After nearly 15 years of work with rural communities, the Jefferson Center has entered a period of organizational dormancy. Below you will find information on previous Jefferson Center program work. The Jefferson Center has traditionally chosen one major program focus at a time, based on lessons learned through past work, research on emerging social and economic trends, and conversations with workers, advocates and others in both rural and urban areas. All Jefferson Center programs are based on four overarching strategies or approaches. For a description of these strategies, click here. To learn more about past programs, click on the links below or scroll down. 2005-2007 Rural Worker Empowerment Program 2000-2004 Contingent Workers in Natural Resources 1994-2000 Non-Timber Forest Workers & Harvesters (no information available online at this time) Rural Worker Empowerment Program 2005-2007 Low-income workers throughout the country, especially those in isolated rural areas, face seemingly overwhelming challenges. In the rural Pacific Northwest, new immigrant workers and long-time residents alike struggle to meet their families’ basic needs as working conditions deteriorate, real wages fall, and corporate projects undermine community-centered and ecologically sustainable approaches to development. Deep divides along racial, ethnic, and gender lines exacerbate inequalities. At the Jefferson Center, we believe that fundamental change will only come about when the communities most affected by the present systems of injustice are at the forefront of a vibrant movement for change. But we also know that grassroots leaders and successful movements don’t just pop up out of nowhere. Rosa Parks wasn’t a tired woman who randomly decided one day that she had had enough—her move was a product of the training, leadership development and inspiration she had accumulated in large part through the Highlander Center, an organization in Tennessee very similar to the Jefferson Center. Among the cedars of the northwest, the Jefferson Center is nurturing the leaders and visionaries who will, like Mrs. Parks, change the world with their integrity, determination and commitment to justice. The Jefferson Center exists to organize, educate and empower diverse, low-income people in rural communities of the Pacific Northwest to work together—across racial, ethnic, language and other divides—to achieve social, economic, racial and environmental justice. We are unique from many other social justice organizations in that our work doesn’t start with a particular issue or campaign. Rather, we begin with a group of traditionally marginalized or oppressed people and provide ongoing leadership training and capacity-building as they develop the critical consciousness, community connections, and concrete skills to work for systemic change on the issues that they care about the most. We are preparing the soil and planting the seeds for a culturally diverse, rural movement for justice in all its dimensions. In our current Rural Worker Empowerment Program, we are accompanying low-income workers and their family members in rural communities of Western Washington and the northern Oregon coast. In our Popular Education approach, we meet these workers where they are at, listen carefully, and provide ongoing support and capacity building as they tell their own stories, identify and analyze the root causes of the problems they face, and develop and implement their own solutions. We empower workers and their families to be their own best advocates – to take their place at the table where decisions about rural development, resource allocation, labor laws, and immigration policies are being made – and to create new forums for participation and activism when traditional methods and spaces limit real change. Contingent Workers in Natural Resources 2000-2004 Our Contingent Workers in Natural Resources program, worked to increase the civic engagement in social and environmental justice efforts of low-income rural workers and their families who are dependent on natural-resource industries (forestry, fishing, tourism and recreation, etc.). A description of the program follows: Throughout rural America, marginalized immigrant and low-income workers and their families find themselves in increasingly vulnerable positions. The weakening of labor protections and a dramatic rise in employers’ use of sub-contracted, part-time, temporary and other forms of precarious employment arrangements have resulted in a decrease in workers’ wages, job security and protections. Coupled with rising health-care costs, increasing competition over ever fewer jobs, and budget cuts to scarce social services, many rural workers are unable to meet their families’ most basic needs. The increasing vulnerability of contingent, low-wage workers is particularly acute in the Pacific Northwest, where rural workers rely heavily on natural resource industries for employment. These workers are engaged in industries such as reforestation, seafood processing, and resource-based tourism services, including ski resorts (sometimes several of these jobs throughout a year). They face especially difficult challenges given the inherent seasonality, physical danger, unpredictable nature of work cycles, and lack of other employment opportunities in their region. Contractors and political conservatives strategically use workers’ race, ethnic background, and/or legal status to keep the labor force divided. Indeed, a rapidly growing proportion of this traditionally white workforce is composed of new Latino/a and indigenous Mexican and Central American immigrants (and smaller numbers of Southeast Asians), who have little access to resources and who— unlike agricultural/farm workers—remain outside the scope of the agendas of policy-makers, and social and environmental justice networks. In our popular education approach, we facilitate workers themselves in analyzing this situation and deciding how to address it. We meet people where they are at, listen carefully, and provide ongoing support and capacity-building for workers as they tell their own stories, identify problems and needs, come up with their own solutions, and advocate on their own behalf. We empower workers and their families to be their own best advocates – to take their place at the table where decisions about rural development, resource allocation, labor laws, and immigration policies are being made – and to create new forums for participation and activism when traditional methods and spaces limit real change. Overall Program Goals Natural resource workers and their families in rural communities will: • Identify issues of concern and analyze the root causes of problems • Access information otherwise inaccessible • Develop analytical, communication, planning and organizing skills • Build alliances across languages and cultures, to work towards long-lasting,   systemic change • Become familiar with social, economic, and environmental justice organizations   and activism taking place on local, regional and national levels, and • Make informed decisions about how to get involved and where to focus their   limited time and energy.
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