Our Grant Proposal Presentation

Fellow Global Scholar Taylor S. and I have recently presented our grant proposal project which we have been working on since September. We were granted $7580 that will go to the furnishing of a new site for our organization and ESL/Civics classes for one year. My next post will be the proposal itself!

We have all been overwhelmed by the images and headlines like these for the past few years. For a variety of reasons, around the world, immigrants and refugees are leaving their home countries in search of a better life. Therefore, developed countries have had to make the difficult decision: how do we react to this influx of people? Unfortunately, in our opinion, some governments have not done enough.

Our current administration has disappointed us with unwelcoming policies and an exclusionary attitude towards immigrants and refugees. This disappointment, coupled with frustration, has driven us to find a way to make an impact on the lives of immigrants and refugees. While we may not be able to directly change policy, we can work to provide opportunities for immigrants and refugees.

In the US, we continue to receive immigrants, mainly economically motivated, from Mexico and Central America. Our current administration is clearly very opposed to these immigrants and is currently detaining thousands of people who attempted to cross the border. Many countries in Europe and the Middle East have been and are currently receiving refugees from the Syrian civil war. As the war has continued for eight years at this point, many countries in the EU are beginning to resist the admittance of more refugees. This issue applies most directly to UN Sustainable development goal #10, reduced inequalities. Immigration to the US also applies to goal 8, decent work and economic growth, while the refugee crisis in the EU applies to goal 16, peace justice and strong institutions.

Los Angeles is a city populated largely by immigrants, so this global issue has a huge impact on our local community. To start, the population of Los Angeles is 35% immigrant. In addition, immigrants bring a lot of value to our workforce. 25% of immigrants in Los Angeles are overqualified for their jobs, in comparison to 10% of U.S. born citizens. Most relevant to our project are the 754,296 adult legal permanent residents eligible for naturalization in Los Angeles. Each of these people has the opportunity to become a citizen of the United States, and our project could help them do so.

Citizenship is a life-changing step in many immigrants’ lives for two main reasons. The first is the expanded opportunity for citizens. Citizenship provides stability by permanently preventing deportation, which more and more people fear with this administration. Citizens also have access to government benefits such as healthcare and education, and they are considered for jobs not available to those without that status. Take Maribel Hernandez for example. She is on the path to citizenship so that she can elevate the opportunities in her life and provide a better future for her children.

The other benefits of citizenship may not be as tangible, but they can still have a huge impact on an immigrant’s life. Citizenship comes with the right to vote, which gives people an opportunity to shape the country they live in. Citizenship can also reaffirm one’s identity as an American and promote patriotism and pride in our country. As an example, Noi became a citizen after marrying his American husband, pictured here, in 2013. He is excited about the security that comes with citizenship as opposed to a green card, and as he says, “Here, I feel free, like I can be myself.”

The organization with which we decided to partner is Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Services, IRIS for short. However, they work with people of all race, sex, and religious background, despite their Episcopal affiliation. IRIS provides a variety of services to assist immigrants and refugees in the Los Angeles area. After talking to them about their needs and our opportunity, we agreed that assisting to launch their new branch, Immigrant Social Services, would be the best fit for both of us. ISS will specifically work with the immigrant community and their needs.

The $7,580 we were granted will be allocated to two branches of our project. $5160 dollars will fund the execution of a year’s worth of ESL/Civics classes with the intention of students taking the citizenship test. $2420 of the grant will serve as a lasting investment by furnishing a bungalow already owned by IRIS, pictured here with the Episcopal Diocese building, which will become the site of our classes and much more. Poly community members will have the opportunity to volunteer as tutors and childcare givers in the classes themselves. Also, as the classes are set to launch in the coming weeks, our year-long program will extend throughout next school year. We are currently looking for students interested in taking on and managing this project once we graduate!

Now we’d like to outline the process of our project.

Step 1: Connection & Idea. First, we chose our organization. We did so based on existing personal connection and our preliminary interaction with the staff there, even before we mentioned the prospect of money for a program.

Step 2: Making a Plan. Next, we discussed with IRIS what we could do that would best fit their needs as well as ours. Once we decided on doing ESL/Civics, we began to outline what we would want to do for our project.

Step 3: Addressing Setbacks. At one point, we were struggling with the communication with IRIS over phone and email, so we decided that we would schedule one more meeting in person, and if that didn’t go well, we would stop the project. We really didn’t want to force anything that IRIS couldn’t handle or didn’t need just because we wanted to. The meeting ended up going really well, so we continued with the process from there.

Step 4: Writing Our Proposal. As for the actual proposal, we included a great amount of detail. Each budget item was sourced and priced down to the cent, with tax accounted for and a contingency included for unforeseen circumstances. We did this all because we wanted to prove to the panel that we were competent and responsible and that each dollar they gave us had a very clear and necessary purpose.

Step 5: The Presentation. We focused on the “why” rather than the “how.” We also wanted to include as many personal stories as possible to be compelling.

Step 6: Execution: Execution is probably the most important part of this project, but it is honestly the one we didn’t foresee being as difficult as it was. In our timeline, we had the classes starting in March, but they are still yet to start. We failed to recognize that our project is not IRIS’s first priority, and they have many more hoops to jump through as an organization.

We hope you see the tremendous value in a program like this and the impact it can have on the Poly community. We would love as many of you all as possible to be involved as this project continues past our graduation. Thank you for reading!