will contact media outlets, give out fliers, and tell those from nearby businesses to donate funds, long sleeve shirts, and gardening tools to the community.

Building on our community partner YAYA’s existing relationship with the farmworker community, we intend to learn the most effective way of utilizing our local resources in order to maximize our outreach. Through this bond, we aspire to grow as individuals, as well as develop building blocks for better understanding of global and transnational feminist issues.

Project Timeline:

February 22: Initial contact with Lariza Garzon of YAYA to confirm partnership

February 24: Contact Global Partner 

March 1: In-class presentation by YAYA The historical events that have led to the current oppressive conditions of the agricultural industry Solidarity (sustainable relationship), privilege, power dynamics, etc. March 10: Fundraising Event

March 17: Fundraising Event 

March 31: Participate in YAYA’s Community Garden Project

8 am Depart Orlando from NFWM office

10 am Arrive To Fellsmere

10:15 am Welcome, introductions and instructions

10:45 am Gardening begins!

1:00 pm Lunch (vegetarian options available)/ short soccer game  

2:00 pm Back to gardening!

4:30 pm Debrief

5:15 pm Dinner

 6:00 pm Depart Fellsmere

8:00 pm Arrive to Orlando at NFWM Office

Date TBD: Debriefing meeting  

Word Count: 1288

Works Cited:

 Desai, Manisha. "Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment, and 

Globalization." Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and 

Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 

15-33. Print.                                                                                                                           Ferree, Myra Marx. "Global Feminism: Opportunities and Obstacles for Activism in the Global 

Arena." Global Feminism: Transnational Women's Activism,

Organizing, and Human Rights. By Myra Marx. Ferree and Aili Mari. Tripp.

New York: New York UP, 2006. 3-23. Print.                                                                     Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis." Women's 

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