Pepsi Challenge Grant: http://www.refresheverything.com/...
Last year, I brought a team of three non-blogging activists with me to Netroots Nation from rural Rio Arriba in northern New Mexico to learn to use online organizing tools. They came back to Rio Arriba and incorporated much of what they learned, starting up a local blog, developing a coordinated old and new media strategy, and incorporating video. Today, we took it a step further. mindoca came out to New Mexico and taught a group of us to use twitter, facebook, storify, nation building and other tools, and to incorporate their use into our organizing practices.
Pepsi Challenge Grant: 
Cross-posted at Native American Netroots
Communities Joined in Action is a national alliance of community health coalitions working to end disparities in health care. CJA believes health care is a Civil Rights issue and it works to create Civil Rights facts on the ground by teaching coalitions in underserved communities to use the Affordable Care Act and other tools to insure access to quality health care among the poor, people of color, the homeless and other hard-to-reach populations.
This year, we have created a Marketing and New Media Committee dedicated to teaching coalitions to build power through community organizing, and to make use of online organizing tools. We have submitted a Pepsi Challenge Grant to bring 24 coalition participants to Netroots Nation in Providence, RI to caucus with bloggers and to learn on and offline organizing techniques.
Last year, I brought three colleagues from Rio Arriba County in Northern New Mexico, to Netroots Nation in Minneapolis. (Here I am with David Trujillo after a long day of flying. Photo Credit to navajo.) We attended the Native American and Latino Caucuses as well as workshops in community organizing, messaging, online tools, etc. Since then, we have hired a Public Information Officer, revamped our County and health council websites, even including a blog so that we can communicate directly with the public (unmediated by our Fox-like local paper).
In a week and a half, mindoca is coming to Rio Arriba County to teach a team of us to use (and teach others to use) new media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs. She's going to teach us to incorporate their use into advocacy campaigns, marketing of our website and blog, community strengthening activities and legislative action. Mindoca also came out to the annual CJA conference in Washington DC where she trained coalitions to use online tools in their organizing efforts, and to organize to build community power.
We want to come back to NN this year and we want to bring colleagues from other communities of color with us. We want to come back in force.
I, TheFatLadySings, known to my non-blogging friends as Lauren Reichelt, have been tapped to chair this new CJA Marketing and New Media committee. I have submitted a Pepsi Challenge Grant for $50,000 to help Communities Joined in Action to bring a large CJA delegation to NN 2012. And I will help CJA to develop webinars to teach community coalitions across the US to use some of these tools.
We need your help. Specifically, we need you to promote and vote for our grant application. Go to refresheverything and sign up for an account with Pepsi. Then go to:Lifting the Digital Curtain and vote for us. You can vote once a day. We certainly hope you will vote times for us every day in December!
If funded, our grant will also send two members of Native American Netroots who would not otherwise be able to go, to Providence. And NAN will help Communities Joined in Action to recruit Native American Coalitions as members.
We hope to see you at Providence. We hope to be able to tell you there about the many wonderful facets of the Affordable Care Act that are helping us to eliminate health disparities. And we hope to learn from you to use online tools to register and mobilize our communities to vote.
Help us to help you by voting for: Lifting the Digital Curtain
And tell a friend.
We need diarists to help us promote this cause every day in December. Sign up for a day in the comment thread below.
http://www.refresheverything.com/...
