The Ella Baker Center is proud and excited to introduce a brand new spin-off initiative: Green For All. We launched Green For All on September 26, 2007 at a special gathering called the Clinton Global Initiative. Former President Bill Clinton convenes this event annually in New York City. It is a high-profile meeting of the brightest minds in politics, business and the nonprofit sector who come together to catalyze change on a global scale.
Green For All's goal is simple -- to secure $1 billion in funding for green-collar job training in order to lift 250,000 people out of poverty across the country. Green For All will be an organization unto itself, and will build on the successes of the Ella Baker Center's green jobs campaign to grow a national green-collar jobs movement.
In 2007, with a tiny staff and limited budget, Ella Baker Center and our community of supporters have accomplished so much: We helped pass the Green Jobs Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, which authorized $125 million for a federal green job-training program -- including $25 million specifically allocated for "pathways out of poverty" programs.
Weeks before, we secured $250,000 from the City of Oakland to fund the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, a job-training demonstration program that can serve as a model for the nation.
Moving forward, Ella Baker Center's local and regional efforts will continue to lead the way in California, while the new Green For All initiative will work nationwide.
As the 2008 presidential election nears, we'll have the unique opportunity to create dramatic change by keeping the green-collar vision central to the energy discussion.
It couldn't happen a moment too soon -- our communities and our planet depend on it.
Green For All will be an advocacy, community education and technical assistance organization. Its role will be to create public will, legislation and public-private partnerships to ensure that people from disadvantaged backgrounds find work and opportunity in the green economy.
Green For All will work on three main fronts:
National Advocacy:
Green For All will spur action in the federal government and the private sector to ensure that the United States has an abundant supply of well-trained "green-collar" workers and entrepreneurs, focusing on those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Technical Assistance:
In cities where advocates for the disadvantaged seek "green-collar" job training and other opportunities, Green For All will help align business, labor unions, community organizations and educational institutions to support their efforts.
Public Education:
Green For All will impact news coverage, produce videos, host convenings, create advocacy toolkits, employ new media and anchor a Web 2.0 strategy for shaping debate, organizing discussion and sharing best practices.
Just as there are no throw-away species and no throw-away ecosystems, there are also no throw-away neighborhoods and no throw-away people. In order for humanity to overcome the challenge of the climate crisis, we need to engage the creativity and power of everyone on the planet.
To this end, Green For All will work for equal protection from the perils of climate change and equal access to the promise of the emerging green economy as the United States reinvents itself.
For more information about Green For All, visit the new website, www.greenforall.org.
