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qqueenofhades · 5 years

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Hi there. I've been scrolling through your "school stuff" tag but thought I'd ask directly - how did you find the transition to actually moving outside of the U.S. for your PhD? I'm looking at something similar and I'm wondering about your experience with the logistics (finding somewhere to live, visa, etc!). Thanks in advance, and congrats on being a doctor!

Oh lord. Why would you do that to yourself? I feel like that tag is mostly just intense kvetching, bogglingly obscure nitpicking complaints, and existential despair, and/or yelling at various institutions and/or people who could not do their god damn jobs. If you have read that and still actually want my advice, I salute you. I’m presuming you’re asking in regard to the UK, since it’s the only experience I can speak on, so hopefully that’s applicable?

In my case, I studied in the UK for a year as an undergraduate, at Oxford, so I was already familiar with the process (at least somewhat) when it came time to do it again for the PhD. Upfront, we must acknowledge the ugly deformed rabid elephant in the room that is Brexit, and the idiotic reform of UK immigration policy currently ongoing. Long story short, they seem to think they can function without low-skilled migration, that the domestic UK workforce will just happily lark off to do the jobs that working-class EU migrants have been doing, that this won’t totally bomb-crater the NHS, that they can run a country by basically only allowing in PhDs in STEM making over £30,000 a year, etc… so yes, this is a complete joke of an immigration policy and it’s what happens when you elect floppy haired xenophobic douchewads and their nightmare party as prime minister! ANYWAY, they’re introducing a points-based system from 2021, which may not affect you for an application under Tier 4, but UK immigration policy is going to have a lot of very stupid reforms and you’ll want to keep on top of those. If you have an offer in hand from a UK university, it is made somewhat easier, but you’ll still need to budget for processing costs, an NHS subsidy paid in for every year you will be there (something like $300/year), and a trip to a UK visa office to have your fingerprints and biometric information taken. If you don’t live near one, that will be travel expenses and so forth. You then have a temporary visa issued for first entry into the country, and a Biometric Residence Permit which you pick up at your university.

That, at least, was the process the last time I applied for a student visa, and it may all have changed by the time you do it. As noted, there are a lot of upfront visa costs, so you’ll want to be aware of those. You need a number of supporting documents, including offer of study, proof of income or ability to financially support yourself (since most Tier 4 visas either don’t let you work or only work a limited number of hours), proof of English proficiency (as a native English speaker/person from an English-speaking country, you won’t need this), and so on. You can’t start the process before you have the offer, but you’ll want to start it as soon as possible afterward, because it can take several months, and obviously needs to be done before you can travel. You will also want to open a UK bank account as soon as you arrive, which can be done once you have your residential address and a certificate from the student services office at your university verifying that you are in fact a student there. It’s pretty difficult to pay out of non-UK accounts, at least for monthly/recurring transactions, and there are international fees. You will also want a UK phone. I still have my UK phone/phone number despite my current hiatus in America, since most carriers offer free or low-cost roaming in Europe (though subject to change with EU trade negotiations), which is nice. I pay only a little extra to have Global Roaming in North America, so I can still use my phone as if I’m in the UK. If you’re planning to be traveling, this is a nice perk to have.

As far as finding programs goes, I’m sure I don’t need to give you advice on what you’re interested in and where you’re looking. Obviously, universities in the UK are grouped as “Oxford and Cambridge” and “everyone else,” though there are also rankings within those. I have been at both of these; Oxford as an undergrad, and then I did my PhD at a large public university in the North that ranks within the top 10 in the UK. The North will be much lower, living-cost wise (actually, if you can swing it, just… don’t do it in London, the cost of living in London is out of control. Of course, if the program you really have your heart set on is in London, then go for it, but just be aware of what you’re getting into). It’s also a rule of thumb that you don’t go anywhere for a PhD unless they’re paying you. Don’t self-fund a PhD, it’s just too expensive, and any decent university will give you some kind of financial stipend. I had a scholarship that covered three years of full tuition at international rate, which was good, though I had to take out some living-cost loans. So if you’re trying to decide between two programs that have both accepted you, a situation I was also lucky enough to be in, it sounds crass, but: take the money. One university had already offered me the tuition/scholarship, while the other had accepted me but wasn’t sure about funding. So I took the one that paid the scholarship. You need every penny you can get. You will be comically, absurdly, unbelievably broke as a graduate student. I was looking back on it like “wow I really lived for four years on BUTTFUCK NOTHING.” It is not for the faint of heart; you will have financial stress along with academic pressure, and while I was lucky enough to have generous friends and family contributing to my living costs, I still barely scraped through. It is something you should be aware of.

I don’t know if you’ve studied in the UK system before (I’m assuming not), but the structure for a PhD is much less determined than in the American system. It will also vary from university to university, so it’s worth establishing contact with a potential faculty supervisor to ask questions and refine your project proposal. I made contact with my eventual supervisor at my PhD university before I actually applied there; I gave him my (much too broad and pretty unrefined) project proposal and what I was interested in, and he helped me tailor it into something that could be done in a feasible time frame and which would make use of his expertise and contribute to the field. Whatever you’re thinking about pitching as a thesis topic, you probably need to make it more specific. I don’t know what field you’re in; I’m a humanities/history person, obviously, so the rule always seems to be WRITE MORE, INFIDEL. But the point is, the UK system has much less structured time, and basically relies on you to have the self-motivation to go out and conduct the research and write it up, and if you’re someone more used to rigid requirements and classes and so forth, you might find it a little hands-off. If you’re like me and can just be set loose in your field of interest and do your own thing, you’ll like it. I feel like anyone who is serious enough about their subject to want to do a PhD has to be primarily self-motivating, but some people function better with clear guidelines, and those are not always forthcoming. I can’t count the number of times I wished my supervisors would just TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK TO DO, but they usually highlighted something and had me work to figure out how exactly to fix it. They weren’t negligent or uncaring or unsupportive, and the project became much better as a result, but yes, it’s on you to do, and it can again be frustrating.

As far as living, I didn’t try to rent a flat from afar, sight unseen, in my first year. I just registered for postgraduate campus housing, and lived with four predictably horribly messy roommates (why???!) before I managed to escape and rent a private flat for the next three years. You will need a guarantor with a UK address (i.e. not your parents in America) to sign on the lease agreement, especially if you fall below a certain income threshold, and go through the usual background checking and approval. If you want to have the place to yourself, it will be, as noted, much cheaper to find something you can afford in the North and not-London in general, though southern England and the London commuter belt will all be expensive. If you’re okay living with roommates, or you make friends during your program, it might work to room together and share costs, but I am a pathological introvert and don’t like people, so I lived by myself.

Anyway. Right now, I am in the second round of applications for a Big Deal UK postdoctoral award, which would be for three years starting this fall if I got it, at another high-ranking large public university in the south of England. (So yes, everything that I just said about how much it costs to live in London/London suburbs is me playing myself). I would be applying for a Tier 2 visa (i.e. the permanent/settlement track/full-time work visa) if I got this, which would be another barrel of laughs and different requirements from a Tier 4. That is definitely unhatched chickens which we can’t count yet, as this is a highly competitive/prestigious award and there is absolutely no guarantee that I would get it, but it would mean that I would go through the international moving/visa application process for a third time, so I would once again become too unfortunately familiar with whatever bullshittery is happening now. Le sigh.

I don’t know if any of that is helpful; hopefully so. Let me know if you have more questions, and good luck.

#school stuff #anonymous #ask

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cairobserver · 5 years

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New Schools/Future Egyptians by Mohamed Elshahed with Farida Makar at the inaugural Sharjah Architecture Triennial

[Video by Jonatas Junot Barros and Mohamed Elshahed, 2019. 8:19]

This installation explores an important chapter in the history of education in Egypt, namely the expansion of schooling infrastructure as well as the transformations and continuities in education policies under the Nasser regime after the 1952 military coup. Primary education had been made compulsory by law in 1923, however, due to high construction costs and colonial-era policies that viewed the countryside, where the majority of the population lived, as primarily a site of agricultural production, there had been no serious effort to provide the school building capacity to absorb the country’s youth. The Free Officers looked to signal revolutionary change and to appeal to the masses by enforcing mandatory free primary education in rural and urban areas alike and expanding female education. Presidential decree number 343 of 1952 (later amended by law 381 of 1954) established the School Premises State Foundation (SPSF) with the purpose of building 4000 schools across Egypt (400 annually for a decade, however, the actual rate of construction was slower and the 1956 war and the subsequent rebuilding efforts in Suez Canal zone further slowed school construction). In 1962 when the National Charter was issued by president Gamal Abdel Nasser, three million students were enrolled in primary schools, an increase from the 800,000 students in 1953. The SPSF created a dozen school prototypes. In addition to exploring state discourse on education, the installation looks into the role of architects as servants of the state and how their views collided with those of teachers whose pedagogical debates favored child-centered learning experiences which were not possible within the designs provided by architects, driven by cost reduction and efficiency.

The installation is in a classroom at the decommissioned Qasimiyya School in Sharjah (a line drawn on the floor shows the size of the standardized classrooms built in Egypt to compare with the one you are standing in). The school currently serves as the headquarters of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial with the classrooms transformed into exhibition spaces. For this installation the classroom is a palimpsest, left in its condition, textures and colors as when it was abandoned, with only necessary changes made during renovation of the building to host the Triennial. Furniture from the school was incorporated. The content is displayed through light emitting media -- light boxes, 35mm projectors, overhead and digital projectors, and screens. The seemingly sparse room is dense with research material.

The text below appears in the Triennial publication titled Rights of Future Generations: Conditions and on e-flux Architecture.

In 1954, a young Egyptian girl living in a village hundreds of kilometers away from Cairo could start her primary education in a brand-new school building, one that was distinctly modern, with cement floor tiles and whitewashed concrete walls. She may have been the first child in her family to access free education provided by the state. The school building, based on Model 10, was built on previously agricultural land acquired by the state for the “public good” and surrounded by a metal fence covered with bougainvillea. The school had been designed by architects and engineers from Cairo who surveyed the site less than a year earlier and quickly implemented a standardized school design. The two-story building contained thirteen classrooms for boys and girls, a meeting room, teacher rooms, a prayer room, storage rooms for food and school supplies, as well as gender-segregated bathrooms housed in a separate structure. Classrooms measured five-and-a-half by eight meters and could hold forty-two students with their desks lined up facing the blackboard. Above hung a picture of President Nasser, the ultimate figure of authority and a daily reminder to students that they were living in a new era. The meeting room was lifted on slender columns with a shaded play area below, and the classrooms all faced north, with large windows for cross ventilation and natural light. This may have been the first time the student interacted with peers of the opposite gender, and her future was promised to be vastly different from that of her illiterate mother’s. She was one of 186,000 students in 372 new schools completed across Egypt for the 1954–1955 school year by Muʾassasa Abniyyat al-Taʿlim, the School Premises State Foundation (SPSF).1

Historian Meriam Belli suggests that “the 1950s–60s witnessed an outstanding quantitative growth in educational infrastructures and literacy, especially in the provincial and rural areas neglected by the ancien régime. ‘Educative Nasserism’ attempted to reduce broad gaps in the spatial hierarchy, such as between north and south or urban and rural milieus.”2 Though inequalities certainly endured, “populations with low initial rates of literacy benefited the most from these policies.”3 But for this to happen, new facilities across the vast geography of Egypt had to be constructed quickly, and so architects provided the plans for standardized school models, such as Model 10, which created modern spaces for education in cities and rural areas.

Alongside such architectural advancements, the Egyptian state under Nasser placed a significant emphasis on its education policy. Standard accounts assume that the Nasser regime introduced new education policies immediately after taking power in 1952. However, recent scholarship has demonstrated that it still relied on the structures of the old regime of King Farouk. Existing educational structures were not immediately overturned, as syllabi, textbooks, and methods of instruction from the old regime—as well as existing networks and advisers—continued to be in use throughout much of the fifties. Belli suggests that “Nasserist polices carried to their conclusion the series of measures undertaken under the khedives. These were part of a reformist ‘globalized’ and ‘transnational’ movement rooted in the past century. However, the Free Officers [the movement that led the 1952 Revolution] pushed faster and further than the monarchy. Like the Third Republic in France, Nasser’s Egypt did not invent the school; it adopted it, refashioned it to its needs and views especially in a cultural intent.”4

The result is an education system that tolerated some hybridity in its earlier stages, combining old and new pedagogical approaches, forces, and structures of power and authority. Education was instrumentalized by the new state as a political tool to transform national consciousness and collective visions of the future of Egyptian society—made visible through the enormous school building enterprise of SPSF.

[Audio excerpt on education from al-mithaq al-watani, the National Charter, read by president Nasser in 1962 superimposed with class photos of students and teachers at the Qalyub Model School, 1959. 2 minutes]

Primary education in Egypt had been made compulsory by law in 1923. However, there had been no serious effort to provide the building capacity to absorb the country’s young students, particularly in rural areas. A 1949 law had effectively made primary education free, and the Egyptian Ministry of Education had to deploy resources and facilities in order to suit the needs of its growing student population.

Yet state-funded school building projects prior to the 1952 Revolution were curbed by high overhead costs—each new school cost the state 25,000 to 40,000 Egyptian pounds. This high cost limited the number of schools that could be built, hence the need for standardization.

One of the first decrees issued by the Nasser regime established the SPSF as an autonomous institution with the sole purpose of building schools across Egypt, 400 annually.5 The number of enrolled students would therefore increase from 1,611,000, during the 1951–1952 school year, to 2,104,000 by 1957–1958.6

The SPSF had a board that included ministers of planning, finance, education, public works, professors of architecture from Cairo University, and others. A team of specialists was established to determine the locations of new schools across the country.

While inspired by international architectural developments of the time, the schools’ standardized modernist and functionalist design served the purpose of the centralized state’s provision of universal primary education across the country, regardless of local specificities.7 From the point of view of administrators and government officials, such a program was an efficient way to assimilate a new generation of Egyptian youth into the revolutionary state’s vision of nationalism, socialism, and revolution. Architects participating in the program strongly believed in the power of architecture to create new citizens. Architect Tawfiq ʿAbd al-Gawwad, for example, wrote:

A noble outcome of the revolution, and one of the most important goals of the revolution, is to provide education with ease to millions of the children of the nation in new healthy schools, not only to learn reading and writing but also to be transformed into good citizens [muwatenin salhin], strong and capable of working, with hearts full of love for Egypt.8

ʿAbd al-Gawwad thus suggests that architects could play an integral role in the building of not only a future Egypt, but also future Egyptians, and presented his role as an opportunity for architects to actively serve a wider segment of the population under the auspices of the state. One of the clearest ways in which the state attempted to transform society via education was by expanding the education of women, for which Nasser was greatly responsible.9

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Yet it took some time for the accompanying textbooks to be rewritten. While Nasser’s regime “attached considerable importance to the curricula as a primary means of disseminating the values, symbols and goals of the July Revolution,” the majority of textbooks were not produced right away.10 It was only in 1958/1959—at the same time as Egypt’s union with Syria—that revised textbooks were published for all subjects, and they remained in use for much of the sixties and seventies. Once available, they were adopted across the country, regardless of the school’s urban or rural setting, the socioeconomic status of its area, or its local history and traditions.

In terms of pedagogy, Egyptian government officials were very much influenced by the international progressive education movement, whose practices encouraged a more child-centered approach and a departure from rote memorization. That is, while the Ministry of Education produced new textbooks that were meant to indoctrinate the student population, it continued to advocate for experience-based learning, activities in the classroom, and critical thinking. While there isn’t sufficient evidence to suggest that such practices were applied in reality, they were very much part of the national pedagogical debate—as is evident from a number of reports published by the Ministry in the fifties and sixties. They were, however, considered in the overall design of the new schools. All of this delineates a rich and complex learning landscape, and one which tolerated a number of paradoxes.

The SPSF schools remained in place until 1992, when many of them failed to withstand the force of that year’s earthquake. While the earthquake did not destroy all schools, many buildings suffered major damage, which made them unsafe for occupants. A new school building program, this time spearheaded by the military, eventually replaced most of the SPSF schools by the end of the nineties. For four decades, millions of Egyptian youth had received their education in these once modernist, but now crumbling, buildings. Pictures of presidents that hung in every classroom had changed only twice. The schools had grown more crowded and less maintained, as the future-oriented nationalism of the fifties and sixties faded into the past.

1. Tawfiq Abdel Gawwad, “School Premises State Foundation and the First Stage of Schools” in Majallat al-Emara, No. 2, 1957 {in Arabic}.

2. Mériam N. Belli, An Incurable Past: Nasser’s Egypt Then and Now (Gainesville, 2013), 55.

3. Ibid., 57.

4. Ibid., 28.

5. Keith Wheelock, Nasser’s New Egypt: A Critical Analysis (New York, 1960), 112.

6. United Arab Republic: The Yearbook, 1963 (Cairo, 1963), 103.

7. This process, of course, occurred in many countries. In the case of revolutionary Egypt, standardized curricula and school buildings can be understood as part of a broader effort to define a “standard citizen.” See Catherine Burke and Ian Grosvenor, School (London, 2008), 19.

8. Gawwad, 8.

9. Belli, 28.

10. Yoram Meital, “School Textbooks and Assembling the Puzzle of the Past in Revolutionary Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies, 42, no. 2 (March 2006): 255.

[35mm projections presenting side by side the perspectives of the state, architects, and teachers on education reform. Images from the teachers magazine Al Read, architectural journal Al Emara and a variety of state publications and annual reports.]

Commissioned by the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, 9 November 2019 - 8 February 2020.

Farida Makar is a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the history of progressive pedagogy in Egypt between 1900 and 1952.

Team

Jonatas Junot Barros (Videography)

Ahmad Hammoud (Graphic Design)

Mohammad Helmy (Video Editing)

Hussein El-Hajj (Translation)

Tamara Barrage (Production)

#cairobserver sharjaharch schools Egypt architecture modern Nasser

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khalilhumam · 4 years

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The Biden presidency and a new direction in education policy

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-biden-presidency-and-a-new-direction-in-education-policy/

The Biden presidency and a new direction in education policy

By Kenneth K. Wong Within the first moments of his speech acknowledging the news that he won the presidential election, Joe Biden heralded a good day for educators. He took the opportunity to acknowledge the educational contribution of Dr. Jill Biden, community college professor and soon-to-be first lady. Biden’s commitment to education is visibly displayed in many of the 49 action plans posted on his website. But the incoming Biden-Harris administration faces major policy and political challenges in the education realm, many of which stem from President Trump’s unilateral action to reduce federal involvement in education. The Trump team primarily pursued a strategy of rolling back initiatives launched by the Obama administration that promoted systemic racial equality, protected student rights, and strengthened state and district capacity. President Trump’s disengagement has created broader policy challenges for the Biden administration as well. The nation’s schools are stretched beyond their capacity to deliver remote instruction and ensure student safety during the pandemic. State budgetary shortfalls will need timely federal assistance. Across thousands of local communities, the Black Lives Matter movement has inspired a racial justice agenda, with clear ripple effects on public schools. Political support for the Biden agenda seems unpredictable as the public sends mixed signals on divided governance. Taking into account candidate Biden’s policy platform, the current policy challenges, and the governing landscape in 2021, I see the Biden-Harris administration likely to focus on several priority areas related to American schooling.

Tame the pandemic and invest in innovation

Confronting the pandemic is Biden’s primary education issue beginning on Jan. 20, 2021. Biden has repeatedly announced that he wants to shut down the virus so he can safely reopen schools and the economy. The Biden administration has relied on the nation’s top health experts to develop effective anti-pandemic strategies and establish national guidelines to restore the nation’s economic and social life. The new administration will need to strengthen its partnership with states and districts to ensure school safety and to implement strategies that narrow the widening learning gap associated with the pandemic—especially in racially or economically marginalized communities. Recent research found a significant gap in mathematics arising during the pandemic. Clearly, the Biden administration will need to act swiftly to work with states and districts to start addressing the gap in teaching, connectivity, resources, social-emotional well-being, and student engagement. In the absence of federal support, the achievement gap and children’s nonacademic needs are likely to grow. Drawing on lessons from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Biden administration may launch an education-focused package to ensure school safety, stabilize teacher employment, strengthen bandwidth for remote and hybrid learning, and prioritize educators to receive vaccines. The Biden team is well positioned to simultaneously manage the next few months of the pandemic and the next generation of learning systems through investments in governmental capacity. The Biden administration may incentivize health and education agencies to share data, coordinate resource allocation, streamline communications, engage parents and communities, and deploy rapid response teams to combat hot spots. Equally important, Biden is well positioned to make significant investment in remote and hybrid learning, pilot new schooling models with flexible schedule and spatial design, and, at the secondary and postsecondary levels, promote cross-institutional collaboration to meet the educational challenge of the global system in the 21st century. These investments may potentially transform teaching and learning by lessening the constraints bounded by place and time. The post-pandemic period may usher a new system of schooling delivery to address inequality of access by zip code and income and racial segregation.

Fight systemic racism

The Biden presidential campaign is closely connected to the hopes and strength of the Black community as articulated in the overwhelming Black support that Biden received throughout the presidential race. The Biden presidency is likely to use executive and administrative tools to reverse the erosion of systemic oversight in civil rights and diversity issues. During the Trump years, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has reduced its reporting requirements and its enforcement activities. It withdrew Obama-era guidelines designed to reduce racial and other discrimination in the implementation of school disciplinary actions. The Trump administration sought to restrict the ability of student borrowers to sue loan-service contractors under state law, and it rescinded Obama-promulgated regulations to penalize for-profit vocational schools that had failed to attain employment targets for their graduates. The Biden presidency has the opportunity to collaborate with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and tribal colleges to address systemic inequality. In this regard, Trump’s effort was piecemeal. With support from Congress, the Trump administration wrote off loans incurred by several HBCUs to repair damages caused by Hurricane Katrina and made federal STEM funding in HBCUs permanent. The Biden administration is likely to adopt a more comprehensive approach that links K-12 and postsecondary opportunities for the Black community. As a graduate of Howard University, Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris is uniquely positioned to shape federal investment in Black-focused initiatives, including medical education and research, legal training, workforce development, and business and social work.

Human capital investment strategies

Biden’s agenda calls for new strategies in human capital investment. First, the federal government can scale education initiatives that are embraced by a number of states and districts. For example, several governors and mayors implement pre-K programs; strengthen the quality and the range of skills-based programs in community colleges; invest in STEM education; and partner with higher ed institutions to ensure teacher education programs adopt high-quality standards that are meeting the needs of a growingly diverse population. Second, the federal government can lead and incentivize innovative practices. In this regard, a critical area that matters in the long run is evidence-based research, which has historically received modest federal support. However, well-executed research has contributed to high-impact strategies and practices in teacher quality, student applications for college financial aid, special education, early childhood education, and charter schools, among other areas. Consistent with multilateralism, the Biden team can take a leading role in international benchmarking. The Biden presidency has an opportunity to narrow the research-practice gap by investing in the R&D functions of the Department of Education.

Deliver new legislation in higher education

Trump’s general lack of interest in higher education has further delayed the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which has been due since 2014. To be sure, building a legislative coalition is complicated by limited federal authority and strong nonpublic partners in higher education. Reauthorization efforts were stalled even when the Senate HELP Committee’s chair, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and its ranking member, Patty Murray (D-Wash.), demonstrated bipartisan cooperation. Clearly, presidential leadership is needed. Biden seems ready to apply his legislative skills and coalition-building experience to craft a bipartisan, omnibus bill. The Biden administration is likely to propose an omnibus higher education bill that improves access, affordability, inclusion, and accountability. Access and affordability would require an expansion of Pell Grants, which currently are set at $6,345—not nearly enough to cover the average cost for tuition and fees at a public institution. These policy aims will call for federal loan forgiveness based on income eligibility, veterans’ support, teacher education enhancement, and investment in HBCUs, HSIs, and tribal colleges. New guardrails will be needed to ensure student borrowers’ rights—including about 350,000 borrowers with disabilities—civil rights, gender equity, and victims’ rights for those who have endured sexual harassment or assault on school campuses. Potentially new federal funding will focus on diversity and STEM, while FAFSA application and verification will be more customer friendly. Biden’s proposal on student loan forgiveness is likely to be favorably received by the higher educator sector, as many colleges and universities have already put in place loan-free programs based on income eligibility. The Biden administration is likely to form multilateral partnerships to promote freely accessible two-year colleges, scaling similar programs that are implemented in Rhode Island and several states. Community colleges, as critical pathways toward economic mobility, will receive particular attention given Dr. Jill Biden’s decades of experience in this area.

Return to responsible governance

The Trump presidency had an adversarial and chaotic relationship with the education community. For example, Secretary Betsy DeVos or her Department of Education have been sued in 455 lawsuits—the most ever in the history of the department, according to an analysis by The 74. This includes eight multistate suits. Most of the complaints focused on student borrowers’ rights, gainful employment, and civil rights. As a comparison, there were 356 cases brought against the Education Department or the secretary of education during Obama’s two terms combined, including zero multistate lawsuits. Recognizing an urgency to restore responsible governance to address multiple crises, the incoming Biden presidency signals a strong commitment to engage diverse stakeholders and subject-matter experts. Biden’s education agenda will need a broad coalition beyond the Beltway that includes civil rights leaders, governors, mayors, teachers’ unions, state legislative leaders, innovative practitioners, higher education leaders, and civic and business stakeholders. Guided by a clear moral compass to serve all students and their families, president-elect Biden will be able to steer the nation toward educational progress.

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allanamayer · 7 years

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More Product, Less Pollution

Earlier this week the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice (sounds a bit more pleasant than “Against Climate Change” I suppose?) posted a great meditation on air travel and its contribution to pollution (which I saw thanks to the great Eira Tansey). It’s inspired a long and meandering rumination of my own about the environment and our work.

Here in Canada our GLAM work covers a huge geographic area, and at ridiculous cost (“cheap flights from Iqaluit to Toronto start at $1,732,” proclaims the Expedia headline). Our national library and archives frequently hosts “national” symposia and other in-person events in places like Ottawa and Toronto, but has yet to livestream or provide other ways to access and participate in the events remotely.

Compare to the recent Ontario Digital Inclusion Summit, that livestreamed using Youtube (making rewinding and replay immediately available) and offered digital Q&A participation through a tool called Slido. Thanks to this, the Summit was able to include both far-flung participants from all ends of the earth, but also people who couldn’t attend the event due to mobility, cost, or scheduling.

Similarly forward-thinking, the aptly-named Access Conference for library technology livestreams its events, keeps up a steady stream of Twitter participation, and shares edited individual sessions and slides on Youtube and its website after the fact. It’s the smarter way to overcome Canada’s geographic divide, and to be inclusive to all types of stakeholders. And it’s vastly cheaper and less damaging per capita than flying around the country.

A certain quality of internet access is required to livestream events and to keep up with Twitter hashtag use on the fly, I know. Canada still struggles to provide basic internet connectivity to the vast majority of its northern and rural communities, especially in Indigenous communities - 18 percent of the population has no access to better-than-dialup internet. The nation declared in December 2016 that broadband internet is an essential utility “for quality of life” but won’t hit its target of 100% delivery until somewhere between 2026 and 2031.

This lack of residential service, of course, doesn’t mean that Library and Archives Canada can’t start offering livestreaming of its events well in advance of full market saturation - and I hope I never hear them argue this.

I’m sure there are, instead, a bunch of mitigating factors I can’t possibly understand or have explained to me because I’m sooooo far outside the world of LAC and its millions of restrictions. I’m sure federal government livestreaming has to, by law, provide simultaneous transcription and audio in both official languages, or something else totally prohibitive, and a million signed waivers from both presenters and audience members, and some sort of deposit requirement, and on and on and on. I’m sure it can’t cost just a few thousand to do properly with existing in-house expertise and existing in-house equipment. I’m sure LAC’s internet connection is so bad it can’t even provide wifi to conference delegates, let alone reliably stream audio, let alone video.

The last email exchange I had with a LAC staff on this topic was for the “Foundational Meeting” of the National Heritage Digitization Strategy - a new standard that sets digitization goals for every heritage organization across the country regardless of capacity. That was October 2016, and I was advised that “If there is sufficient demand, LAC will do its utmost to provide this service.” I asked the national archives listserv to weigh in and make “sufficient demand” known at the time, but apparently no action has been taken since. Which is funny, because I hear complaints about LAC’s initiatives being inaccessible to smaller, rural, and northern organizations basically all the time.

For an industry consistently denied opportunities by cost barriers, an industry with a consistent critique of being too top-down, large-organization-focused, and ignorant of the issues facing non-academic institutions, livestreaming events of national interest seems a no-brainer. National professional conferences, symposia, and committee meetings should all be included in this. (Someone with enough clout to sit on the latter will have to fill me in on how easy it is to Skype in to such meetings as a member, let alone an observer.)

We could, eventually, settle on one of many different models, from fully-virtual conferences and a mix of on-site and remote presentations, or local-hub conferences (satellite events for watching livestreams in groups, and having breakout sessions or collaborating digitally with other hubs) - such as what the Canadian Archives Summit did in 2014, which I would link to, if the links weren’t all broken already. Flying Less has a great FAQ (in a Google Doc) to help you think about ways to decrease air travel and increase remote participation.

Canada is the perfect country to pioneer such forward-thinking policies as nation-wide virtual events and reducing barriers to participation. Alongside broadband as a utility, can’t we conceive of virtual professional development as a nationwide right? Especially in heritage, where we already believe digital heritage is the way of the future - else why would we have an NHDS at all?

For now, let me end this section with a plea: tell your conference organizers to spend less time deciding where to host a conference to maximize attendance, and more time working out ways to attend remotely. I’d happily throw in a tenner for live access to my national conferences, especially the wonderful ACA Annual. For events around ideas with national reverberations, such as the NHDS, it seems like an obvious priority for federal funds.

It’s easy to use sticker-shock as a reason to cut down on needless expenses, and it’s an exciting bonus that reducing those expenses is also environmentally superior. But to me it’s equally compelling to talk about what changes we, in our little profession, can do to mitigate climate change.

Eira Tansey is at the forefront of this, leading Project ARCC (Archivists Responding to Climate Change) and sharing useful resources wherever she shows up on the internet (and also walking the walk on other ethical issues by recently leaving Twitter, the hotbed of hate). I have been thinking of how to contribute to this discussion for a long time.

There’s as much reading about how climate change affects archives (emergency preparedness and disaster relief for heritage collections; institutions in high-risk regions; preservation environments in the time of climate instability) and how archives can affect climate change (utility consumption and sustainable operations; sustainable materials and buildings; efficient digital consumption and offerings; dealing with volatile storage media and disposal; renewable conservation) as well as how to archive and promote data and information related to climate change, which is especially relevant in an era of government censorship and cuts to environmental protection services and science.

One thing I hope to write in the future is a non-exhaustive list of ways archives and other heritage organizations can divest from corporations and vendors that contribute to climate change (such as banks that invest in oil pipelines, suppliers that aren’t using recycled materials where possible, etc.).

For now, I’m not in a position to do building or space planning, order LEED-certified HVAC and recycled-material acid-free boxes, or work with local scientists to do data-rescue initiatives. I am, however, in a position to research and write about two things relevant to my work and the profession at large: digital labour and digital consumption.

***

It’s indeed modest and necessary to claim that air travel for work and professional development is a brutal abuse of our environment and our budgets. By very minimal extension, we can see that car travel for work and professional development is the same. A car commute produces more than ten times the carbon-dioxide emissions of an equivalent public-transit trip.

In the archival industry, which is so very material-focused and place-based, it’s hard to imagine a career that doesn’t involve heading in to the office, sitting among the collections, supervising the reading room, setting up the computer terminals and microformat readers, giving tours and organizing exhibits, lecturing in classrooms, processing in the workroom, digitizing in the lab, and meetings, meetings, endless meetings. I realize that, but I also realize that as the profession transitions slowly but surely to more digital tools, digital work, and digital communication, opportunities are popping up all the time to think about ways to make our work more energy-efficient and less environmentally damaging.

Of course, I know plenty of library and archives workers who are able to take days at home - whether this is because part of their job includes professional-development and research time, because they work primarily on tech they can access remotely, or because they’ve organized their schedule to optimize a day for writing, editing, and emails. I can rattle off a quick list of tasks that can be done at least partially at home:

Virtual and phone reference, especially on institution procedures or web resources

Administration and coordination through email and phone

Lecture, tour, and exhibit planning

Research and policy-writing, such as on legislation or involving environmental scans

Writing and editing documentation

Marketing, social media, web copy

Web/systems admin, digital collections admin

Metadata, copy cataloguing, finding-aid writing and editing

Post-processing of digitization

Lots of meetings! So many meetings!

The obvious financial expense of using your home technology and utilities to do your job’s work will have to be reckoned with in your contract. And none of that will cut down on pollution - but saving yourself a gas-guzzling commute certainly will.

Desk shifts and tours aside, lots of people work better without social interruptions and casual chats around the watercooler, and when occasionally saved from the stress of deciding what to wear, at least a day or two a week (or month, or whatever works in your shop). The flipside is yes yes yes I know your IT department would never give you remote access, ever ever, I know.

I hope dearly that heritage institutions of all kinds will look clearly at such factors as their regional roads and bike lanes, walkability and public transit, housing costs relative to proximity, and relevant compensation (and office perks - including employee parking! Space on your land! That you could use to hold stuff!) in order to find ways to offer increased remote work for GLAM staff.

Then it’ll be up to GLAM staff to figure out if they can work productively from home - something that isn’t easy for everyone.

I’m relatively lucky in that I’ve captured for myself one of the few remote-work jobs in the heritage industry: a nonprofit software provider with a team entirely decentralized across the province. We work together with Skype, Google Hangout, shared documents, and plenty of emails. We get together once a year on the occasion of the Ontario Library Association SuperConference, as many of us as can be gathered; there are team members I still haven’t met in the flesh.

We’re able to support ourselves in this by working on digital solutions for a number of public libraries, archives, museums, galleries, historical societies, and other interest groups. Many of these organizations are simply too small to have the capacity for internal IT staff and stacks, so our process often involves shipping USB sticks and HDDs across the province for ingest, and arranging for the shipping of materials to digitization vendors elsewhere. Our process also often involves talking to municipal IT workers who are managing the unfamiliar world of digital heritage collections - a point of contact rife with opportunity and conflict, and one I’d love to be able to explore more in the future.

I believe strongly in a consortial approach for small organizations and want desperately to see our nonprofit grow in capacity and stature. I want this not just for my own prosperity (and because I have a job with a five-second commute and no dress code) but because it’s the answer to our problems both financial and geographical.

At one point I thought of having Iona’s job: the Archives Advisor for the province, driving from one border to the other to assist in training, project management, and emergency relief. I imagined driving a mobile digitization studio around in a suspicious white van to do processing right there in the parking lots of archives and libraries. It would take some math to discover whether one vehicle delivering digitization to a variety of organizations would be less energy-consuming than the equivalent in shipping costs and remote digitization. And hey, what if I put solar panels on the roof of the van? What if I converted it to biodiesel and ran it on food-frying oil from the many A&Ws on the road between institutions?

Working in digital means the actual energy consumption of what we do and what we offer is quite obscured, compared to the monthly electricity bill of a library branch. Unfortunately, this means obscuring the intense cost of web servers with 99.9% uptime and multiple redundancies.

A recent (and very impressive) look at the climate-change contributions of Amazon Web Services brings this into stark relief: AWS was predicted (in 2015) to use almost as much energy in 2016 as the entire residential sector of Seattle - 7.2 million megawatt-hours serving up data, producing 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide. Converting land - to produce solar and wind power in server-heavy places like Virginia - is only going to offset one fifth of this pollution. By now, cloud hosting and services take up 2% of the USA’s total energy consumption.

These numbers scare me, but I lack the immediate capacity to translate them into meaningful comparisons. I don’t know how much energy my employer’s digital collections consume, and I don’t know what nationwide numbers might look like. I do think that sooner or later we’ll need a benchmark that measures financial cost, energy consumption, and pollution effects compared to access and download rates to decide whether or not to put stuff online, and whether or not to restrict access. I absolutely envision a future where digital collections are unavailable overnight and on weekends because the traffic doesn’t justify the cost of keeping the server on. Maybe the energy usage is negligible - but we don’t have the numbers to be sure, and at some point the carbon emissions will outweigh those pennies of actual consumption.

I have been thinking about digital consumption in heritage since I started hearing the dreaded phrase “blockchain in libraries.” A library school recently got a tidy grant to research the possible uses of consensus algorithms for libraries - decentralized linked metadata is an obvious one, provenance information for digital assets is another. Past that, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine any kind of “distributed authority” system that would benefit from power-chugging servers meaninglessly generating blocks to hold our not-all-that-often-used data or to arbiter our not-all-that-sensitive transactions. (We literally have TDRs for that.)

Most importantly, blockchain mining (or, the most popular algorithm anyways) is a huge energy sink, inspiring assholes everywhere to set up giant server farms in the Arctic just to keep their systems cooled, and hacking networked devices to utilize unoccupied memory. Bitcoin alone is a network of such consumptive scale that it out-emissions Ireland. Already. Renewable energy is an absolute, non-negotiable prerequisite to using blockchain technology for anything at all, let alone for anything as superfluous as library checkouts. Sorry, blockchain-in-libraries enthusiasts, but this is just another digital evangelism without ethical grounding. Moving fast and breaking stuff shouldn’t mean actually destroying the planet.

Digital Consumption For Archives is going to be a much larger and more exhaustive research project, perhaps not up to me to complete. A nice first step would be for things like the National Heritage Digitization Strategy to conceive of what total storage and bandwidth would be required were Canadian heritage organizations actually to get all these materials online. Or for organizations to start doing environmental audits, to make transparent their power consumption and where that power comes from, and to ask their contractors and vendors to be transparent as well. To always choose the sustainable option when it presents itself, to include sustainability in RFPs, and to provide the aforementioned flexibility to get your employees’ cars off the road one day a week.

However we do it, what we talk about when we talk about digital heritage needs to include the costs to our power grid and to our planet, and the costs if we can be smart enough to offset or reduce those emissions to zero.

#libraries #archives #galleries #museums #digital archives #digital labour #labour #climate change #environment #sustainability #project arcc #digital heritage

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123greetingsimages · 4 years

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Free Laptops for Low-income Family

Government benefits are widespread, and making sure one benefits from them is so essential in cutting costs. What does it make it worthy to access free government deals? As a citizen of the US, one is entitled to pay taxes, and as a patriotic citizen, it would not harm you in having to get that free deal for yourself. Government free deals are offered in all niches based on various factors set by the federal government and get free laptops for low income families application form.

Getting to confirm the best program that may help you pay for your food, housing, healthcare, utilities, and other basic living things is essential. Now, in deciding on who is whom to benefit from the free deals requires a certain level of clearance? Such eligibility requirements may include; the level of income, Veteran status, Students, children, the impaired and refugees

free government laptops application form

Some of the eligible programs one may get free government laptops for low income families deals include; stamps, welfare, and Medicaid, among others. Let also say the department of telecommunication recently has been actively providing government phone and internet services at a subsidized rate and almost to none fee. The federal government’s benefits program is used in helping with low-income earner to cover necessary living expenses like food and healthcare.

The federal government creates and provides money to the state; to run major assistant programs that one may benefit. Some of government free programs include; SNAP- supplemental Nutritional assistance program for primarily Food stamps. Medicaid for healthcare, subsidized housing or housing welfare and LIHEAP- Low Income Home Energy assistance program. Those include among the many programs in place to ensure that the US citizen receives free deals from the government.

Let’s look at some of the eligibility rules available to determine whether one can be able to benefit from the program. All programs have income limits; one should be a US citizen for some programs while others family size and resources may matter for assessments, getting to understand how these government free deals can save your cost of living and ensure a considerable lifestyle. However, in this article, we focus on how one can benefit in terms of technology without paying a dime or having a small fee in place.

It has been a question of desperate action among people on how can one get free internet at home without paying. How can one have free laptops for low income families application form with food stamps? Moreover, most asked is how, as a college student, can benefit from government free laptops. Yes, it is much possible, and in understanding the formalities and how you can achieve this is more significant. Let’s have a look at these three essentials;

how to get a free computer from the government

The Internet plays a significant role in the world today is about all sectors. With the advancing technology of this 21st-century, internet use has become the center of everything. Name it being watching movies online, doing research, making communications, advertisement, online studying, and many other activities. While using the internet, various charges are inclusive, which may become so vast that one cannot be able to meet them up.

The Internet has no longer become a luxury service, in the current world web is the very crucial element which has integrated into our personal life. Then if you feel you need internet and cannot afford it or have struggles in paying for the access, there are programs designed to help you up in making your dream come true. Maybe they are not full cost covered, but they may help you cut the cost of internet utility fees. Most of the programs initiated to help in these are either funded by the government or offered at a private level.

As discussed above, their various ways in place that ensures that you are eligible for this free or subsidized internet service. Some of Internet service providers also have incorporated multiple programs in place to ensure full benefits of the free deal program. Government assistance is essential for low-income earners in meeting up their daily needs. Phone services and internet subsidy becoming one.

Lifeline is a government program designed in to make sure that the welfare of the less income has access to the technology. It is a commission established by the federal communication commission. Lifeline works on goals and abilities to provide broadband internet connection as a subsidy program among US citizens. To qualify for this service, one has to choose from the two options available; phone services or internet service.

To benefit from this program efficiently, especially on the free internet, your income has to fall at 135% federal poverty line or less. Lifeline assistance too may have a check on your households to determine your eligibility that may not exceed $34,000 on a family of four. Apart from that, one should be in support of several federal program free deals such as SNAP, SSI, FPHA, Medicaid, and LIHEAP. This type of assistance works by providing a minimum of $9.25 per month to cover your internet services. To achieve this, one also is obligated to choose a service provider and sign up with the area office. Lifeline assistance is limited to various factors such as household.

Checking on the best participating internet provider within your local are can spearhead the full benefits of free internet for use at your home. Being that one can benefit from this program efficiently from the government. Other internet service providers have not been left aside and working with the government to ensure that free internet and phone services be of great use to all citizens. Some of other internet service providers spearheading this program initiative offer assistance mainly to low-income families, uniquely if you do not qualify for the Lifeline program.

Some of the ISPs in place are; Xfinity that helps their clients buy internet essentials of a maximum of $10. This internet provided is mostly targeted to students and families falling below the poverty lines against Federal records. Xfinity provides a 15mbps internet and requires no credit card check. Subscribe and enjoy internet service at the comfort of your home. To make sure that you benefit from Xfinity program, one has to have at least one child benefiting from the National school lunch program. Moreover, with the above options, one can achieve the benefits of free internet access in your life.

free laptops for low income families

Having benefited from the internet effectively, then benefiting from a laptop offer can be a quest for many, especially students. As technology is evolving the use of computers and technology becomes an enigma in a person’s life. However, there are a few of us who cannot afford to take one from Amazon and various computer shops. Knowing how to get a free laptops for low income families application form, especially for low-income families, can help in saving finances for other utilities. If you are struggling with funding and you would wish to acquire a computer, then there are a variety of government programs available to help you achieve despite having less pay.

Various government, non-profit organizations and non-governmental entities offer this service, but to achieve it, one has to come from the Federal poverty line classification and be able to qualify for other government subsidies and free programs such as Food stamps, rental assistance, and Medicaid. If you are eligible for this service then accessing a free computer can be so comfortable with a low cost of internet, software and even computer repairs in place.

free computers for low income family

There are various programs in place from organizations mostly aided by government let discuss them below :

The ONLT foundation. Opportunities necessary to increase technology foundation is an organization providing free laptops for low income families application form to households. For you to benefit from the program, one must have a child registered in K-12 school grade. Apart from this unique feature, if you are eligible for food stamps, free education or reduced lunch programs while attending a public school and living in the US can give an upper hand in having to benefit from the organization,

Computers 4 R Kids. It is another non-profit organization, dedicated to providing laptops for south California kids. The organization majorly benefits from government donations, businesses, refurbished companies. Providing computers at low cost and as gifts to schools and individual households is the primary mission of the organization. It aimed to create computer labs to steer research and make education easier for children’s.

Computers with causes. Is an organization dedicated to providing laptops and computers to less privileged children and low-income families? To benefit from the program, a reason of need is to be explained and making sure that one benefits from federal government programs such as stamps may increase your chances. Their preference being of individuals of high need and also the decision can be affected by any benefit you receive apart from food stamps.

Some of the online public schools which are government supported may provide a free laptops for low income families application form, computer, or an IPad to assist your follow up the course comfortably. Education choice can be useful when technology is incorporated and offering a free laptop to students. To ensure you benefit from this program, one may need to check from local public school district offices and seek one.

Lastly, Everyone On is an organization making it possible for everyone to access affordable laptops and get connected if your goal is to improve your life.

Accessing free laptops for low income families application form from the government may not be a direct entry. however, through various channels set up to enhance access can be of great use as discussed above. Government plays a significant role with them to ensure an increase in technology and computer literacy among its citizens.

free laptop for college students from government

Having access to a free laptop is essential to a college student; since undertaking research, studies, and routine work at hand needs a computer. Learning is a process, and without the necessary tools available, it makes it harder. However, since not all of us can afford that cool laptop for studies and ease school life. A variety of programs are in place to ensure that access to technology among students of college-level benefit maximum.

Truth be told that one cannot take a phone and call the government and as for a free laptop since the government has few programs undertaking to provide the same. Even if it is alive or die situation, it so hard. Why is that because there is no specific federal government program exists? However, there is a co-funded governmental organization aiming at that. Mostly the government will connect you to your local department programs and non-profit organization to ensure you benefit.

Being able to benefit exclusively from benefits such as a free computer, one has to consider various factors, and with Benefit.gov is designed to connect citizens with government benefits. Making it the best option site to check eligibility for you to access a laptop for you as a college student. Benefit.gov includes free computers

Apart from Benefits.gov, what are other best ways for a college student to obtain a free laptop? A college student can be able to get a free laptop from the following channels;

Open Education Database- OEDb is a site that offers a list of all colleges likely to provide a free laptops for low income families application form to their students. Laptops supplied by these institutions can be free of charge or fee-based inclusive and may help cut the cost of buying one at shop value.

Technology for the future is another organization that aims in providing college students with free laptops for low income families application form to ensure swift learning and accessibility of technology among low-income families eligible for other government’s free deals.

Uncle Sam and Non-profits is another program that qualifies you for a free government deal, especially if you are from a low-income family it may procure a free laptop for you and discounted internet too.

Notebooks for students is an organization dedicated to providing students with access to low cost and free computers.

Whether you are starting off college and come from a low-income family, there are many programs situated and can help you locate that free laptop. I summary a college student can qualify for a variety of free laptop government deals and also non-profit organization working hand in hand with the government to deliver services.

how can i get a free laptop

Internet and laptop from the government are not exclusively to be free in nature. Let’s take an example free internet offered by Lifeline; it is merely a deduction of internet service provider fees to about $9.25 per month. It is a plan initiated to help you have the internet at a subsidized cost. Lifeline works on goals and abilities to provide broadband internet connection as a subsidy program among US citizens. We would not term it free because we can incur incremental fees above the stated provided help. As for the laptop, Government has no programs of itself to offer free laptops for low income families application form to its citizen, and if it exists, it would be from other channels such as non-profit organization.

Yes, anyone can get free internet and laptop as far as you are a US citizen, but the federal office sets various ground rules of eligibility on who is to be considered. To ensure that one maximum benefits from these free deal should fall below the federal poverty line, with households not exceeding $34,000 on a family of four. If you come from a low family income, then makes more eligible than others. That’s not all for some services such as laptop and interest may require you benefiting from one or more government free programs such as food stamps, rental assistance, and Medicaid to qualify for the deal.

The government provides excellent services when it comes to its citizens. In terms of internet through Lifeline, it offers basic internet service for your household not exceeding more than 15mbps. This free internet subsidy forum is most beneficial for students and other simple internet usages. Most of the internet provided by the government is a subsidy type merely to help you cover a certain percentage of the costs. As for the laptop, since there are no direct government deals, it seems to work through support of organizations, that mostly provide laptops which are either donated by companies or well-wishers and also some are Refurbished laptops.

Some of the programs that can ensure you get a free laptops for low income families application form from the government are indirectly known; however, through a connection to these on Non-profit organizations can enable you to own a free computer. Some of the programs include; Computer for everyone, Computer 4R kids, ONLT foundation, recycle for a future program, Technology for future, Computer with cause and Uncle Sam and non-profits. Above all, Microsoft refurbishes, recycle the world and Alliance for technology refurbishing and reuse are some of co-government working programs to ensure free laptop deals for citizens.

Free Government Internet And Laptop Application Rules

Benefiting from government free internet and laptop, some set of rules must be fulfilled. For you to qualify for application, the following must be met. First, you should come from a low-income family. That means that a total household for the family should not be over $34,000 in a family of four. Secondly, the income should fall on or below the federal poverty line, which is 135%. Having that’s not all; one should be benefiting from one or a series of government free programs from the federal government such as Medicaid, SNAP- supplemental Nutritional assistance program, a Subsidized lunch program for students, subsidized housing or housing welfare, LIHEAP, SSI, and FPHA,

Conclusion

For one to be eligible for free laptops for low income families application form and internet service. Requirements such as being below or at the Federal poverty line may provide consideration exclusively. If you qualify for other government subsidies as a low-income family such as Food stamps, Medicaid, rental assistance are great qualities may ensure you benefit from free government deals as a tax paying citizen. While it is notable some of the services as a free government laptops for low income familikes may be hard to get directly, Government has assured to work along with various organizations to perform their missions in creating awareness of technology and increasing computer usage.

The world is evolving, and computers have become next to basic daily needs. Saying thank to the government for initiating these free benefit programs for those who cannot afford or struggling to pay up for the services is worthy. Free government benefits are real and practical, and we need them to ease up our finances.

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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Restaurant Gift Cards Could Ultimately Be Bad for Business

279photo Studio/Shutterstock

For restaurant owners reopening their doors in a depressed economy, the “interest” on these loans can be steep

Everything was still more or less normal in San Francisco when Reem Assil opened a second location of her bakery, Reem’s California, in early March. Just a week later, San Francisco issued a shelter-in-place order in response to the coronavirus pandemic — a necessary precaution that, for Assil, led to a devastating drop in sales when she needed them most. “We had to figure out, originally, how to go from one to two locations,” Assil tells Eater. “And then it was how to save two locations in different ways.”

Assil initially encouraged her customers, especially regulars who frequented the bakery’s Oakland location, to purchase gift cards to keep both bakeries afloat. “The gift card strategy made sense for us in the beginning, because we know our business thrives off the regulars that go there,” she says.

Facing massive losses in foot traffic and sales, restaurateurs across the country have turned to gift cards as an emergency stopgap measure. For customers who miss their favorite restaurants, buying a gift card is a way of showing support for local businesses without getting anything in return — at least for now. Well-meaning volunteers have compiled lists of restaurants offering gift cards to make up for lost revenue; companies have made headlines for purchasing tens — or hundreds — of thousands of dollars in restaurant gift cards and distributing them to their employees. But as some cities even gear up to reopen in the coming weeks, Assil and others in her position are quickly discovering the limitations of the gift card strategy.

“There’s only so much cash flow you can get from gift cards,” Assil says. Initially, gift card sales brought in $500 to $1,000 a day, but that revenue quickly plateaued. “We need that money now for the cash flow, but we’ll also need it when we reopen our doors at a full capacity and have to rehire folks and get all that up and running.”

Gift cards essentially function as no-interest microloans — small low-interest loans, usually considered a form of philanthropy. Instead of traditional banks or nonprofit creditors, though, pandemic gift cards serve as loans from customers to restaurant owners. Those loans come due whenever social-distancing measures are relaxed and a customer elects to redeem. In the short term, gift cards can be lifesaving for cash-strapped restaurants: They can drive enough revenue to close out a payroll cycle or be used toward rent. Gift cards may give restaurant owners an immediate sense of security, but ultimately, they could also mean less cash flow down the road — especially once restaurants reopen and people decide to redeem the gift cards they purchased. For restaurant owners looking to reopen their doors in a depressed economy, and after months of financial strain, the “interest” on these loans can be steep.

“People’s incomes and livelihoods are all over the place,” Valeria Taylor, the owner of Loba Pastry and Coffee in Chicago, told Eater. “We’re kind of a luxury item — coffee and pastry are not necessities. That’s what makes it a grim outlook at the end of this.”

After Illinois instituted a shelter-in-place order, Taylor closed up shop for two weeks despite her bakery being considered an essential business. The goal was to reevaluate how to stay open in the long run, she says, and she initially encouraged customers to purchase gift cards to help keep the business afloat. “I didn’t know how long I was going to be closed. The way I explained it to people was that the gift cards were going to be helpful — they were an immediate Band-Aid,” she says. “They were going to help me finish a regular payroll period for now and have something to look forward to in the future.”

Taylor says the gift cards helped her make payroll while the bakery was closed, but she stopped promoting them after just one day. Part of the problem was that she didn’t have a pre-existing gift card infrastructure. Instead, customers sent her the funds via Venmo. “I don’t really do gift cards regularly,” she says. “The gift cards that we had, they were just gift certificates we would write in.”

There’s also the issue of staying open for much longer. Most of the bakery’s income came from regulars — people who would pick up a coffee and pastry on their way to work in the mornings. Now that everyone is either working from home or completely out of work, that customer base has dried up. “I didn’t promote [the gift cards] after the first time I posted on Instagram because I was very uncertain about the future of the shop altogether,” Taylor says. “A gift card is almost like a promise that we will be open again, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen. We’re open for now, but I don’t think this is over — and there’s no guarantee we’re going to survive this if no aid is given to us.”

People who want to support their favorite restaurants by buying gift cards may be out of luck if the business ends up closing for good, and restaurant owners may not want to take the risk of angering their former customers by selling gift cards they don’t know they’ll be able to fulfill given the circumstances. A 2010 consumer protection rule imposed limits on gift card fees and expiration dates, but customers have little recourse if the restaurant or business that issues their gift card shuts down altogether.

Small local chains are also feeling the squeeze. Jason Wang, the CEO of New York City mainstay Xi’an Famous Foods, told Eater the government solutions proposed thus far — including low- or no-interest loans — have been lacking. “[W]hat’s lost is lost, it’s not like we in the restaurant industry can get back the lost sales that we missed ever. That time has passed, and we will forever carry the lull on our financials,” Wang said via email.

Xi’an isn’t offering gift cards at all, Wang said, because it doesn’t have an active gift card system, “nor any staff to implement one.” Instead, the chain has come up with other ways to raise revenue, including selling its chile oil packs online. Wang said Xi’an sold $27,000 worth of chile oil packs the first weekend alone, $8,000 of which covered shipping. The chain will soon roll out “a limited release of noodle meal-kits” so people can recreate its dishes in their homes, he said.

Assil, too, has come up with new ways to keep her restaurants afloat as the pandemic continues. Reem’s has begun selling merch, and the bakery’s Oakland location has fully shifted to a commissary kitchen model, where nonprofit organizations like World Central Kitchen order meals in bulk and distribute them to people in need. Though the commissary kitchen meals are being sold more or less at cost, the partnership is providing enough revenue to keep some people working. The merch, meanwhile, is a more secure source of cash flow than gift cards. The costs are both fixed and up-front: restaurant owners have to pay for supplies and, in some cases, shipping, but there are no additional expenses down the line. The bakery’s San Francisco location has also introduced new menu items designed by employees, with the profits benefiting the businesses’ employee relief fund.

“We’re brainstorming other strategies beyond gift cards that don’t rely on this existing model,” Assil says. “Because it’s like, we don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of this. We hit this sobering reality check somewhere in the middle of all this that we may not go back to the way things were, and pretending that it’s going to be business as usual after this doesn’t feel like a very sustainable way of galvanizing support.”

Still, other restaurant owners have embraced gift cards, even though they acknowledge they aren’t a cure-all. “It’s not a lasting solution — it’s just one thing we can do,” says Ravi Kapur, the chief owner of Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco. “Yes, it’s not perfect. If everybody came in the day we opened and the only guests in the gift cards restaurant were using gift cards, yeah, that’d be an issue. But we’re not planning for that to happen.”

Kapur says Liholiho had high gift card sales even before the pandemic and saw a surge immediately after San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order was announced in mid-March. The restaurant is currently offering customers 25 percent off all gift cards.

For Kapur, gift card sales are both practical and symbolic. “It showed that people wanted to support in some way and didn’t know how,” he says. Once the restaurant does reopen, the funds brought in by the gift cards will serve as initial runway. But ultimately, they’re a show of goodwill that will help keep his restaurant on “life support.”

Assil agrees. “It’s more symbolic than anything else, people buying gift cards,” she says. They bring in much-needed cash flow, but they’re more of a sign that a restaurant has a dedicated following than a guaranteed source of income in a worsening economic climate.

“The gift cards are not going to save us,” Kapur says. “When we come out on the other side of this, in some form, we’re not going to be like, ‘Wow, we’re in such a good position because of the gift cards sales.’ It’s like, ‘We’re not in a worse-off position.’”

Gaby Del Valle is a freelance reporter who primarily covers immigration and labor. Her work has appeared in Vox, The Nation, The Baffler, and other publications. She’s the co-founder of BORDER/LINES, a weekly newsletter about immigration policy.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3fj6jKS https://ift.tt/2zZGyyZ

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For restaurant owners reopening their doors in a depressed economy, the “interest” on these loans can be steep

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3fj6jKS via Blogger https://ift.tt/2W8Paw1

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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ezhomelive · 4 years

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SFMTA Budget: Policy Objectives and Funding Priorities

SFMTA Budget: Policy Objectives and Funding Priorities By

The Coronavirus pandemic and current shelter-in-place order have changed our daily routines. The timeline for the SFMTA budget approval has been extended to August 1st. However, we are moving forward with the budget because we need a reference point for where the Agency intends to go. As such, we are taking steps to ensure we continue to engage in a thoughtful and comprehensive community process in light of the current circumstances. If you would like to comment on the budget, please email [email protected], call (415) 646-2222, or post on our Facebook page or Twitter using #sfmtabudget. You can also visit our budget webpage. The SFMTA Board of Directors will be voting on the budget during their regularly scheduled hearing on Tuesday, April 21st.

This is the third in a series of blogs exploring the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA’s) budget process and proposal for Fiscal Years 2021-2022. The first blog provided a high-level overview of the budget process, while the second discussed the state of our projected revenue and expenditures and how they inform budget development. This post will discuss our policy objectives and funding priorities for Fiscal Years 2021-2022 based on the latest proposals that SFMTA staff have put forward. Future blog posts will include content on:

Overview of our outreach

The adopted Consolidated budget and what it includes

Introduction

The previous blog post described the foundation of the Operating and Capital Budgets; the funding necessary for daily operations, equipment, and infrastructure maintenance. This post will discuss the policy proposals & funding priorities above and beyond current service levels. Funding the current service levels comprise most (98%) of the budget. These generally include: employee salaries and benefits, professional service contracts for services, like the maintenance of our bus shelters, that aren’t directly provided by SFMTA staff, and materials and supplies like bus tires or fuel. It is imperative that we continue providing these services to meet the Agency’s Strategic Plan Goals:

Create a safer transportation experience for everyone

Make transit and other sustainable modes of transportation the most attractive and preferred means of travel.

Improve the quality of life and environment in San Francisco and the region.

Create a workplace that delivers outstanding service

As noted in the previous blog post, the Agency faces a structural deficit, meaning that our projected revenue will not keep up with the projected expenditures necessary to provide daily service. So, while the suite of policy proposals discussed in this blog will help us improve and expand services, they will also help us address this deficit. These proposals are rooted in our values of creating a safe transportation system, advancing equity, decarbonizing, and creating a workplace culture that delivers excellent customer service.

Fare Policy

Our budget process began in January and, over the past three months, we have worked hard to ensure an open discussion with the public about San Francisco’s needs, priorities, and the trade-offs that would be required; and to gather feedback through multiple channels so they could be involved in and inform the outcome.

We launched a comprehensive, multilingual public outreach campaign at the beginning of the budget process to gather and consider public input on the budget and the proposed fare changes. As part of that outreach campaign, we received over 300 questions, comments, and concerns, many of which were focused on fares.

We began with our Automatic Indexing Policy, increasing all of our fares as a result of increases in both Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Labor Costs. The implementation of a fare indexing policy allows Muni to raise fares incrementally, rather than holding constant in good times, and increasing above cost of living to help cover budget deficits in economic downturns. Allowing fare revenue to rise in relationship to increased operating costs also allows the SFMTA to invest in the system and increase service.

Some people have questioned whether the SFMTA should raise fares at all, especially given the fact that fares have doubled in the last 10 years.

While this is true, it is important to note that for the previous 10 years, Muni fares were held constant while the economy was strong. Moreover, fares represent a significant percentage of our budget (almost 20 percent). Although the current public health emergency creates uncertainty about our future revenues, we project that not raising fares would mean a loss of $15 million dollars annually. While this seems like a relatively small amount in the context of our overall budget, it does mean that the agency would need to cut programs and services by that amount. For example, because our transit operating expenses are about 60% of the total budget, a revenue loss of $25 million, proportionally reducing all programs and services at the SFMTA, would mean a 3 to 5% transit service reduction and would remove up to 140 operators from service.

Cutting transit service and/or other programs is a bad idea at a time when: we’re seeing significant population growth in the region and one of the Mayor’s top priorities is to build more housing; the need to support sustainable modes of transportation is undeniable given the climate change we’re experiencing; and the need to maintain our infrastructure in a state of good repair is the long-term fiscally responsible thing to do.

So, not increasing fares is NOT a strategic option that considers the trade-offs between short-term gains and long-term consequences.

In order to create a more equitable system, we must prioritize better service and more accessible service through our low- or no-fare programs. Our goal is to create a budget that recognizes the trade-offs that we face and best advances our values. This is why we are proposing free Muni for all youth and for individuals experiencing homelessness.

In response to calls to pause fare increases or to eliminate fares altogether, and with an eye on our funding gap and keeping proposals revenue neutral, we developed two equity-driven proposals that asks San Franciscans who are able to pay, to pay a little more to help our more vulnerable populations who are reliant on transit for employment and other essential needs like healthcare and getting kids to school.

Both fare proposals provide free Muni for all youth under the age of 19 and for individuals experiencing homelessness, and do not raise fares for Cash Fare Single Rides or Reduced Fare Single Rides.

The Equity Monthly Option places the cost burden largely on monthly pass holders to avoid increases in the cash fare and adjusts our Lifeline Pass to be increased by Social Security Income (SSI), rather than inflation (CPI).

The Equity Clipper Option places the cost burden on the monthly pass holders and on riders paying the full single ride fare electronically by reducing—but not eliminating—the discount between the electronic fare and the cash fare.

We are recommending the Equity Clipper Option to our Board, as it distributes the cost burden between a number of fare mediums and supports a more overall equitable fare policy. If this option is approved by our Board:

About 72% of all riders would be impacted by fare increases, based on the 2017 on-board survey, but not all fares would be increased equally.

All proposed fare increases would impact 55% of minority riders and 34% of low-income riders.

All proposed fare decreases would benefit 63% of minority riders and 57% of low-income riders.

Low-income riders use cash fares at higher rates than they use electronic fares. Cash fares for Adults, Seniors, and Disabled single rides will remain the same.

Low-income riders make up only 28% of our Monthly Adult Passes, compared to 53% of our overall ridership.

Free Muni will also continue to be available for Seniors and People with Disabilities, for which we have set a much higher threshold to align with MOHCD at 100% of Bay Area Median Income ($123,150 for a family of four).

Lifeline monthly passes are available for those riders who are at 200% of the federal poverty level. Fares are discounted at half off regular fares and will be increased at the lower SSI rate: $1 for monthly passes and $0.10 for single rides per fiscal year, a smaller increase.

In addition, beginning this year, the SFMTA will be offering a 50% discount on single ride fares to meet the needs of those who can’t afford, or may not need, a monthly Lifeline pass as part of the SMART regional pilot program.

We will also be studying the option of moving from monthly passes to fare capping to enable those who cannot afford the up-front cost of a monthly pass to pay as they go.

Fare Proposals: April 2020 Selected

Accessible text for Table #1

Transit Service

Based on the recommendations of the Muni Reliability Working Group, the Agency is proposing to hire 88 full time employees for system management, maintenance, and planning. Primarily, this includes 30 Transit Operators to support the opening of Central Subway. Other critical staff will:

Support transit operations,

Increase training functions that increase reliability and support trainers and supervisors,

Provide strategic vehicle maintenance,

Support subway reliability, continue regular extended maintenance shutdowns, and

Support Central Subway testing and opening

These proposals represent only an initial investment in the Muni Working Group’s entire set of recommendations. Due to the previously discussed structural deficit, we have scaled back proposals for transit supervision and near-term maintenance improvements and are not recommending a 6% service expansion by FY 2022.

Curb and Congestion Management

In addition to fares, SFMTA is also recommending policy changes to parking pricing. These proposals arose from community feedback, supported by data on parking space availability, that the Agency needs to increase efforts to manage the curb and congestion. Our parking policy proposals have several main components:

1. Modernize Parking Meter Hours: Evening Option and Sunday Option.

Parking pricing is used to manage demand and ensure space availability, not maximize revenue. Any revenue collected goes back into the transportation system, specifically to fund transit.

Since 2011, the SFMTA has operated a demand-responsive parking pricing system: if demand is high, we raise prices to ensure a space or two is available when you go to your favorite restaurant (which hopefully will be soon when the Shelter in Place Order is lifted). When demand is low, we lower prices.

We recognize that increased parking prices could mean less demand from more price-sensitive drivers, many of whom are low income. As part of any proposal we will need to address equity concerns, including maintaining access by continuing to provide quality alternatives, like transit.

We’ve recently looked at our parking polices and realized that they are outdated when it comes to evening metering and Sunday metering. We know that the demand for parking in commercial corridors during the evenings is high. That’s why we are proposing extending the time that meters are enforced beyond the standard 6 pm end time.

We won’t be doing this city-wide immediately; we’ll partner with local merchant associations to determine where extended meter hours make the most sense and see how it works, particularly given the current economic challenges related to the pandemic.

We’re also considering enforcing meters on Sundays, where we’d follow a similar community- and data-driven process to make sure it works for our residents, businesses, and visitors. In 2014, San Francisco's meters charged on Sundays--as a result, parking availability increased significantly, which allowed folks visiting our commercial neighborhood to find parking.

2. Raise the maximum variable parking meter rate by $1 per year to a maximum of $9 per hour in FY 2021 and a maximum of $10 per hour in FY 2022.

The current maximum rate for demand responsive pricing is $8 per hour[1]. This policy is a response to the demand for parking and ensures that parking spaces are regularly accessible to commercial corridor patrons and disabled placard users during business hours. A relatively small percentage of meters in the City operate at the maximum hourly cap.

In addition to updating parking pricing policies, the Agency also recommends the hiring of 66 more Parking Control Officers (PCOs) to manage congestion. This will be a 20% increase of our current staff of 300 PCOs who are responsible for enforcing several safety and quality of life violations like double parking, school zones, bike lanes, and blocked driveways. They are also responsible for traffic control, known technically as a ‘fixed post’. Fixed post is when a PCO stands at an intersection and directs traffic. This is a critical job for reducing congestion and increasing safety by, for example, making sure cars don’t block the box. Just as importantly, many fixed-post PCOs facilitate movement of transit. So, adding more PCOs will increase our ability to:

Support multi-modal safety and neighborhood/commercial corridor needs;

Keep the city moving by managing traffic congestion and supporting transit operations; and

Respond to increased demand for services.

Transit Safety

Driven by overwhelmingly positive public feedback, the Agency is proposing to hire 20 more employees for the Muni Transit Assistance Program (MTAP). MTAP staff are community members who are trained in conflict resolution, and ride on specific transit lines with high incidences of graffiti and youth conflict. They focus on supporting our schools and young people, by working to diffuse and deter any conflicts or acts of vandalism and assist transit operators as needed. MTAP staff do not enforce fare payments, their purpose is to further the safety of youth and other Muni riders.

Vision Zero

The City and County of San Francisco adopted Vision Zero in 2014, committing city agencies to build better and safer streets, educate the public on traffic safety, enforce traffic laws, and adopt policy changes that save lives. The goal of this collaborative, citywide effort is to create safer, more livable streets as we work to eliminate traffic fatalities.

Supporting the Capital Budget, voters approved the use of Prop D Ride-Share Business Tax as a revenue source, with $15 million estimated annually for street safety projects. Staff are proposing expanding existing programs by using the funds evenly for:

the new Quick-Build Program, especially protected bicycle facilities or projects on the High Injury Network; and

signal hardware upgrades, especially signal modifications (new mast arms, poles, visibility) in Communities of Concern[2] and/or on the High Injury Network[3]

Additionally, staff are recommending that the Agency ensures ongoing funding and support of the Vision Zero Education and Outreach Program and Safe Routes to School in the Operating Budget. These programs focus on encouraging behavior change through education, complementing engineering programs and enforcement efforts. They also support the City’s children and families by building a coordinated framework to provide safe and effective options for school transportation. Creating a consistent funding source will increase outreach and education campaigns on safe driving behaviors and maintain the importance of realizing our Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic fatalities.

Internal Capacity

While SFMTA has grown and added staff in recent years, we have not hired enough Human Resources (HR) employees to keep up with hiring needs. Not including Operators (who have a different recruitment pipeline), the Agency currently has 824 vacant positions out of 4,270, with one analyst for every 118 vacant positions. This has contributed to a number of issues, including that it takes 165 days on average to fill a typical position. To begin addressing this and other HR concerns, the Agency is proposing to add 13 positions to our Human Resources Division to support increased administrative needs, talent acquisition, examinations, leave management, and merit and comparability analyses.

In addition to meeting HR needs, SFMTA staff are also focused on strengthening morale and wellness through enhanced employee engagement and support, and a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforce.

To achieve these goals, the Agency is proposing to create an Office of Race, Equity and Inclusion to address inequities in our workplace and services, prioritize those who have the most need in every decision, and ensure just outcomes for all people.

Over the past month, COVID-19 has significantly impacted our community and dramatically altered the SFMTA’s financial outlook. Although this sudden change had an impact on our budget proposal, we maintained as many of the policies and proposals developed with help from public input as we could. However, we will be monitoring both our revenue and our expenditures closely, and we are committed to staying within our means. We can expect that the financial outlook will change over time and we will be making adjustments to the budget accordingly. We will report regularly to the public and the SFMTA Board during the course of the budget period on measures that we are taking to manage our finances.

We at the SFMTA want to thank you all for your invaluable input. You truly helped to shape the budget we will bring to our Board of Directors on April 21st. We encourage you all to tune in to SFGovTV to watch the meeting. You can also call in during the public comment portion of the meeting to share your opinions directly with the Board.

Coming up next in our series: Overview of our outreach

[1] Only 0.02% of metered streets are currently at the maximum $8, so this change only applies to a very narrow set of meters.

[2] San Francisco’s Communities of Concern include a diverse cross-section of populations and communities that could be considered disadvantaged or vulnerable now and in the future. Communities of Concern can have high levels of households with minority or low-income status, seniors, people who have limited English proficiency, people who have disabilities, and more.

[3] The 13% of all SF streets where 70% of severe and fatal collisions with pedestrians and cyclists occur

Published April 17, 2020 at 04:29AM https://ift.tt/2VykEKl from Blogger http://www.ezhomelive.com/2020/04/sfmta-budget-policy-objectives-and.html

#IFTTT #SFMTA

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supremekalmllc · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://supremekalm.com/cannabis-coronavirus-and-federal-disaster-assistance/

Cannabis, Coronavirus and Federal Disaster Assistance

Coronavirus has been great for cannabis sales. In most states with approved cannabis programs, both medical and adult use marijuana sales have been designated “essential services” by state and local governments. With this support, the supply chain has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic better than many industries. Still, the pandemic continues unabated and cannabis businesses are far from secure.

Over the past month, the federal government has attempted to throttle the sputtering economy with varying forms of stimulus. Some of the efforts have been undertaken by the Federal Reserve (slashing the federal funds rate; debt purchase commitments) and some by the Internal Revenue Service (pushing out deadlines). But Congress and the President have taken matters further. In this post, I’ll summarize the three “phases” of Congressional stimulus, and their implications for cannabis businesses.

Before diving in, it’s important to draw a bright line between forms of cannabis defined as “hemp” and “marijuana” under federal law. In the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp was removed from the definition of “marijuana” under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Although heavily regulated, hemp is no longer controlled in the classic sense. For this reason, qualified hemp businesses should be entitled to the same stimulus relief as businesses in most other industries. Marijuana businesses will generally be excluded, except that these businesses will incur related obligations with respect to employees as set forth below.

Phase One – Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR 6074)

This bill became law on March 6 and focused primarily on domestic and international public health measures. However, it also contained a $20 million grant to the Small Business Administration (SBA) Disaster Relief Fund. On March 11, President Trump instructed the SBA “to exercise available authority to provide capital and liquidity to firms affected by the coronavirus.” The capital would take the form of $50 billion of low-interest loans. Unfortunately for marijuana businesses, SBA was quick to point out that:

Because federal law prohibits the sale and distribution of cannabis, the SBA does not provide financial assistance to businesses that are illegal under federal law. Businesses that aren’t eligible include marijuana growers and dispensers, businesses that sell cannabis products, etc., even if the business is legal under local or state law.

This is not a new SBA position. In 2018, SBA issued a Policy Statement defining “Direct Marijuana Business” and “Indirect Marijuana Business.” The Policy Statement explained that those two categories of businesses are not eligible SBA borrowers. Although the SBA spokesperson did not reference this Policy in the above quote, it is fair to assume the Policy Statement remains in place for HR 6074 and related stimulus.

In response to being left out in the cold, cannabis organizations and trade groups like NORML and NCIA have written their letters to Congress. Those letters will likely go nowhere (as usual). Qualified hemp businesses, on the other hand, stand to benefit from the SBA loans. Criteria for those loans can be found here.

Phase Two – Families First Coronavirus Response Act (HR 6201)

HR 6201 was introduced on March 11 and became law one week later, on March 18. It takes effect April 1 (this Wednesday) and sunsets December 3, 2020. The law includes provisions for insurance coverage of coronavirus testing, nutrition assistance, paid sick leave, expansion of the Federal and Medical Leave Act, and unemployment benefits. The final three items are most relevant to cannabis businesses.

Regarding paid sick leave, all businesses (including cannabis businesses) with fewer than 500 employees must provide up to 80 hours (10 days) of paid sick leave if an employee cannot work for a coronavirus-related absence. This includes caring for someone with coronavirus, caring for children because of school or day-care closures, etc. It’s important to note that this is additional paid sick leave over whatever the business may already provide under policy or applicable law. Paid leave is at the employee’s full wage, but is capped at $511/day if the employee is sick or must self-quarantine, or $200/day if the employee must care for others.

HR 6201 also expands the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). All employers, including cannabis employers, must provide up to 12 weeks of paid FMLA leave to employees who must stay home (and cannot work from home) because of school or daycare closures. The first 2 weeks (10 days) are unpaid, though the employee may get paid sick leave either under this law or under existing sick/PTO policies. The next 10 weeks are paid at 2/3 of employee’s regular wage, capped at $200/day.

With respect to unemployment insurance, HR 6201 includes $1 billion in funding for state-administered unemployment insurance programs. It’s important to note that these funds are transferred from the federal government to the state governments. As such, individual states have the authority to decide for themselves which industries are legally eligible to receive benefits. Cannabis company workers in many states may therefore seek and receive benefits (provided the state is on board and provided the company has been property paying its unemployment insurance).

The IRS will reimburse employers for 100% of the cost of paid sick leave, either through payroll tax credits and/or direct payment refunds. IRS guidance is silent on whether marijuana businesses would be eligible for this relief, but given the plain language of Internal Revenue Code § 280E, it seems unlikely. As with everything else, hemp businesses should be OK.

Phase Three – Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (S 3548)

The CARES Act is massive. Enacted on March 27, it provides $2 trillion in stimulus, including cash payments to individuals, $500 billion in corporate aid, $100 billion to health-care providers, $150 billion to state and local governments and $349 billion in small business loans. The bailout likely does nothing for marijuana businesses given its structure, but should help qualified hemp operators.

Under the CARES Act, small businesses can receive loans to cover payroll expenses, health care benefits, employee salaries, rent, utilities and interest on mortgage debt. To qualify for these “Paycheck Protection Program” loans, businesses must employ 500 employees or less, including all full-time and part-time employees. Nearly all U.S. hemp businesses fall into this category. For a full summary of the Paycheck Protection Program loans, go here.

Interestingly, and unlike with typical SBA loans, Paycheck Protection Program borrowers do not need to provide security or personal guarantees. These loans are also forgivable in many circumstances. Because the CARES Act delegates lending authority to banks and credit unions, potentially eligible hemp businesses should reach out to their banks and credit unions directly (although loan interest rates, maturity dates, and other terms will be set by the Treasury Department).

With respect to marijuana businesses, federal law still prohibits bank involvement except as contemplated by the ancient Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance (FIN-2014-G001). In generally, financial institutions remain hesitant to service the industry—especially in any capacity beyond basic merchant services—given anti-money laundering concerns and Bank Secrecy Act requirements. Marijuana businesses may technically qualify to receive federal assistance under the Paycheck Protection Program, but it seems unlikely those loans would be administered. I would love to be wrong about this.

The post Cannabis, Coronavirus and Federal Disaster Assistance appeared first on Harris Bricken.

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defendourhoodz · 5 years

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City Hall Holds Its Hand Out to Developers, Brings Its Fist Down On the People

Please continue to donate and share the fundraiser for the long legal battle ahead for the 12 arrested at last council meeting: https://gogetfunding.com/developer-owned-austin-city-council-arrests-5

For a year and a half, alongside tenants and community members of the East Riverside area of Austin, our organization has waged a tireless struggle against the planned Domain on Riverside, a massive luxury project that will displace 4,000 people and 1400 low-cost units to make way for high-end condos and expensive shopping to cater to wealthy tech employees like Oracle. This project will not just affect the apartments on the chopping block, but accelerate the destruction of the surrounding working class neighborhood of East Riverside.

Over the course of this struggle, we have confronted community meetings, picketed developer collaborators, rallied in the apartments and out in streets of Riverside, and more. Even though developers and city officials won’t admit it, we have doubled their timeline for project approval through our direct action. The developers originally claimed that they would be wrapped up with the rezoning process in Fall of 2018.

But these gains haven’t come without sacrifice. From the beginning of this fight to today, we have taken 24 arrests, primarily on the archaic, absurd charge of ‘disrupting a meeting or procession’, which criminalizes anyone who interrupts a ‘lawful meeting’ (i.e. public meeting) either verbally or physically and charges them with a Class B Misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, a $2,000 fine, or both.

Historically, the city rarely enforces this law, because most of the time, they don’t feel threatened by the liberal, pacifist organizing which is the usual M.O. in Austin. There are many that claim to represent ‘resistance’, but they work closely with the ruling class, to either give the appearance of struggle or provide the ruling-class cover with token concessions that do nothing to stop overall exploitation. This is what Austin’s non-profit industrial complex does. The non-profit and liberal activists rarely confront the process meaningfully, because they want to suck up to power in order to further their careers and funding.

But for us, they have thrown the full weight of the state onto us for fighting back against developer exploitation in Riverside and for not playing by their rules and ‘decorum.’ Prior to last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Adler and Council Member Greg Casar both said they would enforce ‘decorum’. This was a thinly veiled threat that they would send out the pigs on community members for merely speaking out and holding signs in council chambers.

When you fight back against the state, the state retaliates. This is a basic law. If the state is cooperating with you, or you cooperate with the state, your fight is not a protest, it is theater.

For us, Austin’s government has sought to criminalize even the most basic protest. We must understand that they have revoked basic democratic rights for our organization because we reject collaboration with the ruling class.

Our refusal to participate in the city’s sham process means they have dropped any facade of democracy and shown what they have always been - a manager of affairs for the capitalist class. Any member of the public who rejects their process is deemed a criminal, and they seek to make an example of us.

The fact is, the working class and oppressed nations are always criminalized under capitalism, while class collaborators, primarily from the petty bourgeoisie, are rewarded by their bourgeois masters. This only shows the need for true revolutionary organizing that will lead towards the eventual overthrow of this capitalist system.

There are some politicians who claim to be against gentrification, but still side with state repression against those fighting for the community. In a confrontation at Hotel Vegas last week, Council Member Greg Casar said he, ‘agrees with what we’re saying, but not always with how we go about it.’

Yet, just last week, Casar supported an action at San Antonio City Council that was calling for paid-sick days. He supports these tactics only when they back his reformist agenda, which is to uphold capitalism through token reforms. The ruling class capitalists can easily take away these reforms when they want (like they’re doing with paid sick days).

Casar is the quintessential middle man for the ruling class. He will take $6,000 from Armbrust and Brown, the developer’s lawyers, and still vote against them. He may vote against the developer’s project, but still supports the arrests of activists that disrupt the ‘decorum’ of Austin city hall. Like one community member said at Hotel Vegas, Greg Casar will ‘sell you out for a single corn chip’. Ironically, he sells out both sides, showing his devotion to centrism and trying to please everybody by standing with nobody.

Then you have Pio Renteria, a straight-up vendido sucio, who is pushing the project in exchange for the $17,000 he received in campaign donations from the developers. Pio is universally hated by the Chicanos and working class of the barrio who have seen him rise to power thanks to gentrifier support and developer cash. He is on another planet when it comes to the struggles of the people in his district.

Finally, there is King Pig Mayor Adler - a millionaire who could only express his frustration with outraged community members, saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and sent in his pig army to clear the chambers. To this bourgeois parasite, outraged community members are just annoying pests that can be run out at his whim. He has taken $11,000 from the Domain on Riverside interests, and has massive real estate interests himself.

The rest of council are imperialist liberals - nearly all white, wealthy representatives of West Austin or token members of the Black and Chicano oppressed nations like Natasha Harper-Madison and Delia Garza, who play the game of respectability politics. There is also a gay white man, Jimmy Flannigan, who tokenizes this fact, but in reality is nothing but a rainbow capitalist and supporter of the same pigs who brutalized the LGBT masses of Stonewall and continue to brutalize them to this day.

All these other council members are crooks, but they hope to let the Mayor and Renteria take the heat for pushing the project through, or in Casar’s case, provide an air of false concern to the suffering of the masses, while signing off on their repression regardless.

They all just want to get this over with and give the developers what they want, especially since it’s a project in East Austin that mainly affects working class and oppressed nations people, especially Chicanos, Latino immigrants, and black people. They have also shown they could care less about Austin’s being a ‘college town’, because the lower income students who live in East Riverside are disposable to them as well. But we know all hell breaks loose anytime developers try and carry out even smaller projects in their mostly white, wealthy neighborhoods of West Austin.

This is the reality of our city - it is a democracy for the wealthy, for the capitalists, for the developers - and a farce for the working class, oppressed nations, and all others without the power or money to make their voice count. It is why we relentlessly disrupted the city’s process and will not let up on this fight even if they vote to rezone tonight.

City Council might think they will wash their hands of this project after tonight. But the working class doesn’t forget or forgive our oppressors. While much of this struggle has taken place in the anti-people fortress of City Hall, more battles will be fought out in the streets in the time to come.

We call on the working people of Austin and the world to unite to resist gentrification!

NO DOMAIN ON RIVERSIDE! Combat the Displacement of the Working Class in Our Cities!

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-hate-planned-parenthood/

Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood

Rest Assured: Planned Parenthood Is Here To Stay Planned Parenthood Is The Nations Leading Provider And Advocate Of Sexual And Reproductive Health Care And Largest Provider Of Sex Education

Planned Parenthood’s 600 health centers nationwide care for 2.4 million people per year. These health centers have survived “defund” attacks before, and they will do so again.

Overall, an estimated one in five women in America has come to Planned Parenthood at some point in their life for care. That’s why a majority of Americans support Planned Parenthood, and why so many people choose to say #IStandWithPP.

The Fight Over Federal Funding For Planned Parenthood Seems To Be About Much More Than Whether Taxpayer Dollars Should Be Going To Planned Parenthood

Doug Mataconis·Sunday, February 27, 2011·

I must admit that I’ve never quite understood why social conservatives are so vehement in their opposition to contraceptive use, or even the very idea of sex education, while at the same time being stridently pro-life. After all, it seems quite logical that more widespread use of contraceptives would make abortion far less likely, which is something I think that both “pro-choice” and “pro-life” people would say is a good thing. Nonetheless, the opposition continues, as personified by Kathryn Jean Lopez’s column at Townhall today:

That certainly seems to be the implication, for example, in the post that Robert Stacey McCain writes about Lopez’s column:

While Mccain doesn’t really come out and say that contraception should be illegal — which is quite different from the question of whether or not an organization like Planned Parenthood should receive government subsidies — the mention of Griswold seems telling. That, after all, is the case where the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives even to married couples, based primarily on a right to marital and sexual privacy emanating from the un-enumerated rights protected by the Ninth Amendment. Several years later, that holding was extended to strike down a statute that prohibited the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples. In that case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court said:

The Pressure On The Susan G Komen Foundation Is Just Part Of A War To Separate Abortion Rights And Women’s Health

“I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood,” Karen Handel, the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s senior vice president for public policy, wrote in 2010, during her failed gubernatorial bid in Georgia. It’s worth asking again what that mission is and why the right hates it so much, now that the foundation has withdrawn its funding for Planned Parenthood to provide breast cancer screenings to low-income women.

The right’s hatred of Planned Parenthood requires some logical inconsistencies, to put it mildly. It means constantly accusing the nonprofit organization of greedy profiteering, even while fantasizing over how stripping Planned Parenthood of federal funding for health services might shut its doors. It means professing to hate abortions but doing everything possible to deny access to contraception — from trying to keep Planned Parenthood from getting Title X funding to opposing comprehensive coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act, for which Planned Parenthood was a key lobbyist.

As long as women remember Planned Parenthood as their lifesaver in providing sexual health counseling, emergency contraception or a pap smear, it’s harder to peg abortion providers as back-alley butchers. And it’s easier for them to understand the reality that abortion services are inseparable from any truly comprehensive women’s healthcare, whether one wants to choose them or not.

Planned Parenthood Plays A Pivotal Role In Our Health Care System Defunding It Would Have Massive Consequences

There’s a bigger problem with Republican claims that women could just “go somewhere else” if Planned Parenthood were defunded: It’s not true.

Some women, especially higher-income women who can afford to travel or spend more on birth control, can probably find another place to go. But they might not want to. And many women simply have no other options — or the options they do have wouldn’t give them the same quality of care they can expect at Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood says it operates about 650 clinics that serve 2.5 million patients every year nationwide, and about 80 percent of its patients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy. It also offers education and outreach on sexual health to millions.

Planned Parenthood clinics are “safety net” health centers, which means they use public funds, including Medicaid, to provide free or reduced-fee services to at least some clients.

Planned Parenthood plays a hugely disproportionate role in serving women who need affordable birth control, and who tend to turn to these safety net clinics to get it.

“Unfortunately, many communities do not have a glut of general reproductive health care providers just waiting around to serve patients”

Planned Parenthood has a robust network of providers. And it specializesin reproductive health care services — which isn’t the case for all clinics that offer contraception.

Forget The Excuses For Ending Planned Parenthood’s Grants The Goal Has Always Been To Take Away Birth Control

The reason Republicans keep trying to take birth control away from women is simple: They think birth control is bad and you shouldn’t be able to get it.

This should seem obvious, but apparently it is not. Every time Republicans find some new avenue to take away birth control, there is always some elaborate excuse — dutifully repeated by the mainstream media as fact — for why they don’t want to take away your birth control, but simply have to for some other reason that is always, they claim, not about birth control. Birth control is never the target, they swear. It’s always just the unfortunate collateral damage of some fight over, they swear, something else.

Don’t buy it. The reason Republicans keep taking away birth control is because Republicans want to take away your birth control. They hate the power it gives women, especially young women and low-income women.

Conservatives are modern Puritans and, as H.L. Mencken famously said, they are driven by the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

The cover story this time is about abortion. The Trump administration passed a new Department of Health and Human Services rule terminating Title X funding for any clinic that offers abortion referrals to patients who might need one. Planned Parenthood, along with any other clinic that follows responsible health care practices, is now facing the loss of this extremely important source of contraception funding.

Congress Moving Ahead With Plans To Cut Medicaid Payments Grant Money To Planned Parenthood

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump joined other Republicans in vowing to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, solely because the health services provider helps some patients obtain abortions.

At a GOP debate in Houston, Trump responded to criticism from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida that Trump had defended Planned Parenthood.

“As far as Planned Parenthood is concerned, I’m pro-life. I’m totally against abortion, having to do with Planned Parenthood,” Trump said on Feb. 25, 2016. “But millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood. So you can say whatever you want, but they have millions of women going through Planned Parenthood that are helped greatly. And I wouldn’t fund it.

“I would defund it because of the abortion factor, which they say is 3 percent. I don’t know what percentage it is. They say it’s 3 percent. But I would defund it, because I’m pro-life. But millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood.”

WHY HE’S PROMISING IT

Politicians and groups opposed to abortion rights attacked Planned Parenthood after a series of heavily edited videos appeared in the summer of 2015.

Those videos, from the group Center for Medical Progress, purported to show officials from Planned Parenthood discussing how the organization illegally sells tissue from aborted fetuses for profit.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN

HOW MUCH IT WILL COST

WHAT’S STANDING IN HIS WAY

POSSIBLE TIMELINE

No Democrats voted for the measure.

Trump Administration Blocks Funds For Planned Parenthood And Others Over Abortion Referrals

The new rule would steer federal family planning funds under Title X to anti-abortion and faith based groups.

The Trump administration announced on Friday that it will bar organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving federal family planning money, a step that could strip millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood and direct it toward religiously-based, anti-abortion groups.

The new federal rule is almost certain to be challenged in court. Clinics will be able to talk to patients about abortion, but not where they can get one. And clinics will no longer have to counsel women on all reproductive options, including abortion, a change that will make anti-abortion providers eligible for funding.

The rule, which has been expected for months, is the most recent step by the Trump administration to shift the direction of federal health programs in a conservative direction. The administration has expanded the ability of employers to claim religious or moral objections to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that they offer employees insurance coverage for contraception. It has channeled funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs and family planning grants into programs that emphasize sexual abstinence over contraception.

Some of these changes are being challenged in lawsuits by groups that support reproductive rights, but the new policies have broad support among evangelicals, who are a big part of the president’s political base.

Politicians Behind Defund Attacks Have One Goal In Mind: To Shut Down Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood is a not-for-profit organization with about 600 health centers nationwide that provide a full range of sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion. Discriminatory federal policies have long prevented the use of public programs like Medicaid and Title X to pay for abortion.

Going after patients who would obtain government-funded care at Planned Parenthood, politicians show they’re willing to block access to essential care — like birth control, STD testing and treatment, and Pap tests — for the sake of their agenda. They want to make safe, legal abortion as difficult as possible to access — and if people lose access to lifesaving care in the process, so be it.

House Republicans Balk At Idea Of Giving Steve King Back His Committee Assignments

WASHINGTON — Top House Republicans are voicing opposition to allowing Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King to get his committee assignments back, including the highest-ranking Republican woman.

King was stripped of his spot on House committees last year after he made controversial comments about white supremacy and Western Civilization to the New York Times, which he claims were taken out of context by the newspaper.

A spokesperson for Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney told NBC News “Cheney does not support” giving King back his committee assignments. She was the first Republican leader to condemn King’s comments and even called for him to resign from Congress.

At a forum on Monday night in Spencer, Iowa, King claimed that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was going to advocate for giving him his committee assignments back, as first reported by the Sioux City Journal.

“On April 20, Kevin McCarthy and I reached an agreement that he would advocate to the steering committee to put all of my committees back with all of my seniority because there is no argument against my fact-check document, I have disproven all of those allegations,” King said at the republican forum Monday.

“When Congress comes back into session, when the steering committee can get together, I have Kevin McCarthy’s word that then, that will be my time for exoneration.”

King criticized Stivers in a statement to NBC News, calling him “only one vote on Steering” and a “Never-Trumper.”

What Does It Actually Mean To Defund Planned Parenthood At The Federal Level

The more than $500 million Planned Parenthood receives annually from the federal government — the funding that Republicans in Congress now want to take away — pays for specifichealth services, like birth control or cervical cancer screening, for people who couldn’t afford them otherwise.

Most of the funds are actually reimbursements from Medicaid, the US’s public health insurance program for the poor. Just like with any other insurance, Medicaid patients go to their health care appointment first and then have Medicaid pay all or most of the bill later.

The rest of Planned Parenthood’s federal funds come in the form of grants from Title X, the nation’s only federal program for family planning. Title X grants are awarded on a competitive basis to clinics that meet the program’s standards for family planning coverage and services. Title X subsidizes free or low-cost contraception and other preventive services, and it’s especially helpful for low-income or uninsured people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid.

In practice, defunding Planned Parenthood takes funding away from its mostly low-income patients

However, Republican lawmakers often argue that if the federal government funds Planned Parenthood through these programs, it’s still effectively funding abortion — which violates the spirit of the Hyde Amendment.

Defunding would be a huge financial blow to Planned Parenthood. But it would still keep offering abortion services.

First Competitive Special House Elections In Coronavirus Age Set For Tuesday

WASHINGTON — With the coronavirus pandemic forcing candidates off of the traditional campaign trail, the 2020 election season gears up Tuesday when the first competitive House special elections since the start of the crisis will take place and produce two new members of Congress representing Wisconsin and California.

Facing off in California’s now-empty 25th House District, where the GOP hopes to reclaim the seat won by Democratic Rep. Katie Hill in 2018, are Democratic state Assemblywoman Christy Smith and former Navy pilot, Republican Mike Garcia.

In Wisconsin’s 7th House District, a historically Republican district that President Trump won by 20 points in 2016, Democrat Tricia Zunker and Republican state Sen. Tom Tiffany are vying for the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Sean Duffy.

For more about the two races and what they could could mean for effectively campaigning and winning elections in the coronavirus era, read the breakdown from NBC News’ political unit here.

Also check out the First Read analysis of how the scandal surrounding former congresswoman Katie Hill could increase Republican chances of taking back the district by looking at the history of scandal-induced special elections.

With Efforts In Congress Unsuccessful Attention Turns To Regulatory Process

Over the past year, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have failed in several efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

As we’ve noted, federal dollars do not actually fund abortions. A longstanding provision known as the Hyde Amendment excludes Planned Parenthood and other medical providers from using federal dollars to pay for most abortion services, except in instances of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger.

Abortion opponents argue that even these types of federal payments mean that the government is indirectly supporting abortion, so they have pursued various legal and regulatory approaches to shut down the federal funding streams that currently support organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Indeed, estimates show that the organization receives about 40 percent of its funding from the government. Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million in combined state and federal government funds.

Planned Parenthood gets most of its funding through Medicaid reimbursements and from Title X, a Health and Human Services grant program that funds comprehensive family planning services.

Those who support defunding Planned Parenthood cheered when Congress and Trump in 2017 effectively overturned an Obama administration rule that had been written to prevent state and local governments from pulling federal funding from Planned Parenthood and other clinics.

For now, the administration hopes to defund Planned Parenthood through a regulatory process.

Coercion Is At The Heart Of Social Conservatives Reproductive Health Agenda

HIGHLIGHTS

Coercive intent and practices are at the core of social conservatives’ reproductive health agenda, including virtually every reproductive health–related initiative from the Trump administration and social conservatives in Congress over the past year.

Coercion can take many forms, including withholding information, obstructing access to health services or providers, attempting to ban services outright and empowering third parties to impose their views on others.

Such coercive measures particularly target people who are in vulnerable positions, for instance because of their immigration status, youth or lack of financial resources.

In October 2017, the first case of the Trump administration attempting to forcibly prevent an unaccompanied immigrant minor in federal custody from obtaining an abortion made headlines around the United States. At the center of these actions is the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by an ardent abortion-rights opponent. Lawsuits and media reports have revealed that officials are using a variety of tactics to pressure young women not to have the abortion they requested, including physically barring individuals in the government’s care from accessing the procedure. One attorney, speaking of her client, said that officials “literally held her hostage”1 to force her to continue the pregnancy.

Us Ethics Official To White House: No These Rules Definitely Apply To You

Together, providing contraception and the testing for and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases made up three-quarters of the services the organization provided in one year.

That means low-income women could be among the most heavily affected by this bill, as it may force them to find other providers for reproductive health services.

Of the other government money that goes to Planned Parenthood, most of it comes from Title X. That federal program, created under President Richard Nixon, provides family planning services to people beyond Medicaid, like low-income women who are not Medicaid-eligible.Earlier this year, Republicans started the process of stripping that funding.

Republicans Want To Defund Planned Parenthood As Part Of Obamacare Fight

House speaker Paul Ryan gave first official word that repeal legislation would also renew the congressional assault on the women’s health organization

Last modified on Tue 18 Jul 2017 18.00 BST

House speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that Republicans would legislate to defund Planned Parenthood as part of their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The same day, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced a national effort against such attempts to defund it.

Ryan spoke a day after a special House panel issued a report criticizing Planned Parenthood, which provides women’s health services, for its practices regarding providing tissue from aborted fetuses to researchers.

Allegations regarding such practices were at the heart of a scandal involving videos filmed by an anti-abortion activists. Investigations in 13 states concluded without criminal charges, and Planned Parenthood officials have denied any wrongdoing.

Ryan’s comments, while expected, were the first official word that repeal legislation would also renew the congressional assault on the group.

“The Planned Parenthood legislation would be in our reconciliation bill,” Ryan said.

Last year’s Obamacare repeal measure also contained an effort to defund Planned Parenthood, which receives government reimbursements from the Medicaid program for non-abortion health services to low-income women. It receives reimbursements for contraception services from a different government account.

Take A Closer Look At The Crusade Against Womens Rights And Health Care

A simple explanation for defunding Planned Parenthood that is offered up ad nauseum by talking heads across the political spectrum is that Republicans hate abortion. That doesn’t tell the whole story. Not only does Planned Parenthood offer many services that aren’t abortions, abortion only accounts for 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood’s services go toward preventing unintended pregnancy. If Planned Parenthood were to go away overnight, the result would be an increase in abortions. In over 100 counties in America, Planned Parenthood is the only “safety net” health center that deals with women’s reproductive health. Poor and working-class women in America depend on Planned Parenthood for essential medical care.

What Do Planned Parenthood And Acorn Have In Common Republican Attacks

Wade

New Orleans Hey, it’s not just me that’s noticed the haters pulling out their playbook big time again on Planned Parenthood just as they did on ACORN. Here’s a thoughtful, spot on piece by Brenden Gallagher published on the merryjane.com website. I’m glad to bring truth wherever I find it, so here goes:

Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood So Much?

Take a closer look at the crusade against women’s rights and health care.

How Would Defunding Planned Parenthood Actually Affect Peoples Lives

sturti

In practice, defunding Planned Parenthood takes funding away from its mostly low-income patients — who might be forced to seek care elsewhere if the government stopped subsidizing their visits to Planned Parenthood. Low-income women will be hit especially hard, but all Planned Parenthood patients may be affected.

Reproductive health care is an incredibly basic, essential need, especially for women. Pregnancy is both a major medical event and a major financial one, and the decision of whether and when to give birth or become a parent is one of the most foundational, life-altering choices a person can make. Sexually transmitted diseases threaten lives and fertility if left undetected or untreated. Birth control can literally affect women’s lives every day, from helping them fully participate in public life by avoiding unwanted pregnancy to alleviating the horrifying symptoms of endometriosis or premenstrual dysphoric disorder .

And to put it bluntly, having a vagina can be really expensive.

Do you know how much it costs as a woman just to test for a UTI if you don’t go to PP? With insurance? Roughly $180.

— Liz January 6, 2017

Together, Medicaid and Title X combine to form our nation’s family planning safety net. Unfortunately, that safety net isn’t well-funded enough to actually meet the country’s needs for subsidized contraception — about 20 million women were in need of publicly funded contraceptive services in 2014, and only 7.8 million got them.

Trump Slightly Outraises Biden In April Maintains Large Cash On Hand

WASHINGTON — President Trump, apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden and the umbrella of party organizations backing them raised over $60 million in April, according to the two campaigns. The Trump team reported a $61.7 million cash haul, while the Biden camp brought in just slightly less with $60.5 million.

On top of money raised by their campaigns, the pro-Trump effort includes fundraising from the Republican National Committee as well as other groups affiliated with his re-election effort. And Biden’s effort includes the Democratic National Committee as well.

This is the first monthly filing period in which both teams are reporting their fundraising from their joint fundraising committees. April is also the first month in which Biden was the sole Democratic candidate for the majority of the reporting period. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the primary race on April 8.

While Biden and the Democratic National Committee have not released their cash on hand numbers, the president’s campaign says it has over $255 million in the bank — and that juggernaut may be Biden’s greatest financial weakness. The last officially reported numbers, filed for March, showed Biden and the DNC with just over $62 million on hand.

Both campaigns will report their full fundraising filing for April on May 20.

Trump Rule Change Prods Planned Parenthood To Forgo Federal Funds

After a string of setbacks, opponents of abortion chalked up a significant victory in 2019 with the enactment of a federal regulation to prevent a major type of federal funding from reaching entities that provide abortion services.

At issue was Title X funding, a Department of Health and Human Services grant program that targets lower-income Americans who are facing unintended pregnancies or seeking family planning services.

The Trump administration enacted a rule that effectively said that any facility receiving federal Title X funding cannot also be an abortion provider. Previously, abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood could receive Title X funds as long as the funds were only used for non-abortion services.

“When this rule was instituted, Planned Parenthood was faced with having to choose between continuing to receive the Title X funding for family planning care or continuing to provide abortion services at some of their clinics,” said Gretchen E. Ely, a professor at the State University of New York-Buffalo’s School of Social Work.

In August 2019, one month before the rule was scheduled to take effect, Planned Parenthood decided to stop taking Title X rather than discontinuing abortion services. A federal appeals court upheld the rule’s legality in February 2020.

The Texas case represented “the first time the federal government has allowed a state to explicitly waive Medicaid’s free choice of provider for family planning provision,” Lau said.

Trump’s Attempts To Defund Planned Parenthood Met With Roadblocks

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump promised to defund Planned Parenthood. That has yet to happen.

Trump joined other Republicans in opposition to federal funding for the health services provider on the grounds that Planned Parenthood helps some patients obtain abortions.

“I would defund it because of the abortion factor, which they say is 3 percent,” Trump said on Feb. 25, 2016. “I don’t know what percentage it is. They say it’s 3 percent. But I would defund it, because I’m pro-life. But millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood.”

Federal funding does not actually fund abortions. The Hyde Amendment excludes Planned Parenthood and others from using federal dollars to pay for most abortion services, except in instances of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger. Abortion opponents argue the government is tacitly supporting abortion by funding non-abortion services.

So how far has Trump come in keeping his promise?

First, it’s important to note that Planned Parenthood is not a line item on the budget, so it can’t simply be crossed out. Planned Parenthood gets most of its funding through Medicaid reimbursements for preventive care and some from Title X, a Health and Human Services grant program that funds comprehensive family planning services.

But the best shot Trump had at getting rid of the Medicaid reimbursements was through failed health care reform.

Reasons Why Planned Parenthood Should Not Get Government Money

Heritage expertSarah Torre gives all the facts Congress needs to know about Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has become a billion-dollar organization on the backs of taxpayers. They earned $128 million in revenue with over $1.4 billion in net assets last year. In the same year, federal and state governments gave them over $528 million to fund their lucrative programs.

Planned Parenthood performs one in three abortions in the U.S. They reported performing 327,653 abortions last year. Former employees have even made allegations that there are mandatory “abortion quotas” each affiliate must meet.

Planned Parenthood emphasizes abortions instead of preventative care. They made only 1,880 adoption referrals and just 18,684 prenatal services last year. Even cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood have decreased 50 percent since 2004.

Planned Parenthood has been accused of financial fraud with taxpayer dollars. In 2013, an affiliate payed a settlement of over $4 million to Texas for Medicaid fraud. Similar investigations revealed over $8 million in possible fraud across nine states.

Planned Parenthood fights laws that protect women and children. They have opposed legislation that would protect infants born alive after failed abortions and tried to derail an anti-human trafficking bill because the legislation included a longstanding and widely-supported policy against taxpayer funding of abortion.

Do you think the government should be funding Planned Parenthood?

Democrats Lay The Groundwork For Possible Virtual Convention

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee moved Tuesday to allow for a virtual 2020 convention if the party determines that to be necessary as the coronavirus continues to claim American lives.

A resolution approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee lets delegates vote and “participate in the Convention in person or by means that allow for appropriate social distancing.”

DNC Chairman Tom Perez said he still expects and hopes to see a full convention in Milwaukee, and that a “precise format” has not been decided.

“This will give the convention team the tools necessary to adapt and plan in order to ensure that every delegate is able to accomplish their official business without putting their own health at risk – whether that be participating in person or by other means to allow for social distancing,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, the DNC panel approved waivers by states seeking to move their primary dates as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

Democratic Super Pac Trump Campaign Launch New Ad Campaigns

WASHINGTON — Unite the Country, a super PAC that supports apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and President Trump’s campaign are spending big money ahead of the parties’ conventions this summer.

Unite the Country’s $10 million ad campaign launched Friday and will last until the Democratic convention. Their first ad of this campaign, entitled “Deserve”, focuses on rebuilding the economy and Biden retelling his family’s story of leaving Pennsylvania for work opportunities during the 2012 Democratic convention.

“A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about dignity, it’s about respect, it’s about your place in the community,” Biden said in 2012.

Unite the Country was formed by Biden allies in October to support his candidacy during the Democratic primaries. Now, it is one of several super PACs working to boost Biden in the general election. While this ad signals a positive message, another prominent super PAC, Priorities USA, has been spending heavily on Biden’s behalf with spots strongly critical of President Trump and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Thursday, the Trump campaign came out with its own 60-second ad attacking the former vice president on China. Like past ads the campaign and PACs supporting the president have run against Biden, the ad alleges Biden would be soft on China.

Fire in the hole! pic.twitter.com/Mxs3lsfap6

— Brad Parscale – Download our Trump 2020 App today! May 7, 2020

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howtomusicmajor · 7 years

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Public vs. Private vs. Conservatory

There are several types of post-secondary education available to musicians. The main forms of official education fall in two general categories: liberal arts universities, and conservatories. Universities can be further divided into public and private schools. They all have benefits and drawbacks, and with roughly 5300 schools in the US, there’s going to be one out there that fits your needs.

University

Overall, universities are focused on providing a diverse education and producing well-rounded liberal arts students. They may provide three different potential degrees - Bachelor of Arts in music, Bachelor of Music, and Bachelor of Science in music. Each of these has its own speciality.

Bachelor of Music: Focuses primarily on the musical aspect of the degree. A good rule of thumb is that two thirds of your overall credits will be in the music department, and one third in gen ed credits. This is the most similar to the education you would receive at a conservatory. The goal here is to be a good musician, with some extra backing in the liberal arts. It is very art-based.

Bachelor of Arts in music: Focuses primarily on receiving a liberal education, with music as a focus within that education. Here the spread is usually one third music to two thirds other classes. The goal is a well-rounded person, with a focus in music. If music is something you may not want as your entire career, or if you are thinking of going into music business or law, then a BA in music may be a better choice than a BM.

Bachelor of Science in music: Focuses in a specific subfield of music, one that is technical or related to business. Fields can include audiology, audio technology, recording, music education, music business, and others. Schools vary as to what will be a BS as opposed to a BM or BA. Essentially these degrees are for people who enjoy science or technically-based training.

Overall, universities provide a broader education. If you have doubts about whether you want to pursue performing as your career, then a University degree is likely better for you. It provides more flexibility to switch majors, as well as more flexibility within the degree itself when it comes to potential jobs.

Public

Public universities, especially in state universities, are much cheaper than private universities, averaging between $12,000 and $13,000 a year to attend. This is because state and federal governments programs fund part of the university’s system. That means the tuition is not forced to cover the entire cost of running the school. Furthermore, state universities tend to be much larger than private universities, which means that they are usually more diverse and have more programs for students to participate in and use. There are also a greater number of classes offered, and professors available to teach you. In general, state universities simply have more of everything.

State universities, however, also make it much easier to fall between the cracks. When your university has anywhere from ten to fifty thousand students, if you are struggling, then it is less likely than at a smaller school that someone will notice. Some people like being just a face in the crowd, while others prefer to have more individualized attention during counseling and planning sessions. The goal is for you to find an atmosphere that makes you comfortable, and that you can also afford to attend.

Private

Private universities, compared to state universities, are much more expensive. This is because they do not receive state funding. Without that funding, tuition is forced to make up much more of the overall cost of attendance. A private university can cost anywhere from$25,000 to $50,000 per year to attend, when room and board are included. Living on campus and paying the university for room and board is often mandatory at private universities.

General, private universities are much smaller than public universities. They often have a maximum of five or ten thousand students. This means that the school as a whole has fewer resources, facilities, and stuff. While the classes offered maybe more individualized, there are fewer offered, simply because there are fewer professors. As long as the school is well-run, there will be enough classes offered for people to complete their degrees, but scheduling may be harder, because fewer sections are offered of any one class. The benefit is that with fewer students, professor and advisors can give much more attention to each student they do have. This is why private universities boast about their low student-to-faculty ratio.

Some people enjoy having a familiarity with most people on their campus, while others find it off-putting to go to a university with the same number of people as attended their high school, or even fewer. Again, the point is to choose a school that fits you, not one that seems prestigious or one that your friends chose.

Conservatory

Conservatories are essentially prestigious trade schools for learning a musical act. They pride themselves on producing extremely skilled performers, composers, and occasionally educators. The overall education of a conservatory is almost entirely musical. While universities have a general education requirement, most conservatories require almost nothing. Some may require business classes, but there is no requirement surrounding, for example, sociology, or non-musical history. This makes conservatories ideal for people who know their goal is undoubtedly performance-based. However, it makes it much more difficult for people who intend to get further degrees or begin careers that are not performance-based. Without including classes that are usually found in University settings, employers and grad schools are less likely to consider a conservatory student to be a good fit for their organization.

Conservatories in general are very competitive places, even after people have been admitted. Since everyone there intends on performing to make a living, performance opportunities, master classes, and other potential opportunities for growth within the conservatory are very, very desirable. This means that the overall atmosphere can be at times tense, frustrating, or simply energizing, if you thrive under pressure. Some people prefer a more laid-back atmosphere, while others enjoy the challenge of getting ahead in a competitive environment.

So if you are certain that you want to perform, then a conservatory would probably be a great fit. However, if an atmosphere of stiff competition, and a lack of flexibility and future career options is a downside for you, then consider just getting a Bachelor of Music degree from a university instead. The goal is to choose an educational style that works best for you.

#studyblr #music #college #conservatory #university

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michellelewis7162 · 4 years

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Vehicle Transport

There are a multitude of reasons you may be actually thinking about vehicle transport as opposed to merely steering your auto or using your motorcycle. Possibly you're a classic car enthusiast or you have a classic motorcycle that's worth a ton of funds, or even perhaps you only desire to deliver your automobile coming from one point of the nation to the various other as well as prefer to not devote a full week steering or using. Irrespective of why you are looking at vehicle transport there are actually a number of variables you require to recognize prior to delegating your automobile in to the qualified hands of the transport experts. Auto Transport Prices

The different techniques of vehicle transport.

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A lot of transportation firms that are actually relocating your motor vehicle between pair of locations in the very same nation are going to do so using an open auto transporter comparable to those used when taking brand new automobiles to the display room, nevertheless if you have an extremely outdated car or even an especially unusual one and you do not wish it to must experience the aspects then you should not have any sort of difficulties discovering a provider that will certainly offer you the very same service in a sealed transporter, thereby staying clear of the potential damage that certainly not only the wind and rain can possibly do, however likewise loosened crackings that fly up when driving.

The insurance coverage effects of vehicle transport.

As along with any sort of sort of purchase you need to always look around to help make sure you are actually not merely acquiring the best package yet are obtaining every thing you need to have coming from the business you make use of. For occasion several delivery providers will just provide an extremely marginal amount of insurance and if you are actually delivering a remarkably beneficial car coming from one side of America to the other you will definitely really want a little additional cover to provide you that tranquility of mind Boardman.

One of the most important element of choosing a provider to take care of your vehicle transport.

International Vehicle Transport

Vehicle transport companies give companies that deal with freighting for all kinds of motor vehicles worldwide. The automobiles could be delivered to or gotten from another nation anywhere in the planet. The automobiles that may be transported around the globe consist of motorbikes, autos, vehicles, trailers, Mobile Home's, buses, manufactured homes, watercraft, aircraft, helicopters, airplanes, planes, hefty tools, tractor/trailer rigs plus all other wheeled machinery. The shipping provider commonly collaborates with a system of trustworthy companion companies all over the world to publication, dispatch as well as provide the automobiles. Shipping overseas is extra complex that delivering domestically, as a result of to rules imposed through foreign countries on this kind of activity. The quote parameters are actually influenced through variables like the dimension and also kind of automobile being actually delivered, the source and also location f the car, and also any sort of unique managing that would be actually required.

A domestic vehicle transport provider functions in partnership with accredited and also trustworthy international carriers that will definitely offer the same remarkable specification of solution and care. The most effective procedures of transport as well as freighting routes are actually utilized around the globe to make sure a premium quality of company and also realistic expense. These providers likewise deal with the transport of autos in the best suitable fashion depending on the unique instances entailed in each specific cargo. These companions will definitely likewise correctly take care of the transactions of documents for export or even inbound customs clearance. Before transporting an automobile worldwide, all industrial invoices have to be actually delivered to the shipper by the consumer and the client should sign the export instructions Boardman.

Overseas governments possess laws that can influence various facets of international vehicle transport. Freight cargos go through responsibility in each countries. The consumer has to be prepared to supply proof of purchases for purchases helped make in overseas nations as well as accurately pay out the demanded task. All place and importation costs and also charges are actually made the responsibility of the freight manager. The payload manager is actually urged to investigate via the consular office of the international government to which they are actually transporting cargo or coming from which they are obtaining payload to accurately find out of levies or stipulations that would administer to the shipment. The delivery company are going to always offer the finest info possible to the customer, but because the obligation lies with the freight proprietor (customer) to the right way pay out fees and also generate information, it is prudent to be straight updated due to the appropriate consular offices. The transport of vehicles will go smoothly when all documentation is provided along with the correct details plus all expenses and charges are actually paid out as needed.

Factors You Must Know About Vehicle Transportation

Various packers and movers possess different systems to supply. Thereby, it is essential that you check out advantageous cost just before creating the last choice. Right now the concern is actually - perform all packers as well as moving companies supply car transport and insurance coverage of items? The solution is NO.

Some relocating companies supply automobile transport while others concentrate primarily on the relocation of home items. Likewise certainly not all relocating companies give Insurance of products OH.

Like other companies, relocation can easily be actually challenging at the same time. The risks often tend to boost when relocating fars away. Hence, you must check into the solutions of specialists.

If you are specifically concerned regarding insurance coverage and car transit, you need to decide on a relocating provider that offers such options.

The main reason for working with Moving firms that offer insurance is Security. Throughout the transportation of goods, specific things can get ruined or even lost. Incidents can easily also take place while in transit.

Along with insurance policy coverage, you do not must fret. You need to be sure that the packing deal actually includes insurance policy. Its own valuable to be prepared since you can easily certainly never ensure what may take place when driving.

If you require to take your automobile during the relocation or moving, it would be actually much better to select a relocating firm that focuses on car transport. A dependable provider can make sure a hassle-free as well as easy transport of your priceless vehicle OH.

The ideal packers and agents can manage governmental guidelines that aid in admittance of cars in a different states/countries.

As an example, based on website traffic legislations in some nations motor vehicle service providers are actually merely enabled on certain days within a detailed time period. You must pick a vehicle transport solution that has a nationwide license to avoid prospective complications along with the town government.

Apart from the government rules, specialists can easily additionally successfully handle challenging roads and the negative website traffic. Newbies could be simply bewildered along with the recurring roadway buildings as well as perplexing overpass 44512.

Some Facts About International Vehicle Transport

The part of worldwide vehicle transport companies is actually special. It supplies countless kinds of services to the individuals. With help from international vehicle transport any kind of sort of car can easily be sent out or even gotten to or even coming from any aspect of the world. Commonly, the auto that are sent out or even gotten from one nation to yet another include cars, vehicles, motor cycles, Motor Home's, trailers, mobile phone homes, buses, sky design, water made, choppers, jets, planes, tractor or even trailer gears, heavy equipments as well as other rolled equipments.

Generally, the whole entire premier shipping firms operates along with the support of a network of dependable partners. These firms overcome out the world as well as work together in the features like reservation, supplying and also send off of lorries. The method of vehicle freight overseas is thought about to become more made complex in contrast of shipping domestically within the political perimeters of a country. The method of global vehicle transport is difficult due to variation in regulation with different countries. The therapy of such activity affects coming from country to country. All the parameters being quotes largely depends upon the type as well as dimension of the lorry that is visiting be actually transferred. After the motor vehicle being transported the transport business owes the whole entire task as well as guarantees the manager of car, a safe range of it to its own location.

The residential firms achieve the method of transportation with the aid of certifies as well as professional overseas carriers. They used to give companies of exceptional high quality alongside appropriate treatment of all the things. The procedure of transport is being finished with the aid of enhanced methodologies to use highest quality services to the clients at a budget-friendly price. The international vehicle transport firms have an appropriate understanding regarding what is actually really good for the auto and what is actually not. They offer a perfect atmosphere per consignment. The partner firms are competent to deal with all the formalities and preparing all the files linked with custom-made services. It is actually critical that the consumer needs to look at all the export instructions very properly and sign it after validating all the facets. If there is no trademark of the consumer in the records after that it can easily develop serious complications in the process of sending off the automobile 44512.

The variable that has the primary effect on various facets of international vehicle transport is the legislation imposed due to the governments of the overseas countries. The packages deliveries are actually thought about to become responsible for the duty in every the countries. The customers must have the slips for the delivery and also send off of the automobiles. It is necessary to pay the called for task due to the consumer instantly. This remittance features location costs, importation/exportation charges, and so on plus all these originated from consumer's very own wallet. It is encouraged that before selecting the procedure of remittance the consumer need to make certain regarding all the policies and guidelines of the interested overseas country. For this they can interact with the consultant of international authorities and afterwards found all the questions. There will definitely no worry develop if all the rules have actually been actually revised plus all the responsibilities have actually been paid within the ideal amount of time.

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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years

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Coronavirus Outbreak: Hope govt recognises valuable role played by community radio stations at great risk and cost, says professor Vinod Pavarala

It was a Supreme Court judgment in the Union of India and Cricket Association of Bengal case by justices PB Sawant and S Mohan on 9 February, 1995, that acknowledged "airwaves or frequencies" as "public property" paving the way for a community radio movement in India.

However, it took seven long years before the government approved the first policy for community radios in 2002 but restricting permission only to educational institutions to establish community radio stations. It was finally in 2006 that grassroots organisations like NGOs and other not-for-profit organisations were allowed to set up community radios in India.

Although it is believed that the 2006 "policy brought a paradigm shift in the Community Radio Movement in the country", the government itself admits that the number of "operational Community Radio Stations in India at present is rather disappointing keeping in view its size and population" and that "their capacity to mobilise resources is extremely limited.

Although the government introduced the Community Radio Support Scheme in the 12th Plan for providing financial assistance to community radio stations, the scenario for community radios in India is far from satisfactory. Despite their extreme limitations in terms of resources, these community radio stations across the country are working shoulder to shoulder with the government for last-mile delivery of information to create adequate COVID-19 awareness. Today there are about 280 community radio stations licensed by the Government of India across the country.

Firstpost spoke with professor Vinod Pavarala of Sarojini Naidu School of Communication, University of Hyderabad to understand the crisis facing the community radios in India and what the future entails for the movement.

Associated with the community radio movement in India for nearly two decades, Pavarala is the founder-president of the Community Radio Forum-India and since 2011, also held the UNESCO Chair on Community Media, the only one of its kind in the world.

Edited excerpts follow:

How big is the contribution of community radio in India during this ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis?

There are some 280 community radio stations in the country today. Many of these stations are located in those areas where mainstream media doesn't really reach, especially tribal areas and other remote places. So community radio has been playing a major role in various development and social change issues from the beginning. I think this crisis has also brought the best out of community radios in the country because of certain unique features that characterise them.

One is that they are very close to the community. They are located within the community. Community radio programmes are made with the partnership and participation of community members. The programmes are usually done in local languages and dialects. All of these features have made community radio a very significant medium during a crisis like this.

At the same time, I must appreciate that these stations are working in close coordination with the local administration and local authorities. Most of the times it is important to deal with local realities like at the panchayat level, district collector's level and broadcasting that information to the listeners. Because of that local character of community radio, they get listeners in a very targeted manner. Since they broadcast in the local language, the community radio stations are doing a great service.

Is there any community radio station that has caught your attention during this crisis?

If you look at a place like Odisha, a lot of stations are in tribal areas. So there is a station in Koraput called Radio Dhimsa(owned by South Orissa Voluntary Action and operates from Chhapar, a tribal village in Koraput district) which has been doing some amazing work not only on air but also physically doing outreach work by going into the community. They are doing this at great risk to their own staff, trying to go there and spread awareness, demonstrating things like washing hands, wearings masks and so on. Some of these things are effective by doing it directly rather than on air.

You will also find places like Himachal Pradesh where there is a community radio station in Dharamsala called Radio Gunjan(owned by Gunjan Organisation for Community Development) which is barely two years old but it is now broadcasting in Hindi and in Pahari and Garhwali dialects. By translating some of the content related to hygiene, public health, and precautions to be taken into the local dialects, they have been doing a valuable job.

In Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh, there is a community radio station called Waqt Ki Awaaz (promoted by Shramik Bharti in village Bairi Dariyav of Maitha block). Waqt Ki Awaaz broadcasted a 26-episode series basically focusing on World Health Organization's facts and figures, directives and regulations and so on. They went straight to the source and broadcasted it in the local language over a 26-episode series.

The hyperlocal character of community radio has stood it very well. In Gurgaon, there is a station called Gurgaon Ki Awaaz which caters primarily to migrant labourers in the Gurgaon area. They have been broadcasting some very useful information such as the arrival of ration supplies, when the local people can go to get their ration, opening of medical shops in the area among others. Many of the stations are taking calls from listeners. They are bringing experts into their studios to answer their questions.

Many community radio stations have actually caught your attention for content during this pandemic broadcast. Do you have any programme in mind that can be an example for community radio enthusiasts in terms of delivery style of content?

In the Mewat region of Haryana, there is a community radio station called Alfaz-e-Mewat (established in 2012 by SM Sehgal Foundation). Alfaz-e-Mewat did a very creative show called Ekkees Baatein, Ekkees Din when the 21-day lockdown was created. It had experts speaking to listeners directly. It also had a show that was like a fake news alert. There is so much fake news going around on WhatsApp sometimes it is difficult for ordinary listeners to judge its authenticity. They also created a show called Savdhaan like an alert dispelling myths that are being spread by fake news.

One station in Karnataka in Hoskote taluk of Bengaluru Rural District called Sarathi Jhalak did one creative show that came to my attention where they brought five different experts on a panel discussion. It was very interesting. They had a doctor, a historian, a philosopher, an activist and a police officer. They were trying to cater to the various aspects of the community's needs at this time and also looking at their spiritual well-being not only in terms of health but also telling them about how previous epidemics historically devastated the region etc.

From what you have said so far it can be safely said that the community radios in India are playing a stellar role in this pandemic crisis. But when we go deeper, we find that nearly all community radio stations in India barring those owned by educational institutions are struggling just to survive. Why is this happening?

I think community radio in many ways has been doing this work on their own. And, this is not unique to India. I just had a meeting with the Bangladesh network and the situation is pretty much the same there. There is very little support from the Government of India. I really hope that the Government of India recognises the valuable role that has been played by these community radio stations at this particular juncture with great risk and cost to them. Many a time it is not easy for these volunteers to go to the stations during this lockdown period or getting reports from the field by their community radio reporters.

What is happening is that the government used to give DAVP(Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity) advertisements to these stations. Community radio stations are permitted to take advertisements and much of it is from the government. But DAVP payments have been pending for very long. If the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting clears the huge arrears that are there currently from previous DAVP advertising, even that would be very handy for stations to manage their affairs at this juncture. I am not even talking about new advertising that they could release currently. That would be one big help the government can give to the stations.

You have been associated with the community radio movement in India since inception. Is funding always a problem for the NGO-owned community radio stations in India?

Funding is a major issue for these community radio stations. Those that are run by large NGOs at least try and manage but even there the NGOs want the stations to become self-sufficient. It is not easy in the absence of support from the government. So the community radio movement with which I have been associated for almost 20 years has been asking for a long time to create some kind of a community radio support fund. This is a public resource and we can create a public fund to which various ministries can contribute. The corporates can contribute from their CSR funds. From that fund, the community radio stations can be supported based on their proposals and applications for various reasons.

Right now the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has something called a Community Radio Support Scheme which is clearly inadequate because most of the spending goes on equipment as establishment cost. But there too, they have not been able to disseminate much of this funding whereas we have been saying not just for equipment, they should also cover the cost for programming, volunteer support and training.

In a country like India people doing it all voluntarily is a very tricky thing. Maybe in the West community radio stations are run by volunteers because they all have their regular jobs. They can come on the weekends and give some time. But in rural areas where community radios are run in India, they also have to worry about their day-to-day livelihood. It can't be expected to be done for free.

In terms of supporting community radio stations in India, the government should seriously consider using a small proportion of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to bolster community radio services in the hinterland. India, as a signatory to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union(ITU), is obligated to see how the benefits of new communication technologies extend to all parts of the country, especially the deprived regions.

In India, such a fund was created in 2004 with the funds generated through the Universal Access Levy (UAL) as a percentage of the revenues earned by telecom licensees. For instance, such funding could go to subsidising the high costs of internet connectivity to community radio stations. The coronavirus pandemic, when community radio personnel are struggling to do their programming by logging in remotely, recording their programmes, and uploading their content using their expensive mobile data, is a perfect moment for implementing something like this.

How difficult is it to start a community radio station in India?

One of the main reasons that have been historically there right from the beginning of the policy is the bureaucratic hurdles before securing a licence, the various ministries that come into play for giving various clearances. It takes anywhere from one year to 18 months from the time of an application for a station to be able to go on air. It is not easy.

Many of the applicants are small NGOs located in small areas of the country. They are also not able to go to New Delhi frequently to lobby and to keep doing their rounds in different offices to get the clearances. So they patiently sit for their licenses to arrive and it often takes so long.

Do you think India has a sufficient number of community radio stations to cover a country of its size and diversity?

That is a very good question and not necessarily to do with the current crisis. In flatter regions, the signal can go up to 25 to 30 kilometres but in mountainous regions or where there is dense forestation the signal doesn't reach very far. It is like an FM frequency. It goes as the crow flies by air but because the voltage is so low — 50 watt — it doesn't go far enough. Even if you just look at the number of districts in India, which is 736, we don't have one community radio station per district in India. We only have about 280 community radio stations. If you look at the frequency spectrum that is allocated to community radio stations and let us say you divide it by 50 Watts, easily something like 3,000 to 4,000 community radio stations are possible. However, we are nowhere near that number.

We need to increase the number of community-based organisations that can own and run stations. The number is quite low right now. Nepal, a small neighbouring country, has almost 300 plus stations. It is more than what India has and for its size, it's quite a lot. Although I am not saying quantity is everything but if you look at a diverse country like India where in every 5-kilometres agriculture changes, culture changes, the language changes, we need many more stations speaking in local languages catering to local needs. In times of a crisis like this, we realise how important these are.

There are so many community radio stations that are owned by educational institutions in different parts of India. In this regard, what are the possibilities for collaboration between NGOs and community radio stations run by educational institutions?

Some campus-based community radio stations do arrangements like that. In India, we do not have a separate licensing for campus radios. They also fall under the same community radio licensing regime. They are also called community radio stations. But what has happened is in many cases including in the case of University of Hyderabad's community radio station called Bol Hyderabad, they tend to become more like stations being run for the campus community. These stations are being run by students and they have their own limitations. Every year or two, there is a huge turnover of students as the old students leave and new students come in.

I think it's a good idea that campus-based community radio stations build links with community-based organisations around their campus and try to leverage that community connection that these NGOs bring. Some campus-based stations do that quite well. For example, Radio Active in Bengaluru is a community radio station run by the Jain Group of educational institutions. If you look at the kind of work that Radio Active does, it hardly has any tell-tale features of a campus radio station. It is an urban-based community radio station. It works closely with a lot of marginalised communities like the rag pickers, migrant workers, transgender communities and so on.

There are good examples of university-run community radio stations with good connection with communities around and we need to increase that. Today about half of our community radio stations are run by educational institutions and the other half is run by NGOs, agricultural universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendra and so on.

With the internet now becoming a global rage, do you think community radios will be able to compete with that?

Those who think radio in the times of the internet is an anachronistic medium, given the uneven access to ICTs in India and the limited penetration of smartphones, community radios are still very relevant and cater to those communities that are at the far corner of the development road. Their local character, their community connection, and participatory nature makes them an ideal medium for the marginalised people to have their voices heard.

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csrgood · 4 years

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Supporting COVID-19 Relief Efforts in Our Communities

Supporting COVID-19 relief efforts in our communities

It’s providing homeless services organizations in California with emergency response supplies to diagnose and prevent the spread of COVID‑19. It’s helping centers in Idaho that are providing child care for first responders, health care workers, and essential workers, to stay open. And it’s supporting nursing students in Texas so they can graduate on time and enter the workforce sooner, where they are desperately needed.

Last month, Wells Fargo announced it was redirecting $175 million to COVID‑19 community relief efforts, and since then, the company has worked to streamline grant making and offer highly flexible funding to nearly 1,000 nonprofits reaching more than 800 communities. Strong collaboration between Corporate Philanthropy and Community Relations and Government Relations has also helped Wells Fargo contribute to dozens of state and local COVID‑19 relief funds. On April 5, Wells Fargo announced it will donate fees generated through the Paycheck Protection Program as charitable grants to nonprofits that support small businesses.

“This has been an unprecedented pandemic with effects that no one could have predicted,” said Jimmie Paschall, interim president of the Wells Fargo Foundation. “Wells Fargo is fortunate to be in a position where we can use our resources to help bring relief to our communities, many who quickly deployed relief funds. These grants will help communities respond to nonprofits, small businesses, and people they serve who are losing money, struggling to provide for others, seeing an increased demand for services, and facing other challenges as a result of COVID‑19. We hope to help them keep their doors open, retain staff, and provide services to the people that rely on them most.”

The following are some of the ways Wells Fargo’s support is helping to provide relief in the U.S. and around the world:

International: A $10,000 grant is supporting Anxiety Canada in Vancouver to provide funds to help cover COVID‑19-related services and programs. Anxiety Canada provides free online, self-help, and evidence-based resources on anxiety including the MindShift™ CBT app, which is designed to help Canadians manage anxiety. The charity provides free online courses to help people relax and be mindful, develop more effective ways of thinking, and use active steps to take charge of anxiety.

A $40,000 grant to the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in London is helping the organization’s medics and support staff with travel, accommodations, food, training, and other needs. The organization is based in the Southwark borough, one of the most affected areas of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

National: A $1 million grant to the Opportunity Fund, which is headquartered in San Jose, California, kicked off a $50 million small business relief fund for vulnerable small businesses across the U.S. that are affected by COVID‑19. The Opportunity Fund has already deferred payments for 700 small businesses and will continue to lend capital and offer technical assistance as the fund continues to grow. In particular, this fund helps small businesses owned by people of color, immigrants, and women.

Alabama: A $100,000 grant to the Birmingham Strong Fund is providing emergency loans to small businesses to help stabilize employment, stimulate economic vitality, and offset losses related to COVID‑19. The fund, led by the mayor of Birmingham, offers loans ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 with zero interest for 180 days. The loans are meant to help limit reductions in payroll or staff size, maintain business operations, or fund a business model reconfiguration in response to COVID‑19.

California: A $150,000 grant to the city and county of San Francisco is supporting its Give2SF Fund, which can be spent on various city efforts to respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak and support residents. This includes providing shelter, food, and other types of assistance to help individuals across the city, as well as assistance to small businesses impacted by the outbreak in the form of zero-interest loans with flexible repayment schedules and terms. This emergency loan fund will expand access to cash for small businesses who may have difficulty accessing more traditional loan products and help sustain them through the ongoing public health crisis.

A $150,000 grant to LA Family Housing in North Hollywood is providing free meals for low-income families. The nonprofit houses up to 500 families on any given night in its interim, or bridge, housing, which currently consists of motels and large single-family homes. Under normal circumstances, food insecurity is a critical area of concern for these families — and it’s even more of an issue with the recent closure of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which provides critical meal services for children in schools. The Wells Fargo grant will cover the cost of daily meals for families over the next four weeks. LA Family Housing will provide one hot meal per day for each family member served in the various motels and interim family sites operated by the organization.

A $100,000 grant to United Way of Greater Los Angeles has helped the group create the Pandemic Relief Fund to support vulnerable populations who are at the greatest risk of health and economic impacts in this crisis. Los Angeles has 60,000 individuals experiencing homelessness each night, and preventing the spread and diagnosing COVID‑19 within this population is extremely challenging. Through the Wells Fargo grant, the Relief Fund will provide homeless services organizations with emergency response supplies, including additional food, face masks, hand sanitizer, and infrared thermometers to help keep this population protected.

A $100,000 grant to the Long Beach Economic Partnership helps provide at least 200 small businesses with mini grants of $500 and enhance their eligibility for the City Loan Program.

Colorado: A $150,000 grant to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless in Denver is providing respite beds for individuals awaiting COVID‑19 tests and for those sick with mild to moderate symptoms. Working with the county, the city of Denver purchased the Western Motor Inn, and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has put in place a master lease to use the site. The city and county are working to identify other motels that can be available for master leasing by the Coalition. The city ultimately hopes to secure 800 – 1,000 additional motel units to respond to the emergency.

Florida: A $50,000 grant to the Tampa Bay Resiliency Fund will help provide grants to qualified charitable nonprofit organizations in support of local efforts to address community problems created by and in response to COVID‑19. The fund is administered by the Pinellas Community Foundation and is a strategic collaboration with the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, Allegany Franciscan Ministries, Pinellas Community Foundation, United Way of Citrus County, United Way of Hernando County, United Way of Pasco County, and United Way Suncoast.

Georgia: A $250,000 grant to the Greater Atlanta COVID‑19 Response and Recovery Fund is supporting those most vulnerable to the economic and health-related impacts caused by the pandemic. The fund was organized by United Way of Greater Atlanta and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Wells Fargo is among the first corporate foundations supporting this fund.

Idaho: A $100,000 seed grant has helped Home Partnership Foundation in Boise create the Idaho Housing Rapid Response Fund, helping with rental assistance, immediate shelter, and transitional housing. The grant provided initial seed money, and with additional donors, the fund has now grown to more than $250,000.

A $20,000 seed grant to Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children in Boise has helped the group create the Idaho Child Care Provider Fund in response to the emergency small business needs of child care providers across the state who are caring for children of first responders, health care workers, and essential workers. Without this emergency fund, many of these child care centers — especially those already located near “child care deserts” in more rural committees — would not be able to remain open during this time when essential workers need to remain employed, healthy, and safe.

Iowa: A $150,000 grant to the Institute of Community Alliances is providing rental assistance to shelter residents across the state of Iowa. At the time of the award, 1,158 Iowans resided in shelters. The need to reduce the risk of COVID‑19 among shelters was great, and Wells Fargo responded with this grant with the hope that it would pay for first month rent for as much as 10% of the state’s sheltered residents. This was the first-ever statewide rental assistance fund, and the local foundation provided an additional $10,000 for a Landlord Mitigation Fund. In addition to this $150,000 grant, the local Wells Fargo Foundation contributed $125,000 for small business assistance and $100,000 to disaster funds across the state. The total COVID-related giving is $410,000.

Massachutes: A $250,000 grant to NeighborWorks Housing Solutions in Quincy is primarily supporting the Residential Assistance to Families in Transition program, which provides short-term emergency financial assistance for families and individuals to stabilize their situations by assisting with mortgage payments, rent, utility bills, and costs for other basic needs. The organization administers this program on behalf of the state for more than 60 towns and cities, and the grant from Wells Fargo will help augment it. The program is now targeting households facing instability as a result of a COVID‑19-related housing crisis due to loss of wages or increase in expenses. Funds are also providing emergency food support to individuals and families living in NeighborWorks Housing Solutions’ affordable rental properties, including housing for domestic violence survivors, senior citizens, and adults with disabilities.

New Mexico: A $50,000 grant is supporting the Emergency Action Fund for New Mexico, which was set up by the Albuquerque Community Foundation and United Way of Central New Mexico so nonprofits could receive emergency funds in response to COVID‑19. The funds being released are providing emergency support to various nonprofits in New Mexico, primarily supporting food for seniors, care for transgender citizens, and other needs for vulnerable populations.

North Carolina: A $150,000 grant to Common Wealth Charlotte is supporting the group’s trauma-informed financial capability and wealth building programs. Before the COVID‑19 pandemic, the majority of the nonprofit’s clients rarely made ends meet, due to limited work hours and high housing, transportation, and child care costs. The nonprofit has established a COVID‑19 financial questions virtual/text system for low-income wage earners with concerns about current or impending financial hardship due to loss of income from job cessation, voluntary or mandatory quarantines, or other hardships caused by COVID‑19. Advanced financial education and loan administration teams and trained volunteers will respond with a phone call or text to address questions about paying rent, feeding families, and other related questions. The team will offer relevant guidance and make referrals to other appropriate agencies, as necessary.

A $50,000 grant to Thread Capital in Raleigh is supporting operations for the COVID‑19 Rapid Recovery Loan program for small businesses and farms. To preserve businesses and save hard-won jobs, Thread Capital has activated its low- and zero-interest disaster recovery loan product to address this unprecedented crisis. This loan product helps businesses bridge the gap between when crisis strikes and when federal loans and other relief funds are approved.

Texas: A $50,000 grant to Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso is providing a safety net for nursing students in the Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing who are facing financial challenges and unforeseen circumstances due to the COVID‑19 pandemic. The goal of the fund is to keep students on track to graduate in May or December, allowing them to achieve their dreams and enter the workforce, where they are desperately needed.

Virginia: An $8,000 grant to the COVID‑19 Harrisonburg-Rockingham Small Business Resilience Grant fund in Shenandoah Valley is helping 200 rural business impacted by COVID‑19. This emergency grant fund will be used to support small businesses that need immediate help to ensure ongoing operations, retain employees, and keep this sector of the community’s economy moving.

Wisconsin: A $20,000 grant to Couleecap, Inc. in Westby is providing critical bill payment assistance for small business owners and their workers within the Coulee Region. The goal is to offer support to small businesses whose employees are struggling with payroll assistance for sick and medical leave and the cost of rent. Small businesses’ most emergent needs will be determined, and awards will be given for critical needs. All participants will be referred to government programs, and they will receive information on emergency and unemployment budgeting to help them determine how other public resources can be used to free up cash for critical bills.