Weekly Round-Up: Grantees Making Waves Nationwide

Wondering what Ms. Foundation grantees have been up to recently? Here's a quick round-up of some of the impressive work our grantees have done in just the last week (!) to advance social justice nationwide.

• Together with the ACLU, Ms. Foundation grantee the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) files a lawsuit [pdf] in district court to force the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran's Affairs to release military sexual trauma records currently being withheld by the federal government. SWAN also issues an important response to a new pentagon report on sexual assault trends at the military academies. Read that press release.
  
  
• Women of Color Policy Network issues an action alert calling on supporters to protect federal funding for child care and Head Start. The omnibus appropriations bill that would have provided the funding levels necessary to adequately support early childhood education and child care was eventually pulled from the Senate amid concerns over earmarks; Congress is now faced with passing a continuing resolution that would cap government funding of child care/early ed at FY2010 levels -- and leave tens of thousands of children out in the cold.

• The Excluded Workers Congress -- which includes representatives from nine different sectors and Ms. grantees the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Jobs with Justice -- releases Unity for Dignity: Expanding the Right to Organize to Win Human Rights at Work.  The report highlights ongoing efforts to dramatically expand the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain.
  
  
• The Louisiana Bucket Brigade releases Common Ground II: Why Cooperation to Reduce Accidents at Louisiana Refineries is Needed Now. The report is the second in a series that analyzes refinery accidents and what can be done to prevent them.
  
  
• In Milwaukee, reproductive justice grantee, the Reproductive Justice Collective, publishes an opinion piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel addressing the racist anti-abortion billboard campaign “Black Babies are Endangered.”
  
  
• The Family Partnership ramps up their campaign to overhaul Minnesota’s prostitution and trafficking laws in this legislative session.
  
  
• Los Angeles-based grantee LAANE debuts construction careers videos at their annual City of Justice Dinner.