COALITION BUILDING IN THE REAL AND VIRTUAL WORLDS ROSALINE CRAWFORD AND MELISSA FELDER
(CART Transcripts)

Saturday Workshop: 10:15a-11:45a

MS. FELDER: I'm just going to wait for people to come up so five minutes or so. Good morning everybody. I'm Melissa Felder. I'm currently a second year student at --

>>>: Can't hear you.

MS. FELDER: Okay. Do you want me to use the microphone?

>>>: Please.

MS. FELDER: Is that better? How is that? Okay. Good morning, everybody. My name is Melissa Felder. I'm currently a second year student at the Georgetown University law center.

Last summer I was a summer associate at the deaf advocacy center ever we are just going to introduce ourselves.

MS. CRAWFORD: Can you hear me without the Mike? Okay is that better.

My name is Rosaline Crawford. I'm an attorney. I apologize. A new attorney if that makes any   difference. I work with the national association for the deaf in the law and advocacy center and we are absolutely thrilled to be here today.

MS. FELDER: Our co-presenter, Barbara an Nell low does not seem to be here, so unfortunately she will not be able to give her half of the presentation, unfortunately.

First of all, thank you all for coming to our presentation on building coalitions. We are absolutely delighted to be here. We completely support and recognize the importance of this conference. Sponsored by AAPD. We hope that you all that have come here to learn to build coalitions more effectively and create coalitions will take away some new information.

First of all, while we are having this presentation, our goal is not to tell you a specific way a coalition should be formed or what a coalition should consist of or what   should it address. Rather our issues are much broader.

First, we want to have a general discussion about building coalitions. We want to address issues that highlight why it is so important that women and people with disabilities form coalitions.

We want to give you a basic overview at the general concept that should be considered when building coalitions.

We want to begin by brainstorming our experience with coalitions, what has worked, what didn't work, and where we need to build more coalitions. And finally, we want to you all an opportunity to meet each other, to form your own coalition to give strength to your currently distant coalition. I just want to point out, this workshop is about you, it is not me or about Rosaline. So at any point   you want to interject a comment or whatever, please interrupt me and we will take the discussion a totally different direction if you think that is more important.

I also want to get a feel for who you all are in the audience. I will throw out a few categories, if you will.23 if you raise your hand and tell me if you fit.

Do you support a group that solely supports a women's rights? Okay. Is there anyone here who is a member of a group that solely focuses on disability rights issues? Okay. Is there anybody who is part of a group that specifically focuses on women with disabilities?

Okay. How many of you have worked with a coalition before? snrf that is great. That is good. Okay. Seems that a good portion of you have had coalition building experience and some of you have not.  

So what we are going to do is basically give a run-through of why it is so important that coalition building takes place on behalf of women with disabilities. I'm just going to throw out some statistical information about women with disabilities.

Now, women with disabilities sit, as well you know, at the intersection at the women's right movement and the disability rights movement. Women with disabilities themselves have had experienced a disproportionately high number of inequalities.

For instance, if you look at women with disabilities, they experience a high rate of sexual violence and/or abuse.

It is estimated between 33 percent and 88 percent of women with disabilities have experienced sexual abuse or violence at some point in   their lives. So there we seed a need of coalition building in the area of sexual abuse and violence.

Women with disabilities are highly unemployed. It is estimated 33 percent of women with disabilities are unemployed with workplace. Again, this show as need for coalition building in the employment area.

Women with disabilities also experience a very high rate of poverty.

Based on estimates from 191992, between 33 and 30 percent of women with disabilities currently live in poverty.

Now, these facts ultimately ill straight the need for women groups and disabilities rights group to work together and form coalitions on behalf of women with disabilities. Because, A, neither group is truly equal until both groups are equal.

And, B, the areas in which these   groups experience discrimination is so similar by having women's group, disabilities group, and groups focussed solely on women with disabilities working together, these groups will be able to pull resources and increase effectiveness. So just to get your mind going, I just want to point out some areas where sexual abuse and violence, employment and poverty have the -- where women and people with disabilities are strikingly simply.

Women with disability, all need -- abuse shelters or are accessible with women with disabilities can receive the resources and help they need.

And the employment area, we see that women and people with disabilities both need an accessible workplace. For instance, women who have children may want workplaces that have flex time, better time for their and ability for them to take   care of the children while working.

Similarly, people with disabilities need more accessible workplace. They need the employer to provide them with reasonable accommodation.

Lastly in the place of poverty, we see women and people with disabilities and women with disabilities need better government help in training and job training in order to move themselves out of the poverty level.

So now that we see how women with disabilities and women groups and people with disability -- sorry, I'm confusing that. But we basically see how they have issues that are so very similar that it is absolutely crucial for everybody to sort of work together and increase the effectiveness.

Now, before I continue, I just want to -- I forgot to mention at the beginning how this workshop is going   to progress.

I'm going to turn this over to Rosaline. I'm going to talk a little built about how coalitions themselves are formed, how you can better create coalitions. And we are going to talk about that for 30 minutes and then we are going to open up the floor so that you can talk about your coalitions that you need, what your experiences have been and you can talk amongst yourself about coalition building.

So Rosaline.

MS. CRAWFORD: Thank you, Melissa for that introduction.

I know there are some taking notes. If you would prefer I can make the presentation available to you in electronic format. And I will provide a piece of paper up here so you can leave me U e-mail and I can send that to you and you don't have to take notes.

>>>: Thank you.  

MS. CRAWFORD: Unless later when we get to the group discussion and I have no control over.

Okay. A coalition is a coming together of people and organizations to achieve a common goal. It is a collaborative effort, a temporary alliance.

A coalition is not a merger. I know lots of law firms lots to deal with mergers and acquisitions, but that is not what coalitions are. The individual units retain their identities but are recognized participants of a new and larger whole.

There are advantages to forming coalitions.

First, it can conserve resources, it can increase outreach and reach in a community, it increases credibility, it reduces the suspicion of self-interest. So when you have a group of seemingly dissimilar and similar   groups getting together to put forth a particular goal, a common bond, that group, that coalition of groups has a lot more credibility than the individual members might have. It provide as forum for sharing information. It provides a wider range of perspectives, advice and expertise.

It can foster cooperation between grassroots formalized organizations and the community. It can foster personal satisfaction by the participation of the individual members and their representatives.

And it can accomplish objectives beyond the scope of any single organization.

So those are some of the advantages that coalitions can achieve.

But how do you build one?

How do you take that first step?

First you have to kind of figure   out what the objective is. If you are sitting in your organization and you have identified a particular objective that your group wants to achieve and you think maybe I could use some help to achieve that goal, then you need to consider the possibility of forming a coalition of a variety of groups to do the work together.

Now, you need to clarify what that objective is and the kind of activities that you or your organization can do towards achieving those objectives.

You need to assess community strengths and weaknesses; you need to look at the efforts that others are making toward the same or similar objective. You are looking for potential support. And you are looking for potential barriers. You need to determine the costs and benefits to the lead agency.

Now, your organization may be   really small and you may decide that what you are looking for is strength and you may be looking for another larger, more established, perhaps more formal organization to approach and actually become the lead agency in the coalition.

Even though it is your idea, you may be looking for someone who has more resources than you do, someone that has leadership recognition to help you in your efforts.

You need to determine whether the objective that you want to reach has a better chance of being met if others were included in that effort. And if you answered pretty much yes to all of these things, a coalition can be one of the tools. It is not the only way to do business. It's not the only way to achieve an objective. But it is one way to consider and it can be effective.

The next thing you need to do is   recruit the right coalition members. Your need to determine the type, size and diversity of the membership desired to be effective and manageable.

For example, similar or diverse agencies, individuals, citizens, groups, consumer groups, all can be considered as potential coalition members.

You need to consider potential supporters, competitors and adversaries.

Sometimes a coalition can be formed including these kind of diverse members, even people you think might be your opponents you might perceive them as your stumbling blocks, that they are not corporating, that they are not working in a collaborative way to achieve your goal by including them in your coalition can get them on your team.

So you can't just discount them   if you think they are your obstacle. You need to consider key organization representatives with strong skills and interests to fill lead roles and provide staff support. You need to determine whether your or another organization has the interest, commitment and resources. Reresources is time, staffing and financial support necessary to fill roald ofl the lead agency, whether you need to recruit a lead agency, or whether the coalition members themselves will share the lead agency role.

Third, you need to convene the coalition. Actually, you got to get together and meet and talk about it. That is basically that step. Fourth, at that meeting, you need to develop your preliminary objectives and activities for the coalition itself.

You may need to meld the objectives of the member groups, you   need to find the common group and mutually productive activities.

You needed to try to avoid or minimize differences.

You might want to develop a mission statement for the coalition.

You may want to establish well-defined, short-term activities toward the long-term objective. As we all know, things generally don't happen overnight. And even if you have a particular goal, you will need to establish some short-term goals and objectives on the road to success.

You need to consider working with another coalition on specific activities.

There are activities out there already, many of them. And perhaps one of the things you and your group may consider is whether or not it would be more advantageous to go ahead and join another coalition and work with another group that may be   on a similar track.

Fifth, you need to anticipate the necessary resources. Nothing in life's for free.

The lead agency often provides the most in financial support. There is a cost of doing business. The cost of making the copies, the cost of the staff time, the cost of the phone calls, the faxes, the travel expenses, the air fare to get people to meetings. There are lots of different costs. And a lead agency, frequently, the large agency, may be able to provide that kind of financial support.

You also have to consider the cost in terms of human capital; staff. There is lots of working that has to be done and the work needs to be shared, but the lead agency might be able to provide some of the basic staffing needs, such as arranging for the coalition meetings, preparing the   agenda, answering as -- acting as central information source of the coalition members together.

Coalition members may share human resources by assuming responsibility for certain tasks and shared financial resources through contributions for coalition activities.

Coalitions need financial resources of some kind to cover the cost of doing coalition business. Coalition need funds not just to do good, but to do it well. Six, defining the elements of the coalition structure. You need to talk about the life expectancy of this coalition. Generally speaking, if it is a coalition formed to achieve a primary objective, once that objective has been met, the coalition may cease to exist.

It's possible that the coalition may find other objectives along the   way and continue working relationships. But a coalition may not last forever once the objective is met.

You need to consider membership. Selective recruitment is permitted but no one should be excluded. So if you establish a coalition, you can target organizations or groups that you would really want to have on your team. But try to be inclusive.

So if somebody wants to join, let them.

You need to talk about where you're going to meet, how often you're going to meet and how long you're going to meet. All of this is logistical planning. If your coalition is a community-based coalition, that's dealing with one particular community, perhaps a city, a county or a state, those logistics may be easier met than a coalition with   members that span across the country.

Your membership is sort of determined by your objectives and if your objective is a national one, you're likely to have national membership.

And the logistics for supporting a coalition for that nature, increase.

You need to put structure in the meetings, some structure so that it just doesn't become a lovefest. But putting structure in a meeting keeps it on a level of professionalism as well as keeps your objective in sight and recognizes leaders and provides for participation of all of the members, the weak and the strong, the small and the big.

You will need to decide how you are going to make decisions. It is a democratic society, but you need to decide how you are going to make decision and talk about that in terms   of when you run into situations where there are disagreements and that is likely the case, even if it is over something that is small, rather hopefully than something that is big, you need to decide hopefully beforehand how those kind of disagreements are going to be resolved.

And you also need to talk about what is going to happen in between the actual meetings and how the participation can continue like, for example, the centralized communication system that someone is going to manage and operate so that communication amongst coalition members in between meetings can continue.

7th, you need to reevaluate and confirm membership roast. So you all come together that meeting, and you have talked a lot about this, each member organization is going to walk away and go home and   think about, again, whether or not being part of this coalition is going to be effective for them, if it is going to be meaningful for them, if they have the resources to support what the coalition wants to achieve. And you need to be open to the fact that perhaps some of the these members who were initially very excited, have decided that they can't do it and they need to let go.

You also need to know that even though you have got some highly motivated, highly interested individuals who appear initially, official participation of an organization in a coalition may require approval by that organization's board.

And different coalition member wannabe's, may be needed to present the coalition objectives and activities to that organization's board in order to seek official approval.  

Last but not least is maintaining coalition vitality.

Never criticize a volunteer.

Coalitions frequently include people who are highly motivated and interested on a very personal level.

They are frequently have regular jobs elsewhere and they are volunteering to participate in this group collective, collaborative effort is extra, it's more, it's voluntary.

So if you don't like something that somebody is doing, be gentle. Because pretty much everyone in the coalition here is volunteering themselves and their organizations toward the group effort. So that's one thing I like to remind people of, never criticize a volunteer.

You don't necessarily have to continue delegating certain work to that volunteer if the volunteer is not performing to your expectations, but caution is advised.  

You need to recognize and aaddress difficulties as they arise.

You need to share power and leadership, you need to recruit and involve new members, you need to promote renewal through training and challenging new issues, you need to evaluate for improvement, you need to celebrate and share your successes, the little ones and the big ones.

Coalitions are collaborative efforts made by groups of individuals and organizations to achieve a common goal. Coalitions are not permanent fixtures. They EBB and flow, with leadership, commitment and resources, coalitions can achieve some measure of success, sometimes greater than the individual effort could have obtained.

We cannot guarantee coalition success, no one can. But with every effort we make, we prepare ourselves to make better, more successful efforts in the future.   Now, some of you have participated as -- in coalitions already and some have not. We just kind of wanted to give you some examples of existing coalitions so that you can have some idea of the variety, I guess, if nothing else. So Melissa you want to talk about the leadership council on civil rights.

MS. FELDER: What we have done up to this point is basically told you why it is necessary for women with disabilitys to be active in coalitions and why women groups and people of groups wf of disabilities need to come together.

We also told you how to form a coalition. Right now we are going to tell you about the different kind of coalition. There are very formal co-a ligs that deal with organizations and groups. The leadership council on civil rights is an excellent example.

It is a national coalition   comprised of over 180 members. The membership is very diverse. We have the Alaska inter tribal council, we have the disability rights and education fund and we also have the feminist majority. These are very, very diverse groups. But they have all come together in this coalition to support civil rights.

Basically, this coalition is one of the most well respected and oldest coalitions in America today. They have an incredibly powerful voice in congress and on the hill. When they support an issue, everybody listens to them because the membership is so diverse.

Because the membership is so dediverse, however, many groups do not always get their issues out there on the table.

However, it is a very similar concept to "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours."

Let me give you the issues they   are supporting right now. They are supporting two main issues. The criminal justice system and equality for gays and lesbians in our society today. Of course no one group is focussed on all of these issues. But if every group said, "I will support you and your efforts to do these," later if there is a woman's right issue, all groups will support the national organization of women in trying to get equality for women. That is an example of a formal coalition that is comprised by a lot of groups.

However, you also have issue coalition where organization all come together, very diverse organizations to support one issue. Rosaline, would you like to talk about that.

MS. CRAWFORD: Much more humbly. There is a coalition of which we participate in the national association of the deaf participates   as a member and founding member of the coalition for movie captioning. I'm not sure if everyone is familiar with caption on television, but first-run movies in movie theaters generally do not have captions. And we feel that it is very important for families with deaf and hard of hearing members and for deaf and hard of hearing individuals to have access to American mainstream entertainment culture, whatever, and to go so the movie with their families.

So there is very little out there. There is some being done. But there is just not enough. And so this particular group of organizations are a collection of deaf and hard of hearing organizations.

We are separate organizations which means we may have different focus for a variety of reasons. But our membership and   individual organizations, each of our membership is pretty much focussed on deaf and hard of hearing people across the spectrum.

Even though we might not agree on everything, this is one thing we can all agree on: We want to see more first-run movies in the movie theatre that are accessible to deaf and hard of hearing individuals through captioning.

So we have not only the national association of the deaf, we have the Alexander Graham Bell association, we have the American society for deaf children, we have the association of late defend adult, the cochlear implant association, the deaf and hard of hearing consumer network, which is a coalition within itself. So within this collation coalition we have a coalition as a member. We have the deaf seniors of America, the league of hard of hearing, self-help for hard of   hearing and a private organization, the telecommunications for the deaf. So we meet occasionally, not regularly and we try to get at least a member, a representative from each of the member organizations to appear that meetings.

We are working with representatives of movie captioning companies, with the national association of theatre owners and with the motion picture association of America and others trying to educate and advocate.

The coalition for movie captioning has issued press releases, position papers and reports.

The coalition for movie captioning has also participated in two lawsuits brought by private parties against movie theatre chains by filing amicus briefs. Those are briefs that are friend of the court briefs. We did not file the lawsuit, we didn't bring it but we believe as   a coalition of this diverse group of people that we have something to say and that we think that the courts may listen. And we think that perhaps because we are collaborating and presenting a very unified front, that unified front makes us so much stronger when we do say something. Those are some of the things we do with the coalition with movie captioning. It is a single issue, quite frankly, and we think it's important.

So I think now that you have got a couple of examples of the -- rather large, an example of a rather large coalition and what I think is comparatively humble coalition, I think we are ready to take your questions and open up this floor for discussion because, as we said first, we need your input, we need to find out from you what you have done, what has worked for you down, where you found pitfalls, those sort of things.  

So I'm going to turn it back over to Melissa.

MS. FELDER: Thank you. So is there anybody here in the audience that would like to talk about their experiences and anything to add.

Yes?

>>>: I had a question which is how do you deal with the power disparities between coalition members. I have had many experiences in terms of joining many of these co-a ligs where women are marginallized or tokennal in the coalition.

I wonder whether you have any guidance to share?

MS. CRAWFORD: That is a really good question. I think coming from the question that people with disabilities are more often marginalized than other groups, it is a challenge every day.

I think that what the national organization for women and AAPD are doing here today is a step in the right direction in terms of removing   some of that marginalsation and putting some focus and emphasis on an often forgotten group of people.

Perhaps this is just a role model here today and this weekend that we are seeing that can be reflected in other groups around the country as we meet again and again.

My experience with disabilities and I don't yet have one myself that I'm aware of, I hope to live long enough to develop a disability, it is -- from the every day work that I do, it is an every day challenge, it is an every day opportunity to educate and advocate again and again and again. It is just amazing how little people know. It is amazing how little people understand. And I think one of the biggest challenges that collectively we face is the challenge within ourselves not become so frustrated that we get angry and lash out. And not become   so frustrated that we give up.

So I think that in terms of leadership and sharing leadership, you will find strong leaders coming from a variety of different places.

And you yourself may be the leader and put forth yourself more to become a stronger leader, to demand the recognition, to participate at a higher level and assume more in terms of your own contribution in the leadership of any particular group.

The need to be aggressive and assertive and consistent, is always there.

And if we can approach it in terms of realizing that the need to educate and advocate is a constant one and continue to do that, we will will be beneficial.

Does anyone else have anything to add or in response to this question? Because your response to this would also be very appreciated.

>>>: I have another question.  

MS. CRAWFORD: Anybody have anything to add?

>>>: I do.

MS. CRAWFORD: Okay. Judy.

>>>: I have been actively involved in the community and I have also established co-aitions so I do have some experience in the area.

Who was the person who asked the question.

So I think strong leadership and the power struggle that is a very big question and a big issue. I think a piece of advice I would offer is regarding training and education. And I have been to several trainings and think about groups, how to build relationships through trainings.

Because some people want to learn about policy, other individuals want to learn about voting processes and people want to be involved. And they want to be involved in coalition building.  

But there are sometimed very stymied about what to do. So if you can identify needs and what kind of training those coalitions or the members of those coalitions need, have some socialization, have some coffee and keep -- have an ongoing series of training until people become comfortable with each other.

And I think at that point the coordinator can started to identify individuals within that coalition. Their skills and pick up on commonalities and try to expand particular issues and topics. And I think that will help things fall into place.

I think you do have to take one step at a time when you are working and building coalitions. I think it is very important to have diplomatic skills and be able to -- to facilitate and work with everyone and develop that comfort level for everyone. I think that is   important. That is a key.

MS. FELDER: Thank you. I just want to add one thing in terms of coalition building on behalf of women with disibles one of the most important thing is having an arc saysble coalition, never ever forget that.

I think people often forget the simple thing, having the meeting in a accessible building having an interpreter or someone who might know sign language. Keep that in mind. Anybody else that would like to share something? Yes.

>>>: I think a lot of the experiences right now with disability coalition building is so similar to women coalition building experiences swrep the East Coast, west coast divide. And we have issues around sexism and racism in the disability movement and all the otherisms. And there is also an issue around different types of disabilities and which disabilities get marginalizeed in certain coalitions.  

To the extent the disability rights movement can learn from what the women's movement has done to bridge those types of power struggle. I think strong leadership is important and people need to be really assertive and also develop the leaders starting with junior or younger people and really develop strong leaders who can stand up to the people who are hogging all the power. I don't know if that is flip plo mat tic.

MS. FELDER: Thank you.

>>>: I have another question and I don't want to ask it until everyone is ready to move on from this issue.

MS. FELDER: Does anyone want to add to Claudia's --

>>>: I think I want to add one other thing, I do have an issue -- I don't know if it is appropriate at this point. But my issue is about interpreting. It is an issue and has been an issue for a very long time.  

I recently wanted to get involved with a NOW group. And they were -- it was with Montgomery County community college. And hit speakers that come a number of times and I was very interested in attending and I expressed my interest. But it was sort of an after thought to provide an interpreter. So Montgomery County college is responsible for providing accessible services.

So I encouraged them to incorporate interpreting not as a send thought but have it as a normal procedure, to have interpreters ready instead of having to request one and maybe last minute not being able to get it.

So if it is government or privately sponsored, I would encourage whatever the disability issue is, have it ready so people can be involve and there is a sense of equity and not make it an   afterthoughts. I think stipes people's disabilities is afterthought and I think that is something we need to change that attitude.

Sometimes it is unattended but it is still there. We need to make any event accessible for issue.

MS. FELDER: Thank you.

>>>: I am is a disability service coordinator for Virginia alliance against sexual assault. We are in the mid of a big project for disabilities. My end is doing the need assessment with women with emotional/psychiatric disabilities.

I have at the beginning of this event right here in the room, you cited several statistics. And some of the issues that are going around in our office is that these statistics, the same ones that I have read at other places, I don't know the sources of, number one. And that these statistics are nearly 13 years old.  

There is nothing out there, I have researched and researched, there is very, very little statistics and when we do get them they are so old. I want to know what are some of your experience with need assessments that are out there, if any, that you can tell me about.

Because when we cite these -- I mean I want to us be more credible, you know, to society. And with the credibility needs we need more needs assessments done to have that.

Can you tell me of any experiences or you no of anything that say round?

MS. FELDER: I actually had the very same problem that you had because I knew these were issues and I wanted to be able to precept to you just how serious these issues were. I had the same exact problem that many of the statistics in found were a bit old.

I have noticed when attempting need assessments, what you can   clarify what you need by "needs assessments" as a -- you are say -- could you clarify it for me?

>>>: We want to identify who is out there, who is being served, what are their needs, what are the barriers and the gaps, not only for mental health consumers, but also for mental health providers, domestic violence programs, sexual assault crisis center, any issues out there, care giver abuse, all of those things. And I can't find anything.

So I need to know, you know, if you know of any other, where you can point me, what direction you can point me in.

MS. FELDER: I think some people raised their happened, so if we could direct their attention to them. I would like to point you to Cornell University has been excellent work in the area of disability rights research. So you may want to check out their website.

>>>: Part of the problem is that there   are many national surveys of violence against women and most of them exclude disabled women. As a key issue that we are an invisible category in the large numbers of surveys. Advocate for inclusion in the disability category.

MS. FELDER: Thank you.

Yes snl.

>>>: My name is -- I'm from Nepal. I had experience with making coalition with -- The research -- it is a big challenge to hold a meeting and transportation. The other thing is when you view coalition the people with disability need a lot of support day by day. So sometimes we do not find support.

And it makes the people harassment, some kind of harassment. It makes confusion if we do not have a lot of resources.

Another thing is when we make coalitions there is some gap among the group with -- how do you say --   resources and another who have not resources. So have and have not, this type of problem also maybe in the coalition.

So it is one kind of challenge, how to go together with coalition. MS. FELDER: Thank you. Would anyone like to respond to that point.

>>>: I wanted to ask something about the media, when we were talking about the media,.

Some of the yours you were talking about the right to be included in a coalition and members being fully participating. And some of the demographics where people live. I think finding out that information is very important. And it is very important to find out what the needs are and what the resources are.

And when you talk about the media, I think oftentimes you see in print things distributed or articles mention that mention disabilities.   Sometimes it is an invitation to participate in some type of event and it is written.

Sometimes if you would like to make a personal contact and ongoing communications and vehicles to do that so everything is equitable. So when you are dealing with providing accessible meetings and making a notation about this meeting is inster prelted or captioned or whatever information you need should be incorporated within your communications so that members will feel like they should go to the meetings so things will be accessible to them and they will feel a part of that and they won't feel discussion enfranchised.

>>>: I have a point on the last part of discussions about statistics about violence in disability communities. I don't know how much attention has been paid in coalition building in universities and contacting   different departments and saying this need to be done or looking to areas that need to increase their research valuable ability. To be able to know that is missing and fill that gap and then maybe put themselves in the nor frorpt of academia. I don't know if that has been thought about but it may be an avenue you might want to start building coalitions in.

MS. FELDER: Thank you. Another thing is the fact that coalition building where we take about national coalitions some successful coalitions are built at grassroot levels, at universities, for instance, that is exactly right.

If you are interested in building coalitions and you are affiliated with a university, I encourage you to talk to more people. The more people you talk to the more people's head you get the idea into you may know you may be talking to the person who can make it happen.  

>>>: Someone may not have brought it to their attention and they were just not aware of something that was a need.

MS. FELDER: Exactly. And many universities are always looking for ways to expand their research capabilities, so for you to bring something to your attention to say hey, this is something no one has been done. A lot of universitys are like ah-ha, we can be the leader in the field.

Any other comments anyone else would like to bring to the table?

>>>: Christine with the Connecticut women and disability network, which is a nonprofit organization that represents the interest of girls and women who have disabilitys in Connecticut.

We have been very effective establishing coalitions with women's organizations, mainstream women's organizations around improving access to women's health services.

So we have had some successs in that area.  

But my question is very specific to the organization itself. And that is, how do you maintain -- how do you recruit and maintain your membership involvement, particularly in a state wide organization, with the issues we have raised around access and cost to provide accommodations? How do you use technology, for example, and I see that is an item on the agenda here and I don't know if you are going do talk about it at some later point.

I wanted to ask, how perhaps you are or you would recommend using technology to involve women in the organization?

MS. FELDER: When you say using technology to involve women in the organization, are you talking about women in terms of all women in the organization? Because if I understand your point correctly, what I would say is technology can be a great equalizer, especially in the area of   e-mail.

So to sort of perhaps move all your communications into e-mail forum instead of possibly telephone communication, because, A, everybody will have access to the same time.

While maybe not familiar with reading software, they can read software that can make e-mail accessible to pirve of so that is the first answer I would give back to you, make sure everyone is communicating using the same media that is accessible to everybody.

Any other point that -- anybody else have any responses to that?

>>>: If I may, the description says the workshop will discuss how to use technology as an instrument for empowerment. I thought perhaps there was going be some examples of how groups may be using it. That is what I'm looking for practical advice.

MS. FELDER: Barbara was supposed to speak to that point and she is not here and I   don't have access to her material. So I apologize for that.

Yes, in the back.

>>>: My name is Kathy Martinez. I'm directing a project for with Latinos with disabilities. We are starting up a list serve and I'm sure you all are on plenty of list serves.

For us given that many of us -- much of our constituency does not have access to computers, a lot of what we are doing is really helping people get Yahoo! addresses at libraries and we started a campaign to get people with disabilities to have people apply from various foundations for computers and also help people learn to use their local libraries's computers. For us the list serve has proven to be relatively successful.

And I think when you are dealing with poor populations or poor communities, you are always going to have a lack of access to electronic   technology. You know, so we have to still put flyers in supermarkets and still try to be as inclusive as possible.

For us in terms of discussion in coalition development with the greater Latino community, the list serve has been pretty successful because we have been able to discuss topics.

Next year we plan to do web cast.

Again, it does take -- you are assuming that people can participate have access to technology.

MS. FELDER: Thank you, that is an excellent point.

Yes?

>>>: I just had a question.

Kathy -- well, maybe for other people.

I was wondering for list serves if a list serve is moderated I found it has been really great for coalition building. But some of the   unmoderated list serves I just signed off of them.

>>>: Right, it is too much. And again, I think we really have to keep in mind the people who don't have access to technology.

And I think that in terms of the work that we're doing, we are really making strides in the Latino/ Hispanic market media. We realize in our community in many cases there is not literacy or very low literacy so the radio and television play a huge role in the lives of folks. And actually help us reach that -- you know that segment of the population who doesn't have access to technology.

MS. CRAWFORD: We have just a few minutes left. So we are going to take one last question or two or comment and then we are going do go have some lunch. I saw your happened raised over here.

>>>: Yes I had a question. I run a   mainstream coalition in Anchorage, Alaska on tobacco and smoke free issues. So I have all what we have the grass tops, the big agency people and the big organization, I work for the American cancer society. And they have been making all the decisions on this.

My background has been in grassroots organizing and I have access to an interpreter, and I have the accessible building and I'm getting ready to go out and do my outreach to include more diverse communities and so I wanted to ask people here if I am going in the right direction with getting the interpreter and putting out the flyers and contacting the group's in my community to let them know that we exist and secondhand smoke effects everyone.

Because I want my coalition to not just be the tops, but the real grass roolts.  

Am I headed in the right direction?

MS. CRAWFORD: Have to try it and see. There is no right or wrong way to do anything. And if you wanted to try something and it works, great. And if it doesn't work figure out what you might want to change to make it work. I think grassroots activity is really critical and it is very important to get the word out to the individuals who live in the community and to seek their support.

It is a ripple effect. As much as you have got the heavy top side that might trickle down, you want to bring the grassroots as well that may participate to vote or do X or Y or whatever else you are trying to achieve whether it is education or advocacy or whatever.

So putting on your publication information redundancy, putting your message out in a variety of different formats in a variety of different   places to reach the most people. And saying it more than once.

You know, when the school has a back to school night and they send one flyer home, okay, that is why you get two or three, okay, because you are hearing and being reminded that this is happening.

You can use web-based, you can use print, you can use newspaper, you can use community resources, such as if you are targeting a local community, see if you can get your message out through various community public or private organizations that can include the announcement in a newsletter, something simple, something small, something brief.

And then in terms of inclusiveness within the population that you are also trying to reach of people with disabilities, a little tag line that says "accessibility facility or if you need accommodation please contact" and the contact's   person name and contact information. If people have questions about accessibility they know who to contact.

Having your little ducks in a row and everything in line so that you already contacted a sign language interpreter agency, they are on board, you have got them arranged. If you get a call from a member of the deaf community who wants to come, you're ready to say yes. So all of that is good. Redundancy, and there are many different varieties of ways of getting your word out multiple times.

Anyone else on that?

>>>: Press releases to newspapers.

MS. FELDER: Always remember, always talk to the individuals. For instance, you a can have a sign language interpreter but you may have a hard of hearing individual who doesn't know sign languages. The best resources is to talk to the people who want to come and make   sure you are constantly listening.

>>>: And include things like this, captioning.

MS. FELDER: I think we are just about out of time. I think the next session is going to be starting so thank you all very much for coming.

MS. CRAWFORD: Thank you very much.

MS. FELDER: And our contact information is in the program if you want to contact us.

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