QUESTION: HOW CAN YOUR BRANCH SUPPORT OUR MISSION AND MAKE AN IMPACT IN A WAY THAT DOESN’T REQUIRE FUNDRAISING?
Answer: Through mission-based programs which educate our members and the public about AAUW.
Your branch programs, projects and events demonstrate our commitment to the AAUW mission both to our members and to the community while also serving as a vehicle to attract and retain members.
Please ensure that your newsletters are being sent to the state. If your branch does not send its newsletter to the state, please send it to [email protected] so that we can learn about your program activities.
The following programs were honored at the
April 2020 Annual Meeting.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
- Branch: Long Beach
- Date: March 7, 2020
- Members: 125
Human trafficking is modern-day slavery and involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. It is estimated that human trafficking generates many billions of dollars of profit per year, second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable form of transnational crime. One in three teens is recruited within 48 hours of running away from home or foster care. Guest speakers were advocates Mary White, Executive Director of Gems Uncovered, a local Long Beach non-profit, and Melodie Fox, educator, advocate and author of Freedom Has a Name: My Name is Also Freedom: The Shari Ho Story. They related the experiences of abused and trapped women living in fear and shared their efforts to help those caught up in this silent web. Ways to identify and assist these victims were explored.
- Branch: Mission Viejo-Saddleback Valley
- Date: February 22, 2020
- Members: 34
The branch presented a panel of four experts who contributed their different perspective on human trafficking. These panelists were a sheriff investigator who spoke of local cases and emphasized the role of the internet, a representative from Vera’s Sanctuary which helps young women age 18-25 who were in abusive foster homes, a member of the Teen Project who gave suggestions for protecting high school students from compromising situations, and a member of the White House Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking. The branch worked with the City of Mission Viejo and the Chamber of Commerce to publicize the event.
- Branch: Santa Cruz County
- Date: January 18, 2020
- Members: 101
The branch has been working on this project for the past three years to educate the public about human trafficking in the local area. Working with local schools, law enforcement, the health department, the League of Women Voters, and the Soroptimists, the branch produced this year’s End Human Trafficking forum. The program featured a panel of experts including an investigator from the District Attorney’s office, a leader from Monarch Services which provides awareness training in the local schools, a coordinator of the Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program in the county office of education, and the chair of the local Coalition to End Human Trafficking in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. The keynote speaker was a local leading advocate for victims of human trafficking, who is herself a survivor. In January 80 people attended the event. To coincide with the forum, the city named January as Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The forum is the highlight of a continuing effort that includes attaching stickers to the inside of stalls at public restrooms, researching laws and publishing the results, hanging trafficking support posters in the community, sponsoring a trafficking poster contest at the local schools, and producing PSA announcements for the radio.
MENTORING
- Branch: Stockton
- Date: Ongoing
- Members: 150
The Stockton Branch funds three to five scholarships to Tech Trek Camp each year. The girls who earn these scholarships are promised that they will have the opportunity to participate in the mentoring program which will last through the next five years, from grade 8 through high school graduation. The goal is to facilitate the process for the girls to go on to higher education. To date, 100% of those who participated in the program have met that goal. These young women are the first in their families to attend college.
In the early days of the program the branch endeavored to encourage participants to pursue studies in STEM. Though it is still encouraged, the outcomes demonstrated that all education is honorable and the program has been changed from “STEM Trek” to simply “The Mentor Program.”
Branch members meet with the group of 13 – 15 girls monthly for an activity designed to gain a life skill. In addition, they meet individually with girls as needed for such things as tutoring, family interventions, and values clarification, as well as social and academic advice. It is an extremely rewarding endeavor for the branch members who are mentors.
The program in its current version has been ongoing for 12+ years.
PAY EQUITY
- Branch: San Diego
- Date: April 8, 2020
- Members: 55
The branch presented a virtual community round table discussion, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education: An Economic Imperative,” to address the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, educators, and public college/university leaders, with particular focus on how to best serve marginalized communities. Before opening the panel discussion, the panel host introduced AAUW, its mission, values, focus, and leadership in funding global scholarships and grants and provided a web link to current funding opportunities.
The panel featured five civic and education thought leaders who are leading innovation in education with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in San Diego and across the state of California:
- John Watson, Ph.D., Data Scientist & Technologist at San Diego County Office of Education
- Sabrina Sanders, Ed.D., Director, Student Affairs Programs & Initiatives at California State University Office of the Chancellor,
- Franky Fuentes, Ph.D., Technologist, Program Consultant & Inclusion Advisor at Southwestern Community College
- Hobson Lane, Cofounder & CTO Tangible AI & UCSD Instructor
- Komal Devjani, Product, Developer Advocate, alwaysAI, with
- Shauna Ruyle, MBA, AWS Cloud Practitioner, VP Public Policy, AAUW San Diego & Board Member, WomenOfAI.org as Moderator.
The panelists discussed how they are empowering students from all backgrounds to learn and succeed in the future of work and how they are democratizing access to technology and education. They also shared technology tools that can be used to bridge the equity gaps, whether socio-economic status, gender, physical or cognitive ability. Audience participation was encouraged. The event was conducted via Zoom, with 76 registrations collected via Eventbrite. At closing, we announced the date and theme of the second annual Virtual Global Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI Challenge: Oct. 17-18, 2020,a beginner level virtual global hackathon with multi-campus participation, driving social impact with the aim of tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges, leveraging AWS. Our community partners included WomenOfAI.org, AI LA, California State University Office of the Chancellor, Southwestern Community College, League of Women Voters San Diego, Tangible AI and alwaysAI to help with publicity. Link to video – Harnessing the Social Power of Technology: https://youtu.be/W_4yDe3vUIM
STEM/STEAM
- Branch: Humboldt
- Date: February 1, 2020
- Members: 110
AAUW Humboldt sponsored a presentation from Linda Wise, general manager of Recology Humboldt County. Ms. Wise spoke about a world without waste. She stated that the vision at Recology is to create a world without waste by discovering sustainable recovery resource practices that can be implemented globally. The bottom line is to reduce, reuse and recycle, with recycling as the last choice. She gave out bamboo eating utensils, including a straw wrapped in a reusable napkin, as well as reusable bags for fresh produce. Everyone went home with a better knowledge of how to get to zero waste. This was an excellent example of the impact women working in the STEM fields can have on our world.
- Branch: Long Beach
- Date: February 28, 2020
- Members: 125
AAUW Long Beach has been sponsoring young women to attend Tech Trek Camps since the program was founded by AAUW California in 1988. For girls, the weeklong camp sparks their curiosity and places them on a path toward success in STEM fields. This program welcomed back three former Trek Tech participants who shared the life-changing impact of this program. The speakers were Rachel Thompson, a Ph.D. candidate in Physical Therapy at CSULB who attended Tech Trek 10 years ago, Gech Huong Huy, a high school senior at California Academy of Math & Science (CAMS), Long Beach Unified School District, who attended four years ago and is heading to the University of San Francisco with a major in Environmental Engineering, and Karintha Marshall who attended the very first Tech Trek Camp 20 years ago and now heads the IT department at a non-profit organization. These ladies have excelled in their fields and have received multiple recognitions for their scholarship and efforts to make a difference in their communities. It was exciting to see the long-term success of such sponsorships.
- Branch: San Mateo
- Date: January 11, 2020
The San Mateo Branch sponsored an inspiring presentation on how merging art and sciences can form fully-rounded careers. Sonia Koesterer gave a well thought-out and informative lecture, A Woman’s Journey in Technology and Design, explaining how she combined STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) with Art for a career in STEAM. Sonia used these tools to forge her career in computer science/human interaction to produce a beautiful and functional product for a health delivery start-up. Her “journey” encompassed progressive organizations such as Johnson Controls, Smart Design and Myia Health, where she is currently the VP of Design. She is a designer, strategist, researcher, and untangler of complex problems.
SUFFRAGE
- Branch: Carlsbad-Oceanside-Vista
- Date: February 22, 2020
- Members: 103
To celebrate the centennial of the passage of the 19th amendment the branch invited members and friends to celebrate by having a high tea, as teas were the means by which suffragists raised money for the movement. While the audience enjoyed delicious food prepared by branch members, a panel of suffragists from the Seneca Falls Convention attired in period costumes narrated the story of the movement leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment. Many of the 100 attendees got into the spirit of the celebration and also dressed in period attire. The San Diego Women’s Museum and the League of Women Voters worked with the branch to celebrate the centennial in this creative manner.
- Branch: Monterey Peninsula
- Date: November 2, 2019
From 1896-1911, California women worked hard and won the right to vote in 1911, nine years before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Dennis Mar, the presenter, shared the story of what went on to gain this right in Monterey County. He researched newspapers and genealogy reports to track down family members of the original women proponents of women’s suffrage in Monterey County. This personalized the slide presentation, linking present-day families to their “agitating and annoying” ancestors.
- Branch: Ventura County IBC
- Date: January 11, 2020
To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, and the January 11th birthday of suffragist Alice Paul, this year’s Camarillo, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks IBC luncheon featured a presentation by award-winning businesswoman Dawn Dyer and her Suffrage Passion Players. Held on January 11th at Los Robles Greens Country Club in Moorpark, 75 attendees enjoyed a one-act suffrage play followed by Dawn’s inspiring recounting of the fight for women’s right to vote. She also reviewed key indicators of women’s equality today, and discussed actions being taken to achieve economic, political, and social equity for women.
TITLE IX
- Branch: Carlsbad-Oceanside-Vista
- Date: January 11, 2020
- Members: 103
The January program focused on women in athletics with a presentation by Lisa Faulkner, the basketball coach from Point Loma Nazarene University. The program detailed her many obstacles in the journey to become a coach in a profession which is male-dominated. She has made outstanding progress at Vanguard, including guiding the Lions to a 62-3 record with two Final Four appearances.
WOMEN’S HISTORY
- Branch: Tehachapi Mountain Branch
- Date: March 3, 2020
- Members: 72
The branch has a group of members who retell and act out stories of famous women in schools and for community groups. These reenactments are told in the first person with the reenactors dressed in period costumes. Each year features different women with this year’s performances showcasing Maud Younger (suffragist), Gertrude Jekyll (gardener), Margaret Burbidge (astronomer), Captain Edwina Todd (nurse), and Mary Pickford (actress). This year the group performed at three elementary schools, two middle schools, and at gatherings of the Masons, the Democratic Club, the Women’s Club, and Lions Club, reaching several hundred people in all.