Every year the Rural Organizing Project brings together rural and small town leaders, activists, organizers and concerned community members for a day of strategizing. We look back on our last year – what we have accomplished, what has changed in our political climate – and we strategize for the year to come. This year’s Rural [read more]
Immigrant Fairness
The school of hard knocks has taught us many lessons about how to engage with the issue of immigration in a way that is impactful and authentic in rural and small-town communities. Here, we attempt to capture those lessons and make them available to you in a series of toolkits. (Many of our tools may apply to larger towns as well.)
We have found that true person-to-person organizing is the fundamental ground floor of the larger policy change that we all know is desperately needed, and it can bring enormous personal richness for those involved, and inspiration to continue forward. At the same time, we must engage with the messy politics, and we must also stand up and take bold action when basic decency is threatened, or when the moment ripe for change. We have learned that political engagement is our hammer, our tool for making the concrete changes we crave, while organizing is our life blood, giving us energy to sustain for the long haul.
We invite you to download and use our tools, shared below, and welcome your thoughts, questions, and experiences. If you’d like to speak with an organizer, please call or email amanda@rop.org.
Tookits Available:
Welcoming Communities
Responding to ICE enforcement
Know Your Rights
Living Room Conversations
COMING SOON: Latino Organizing
Feb 222012
Este correo se encuentra abajo en español. We’re excited to announce that registration is now open for our 2012 Rural Latino Leadership Retreat! Can you help us get the word out? The Retreat is organized this year by an 8 member Latino Advisory Committee representing counties across the state. We hope that you’ll help us [read more]
Jan 192012
The Rural Organizing Project and the Lane County-based Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) traveled rural Oregon last fall bringing “Know your Rights” presentations to 7 communities across the state, reaching over 190 people including immigrants & allies alike. The tour was on the road from October 1st – December 11th, 2011, stopping in towns in [read more]
Start here: By reading “A Menu of Options” for Building Welcoming Communities in 2012 ROP tools for planning Welcoming Communities organizing: ROP’s guide for organizing Welcoming Communities across Cultures, based on the best practices we’ve pulled together over time. Our framework for looking at models of immigrant integration is a good conversation starter when groups [read more]