This is the first in a series of four blog posts celebrating the work of the 2014 NCRP Impact Awards winners. Stay tuned for the next installments, plus an upcoming video recap of the awards ceremony.
On June 9, Los Angeles’ Liberty Hill Foundation received the 2014 NCRP Impact Award for Grantmaking Public Charity. Liberty Hill is known for the real impact it’s having on the lives of domestic workers in California, and gave crucial support to the nonprofit organizations behind the 2014 California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (also known as AB 241). Andrea Guadarrama is among the thousands of domestic workers whose lives have been touched by the foundation’s work.
When Andrea first came to Los Angeles, she was hired as a domestic worker and taken by her employers to a mountain town outside the city. Her employers didn’t share her schedule, gave her a sleeping bag in the garage as housing and only let her return to Los Angeles when they were going, too. When she recounted how she felt when she first learned about the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), she said, “I got emotional instantly, because I said, ‘There I will learn my rights.’ … I liked it because we got organized, they taught us how to speak with our bosses, how to write a fair contract …”
Since its founding in 1976, Liberty Hill has demonstrated a strong commitment to economic and environmental justice and LGBTQ equality. Liberty Hill grantees Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, Filipino Migrant Center and Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California played a leading role in passing AB 241. More than 100,000 (mostly female) domestic workers caring for children, the elderly or people with disabilities were finally granted the overtime protection they deserve. Liberty Hill Foundation helped make this possible by funding these organizations and other groups that use grassroots and community organizing to effect long-term social change.
On this victory, Liberty Hill President & CEO Shane Goldsmith said, “Domestic workers make other work possible, but they have been unfairly excluded from workplace protections that we all need. At Liberty Hill, we are focused on improving conditions for low-wage workers and addressing income inequality from the bottom up. This bill is just one step, true – and it’s an important step.”
The impact of Liberty Hill’s commitment is evident in Andrea’s recollection of her role in the passage of AB 241:
“My biggest joy has been requesting a bill of rights for domestic workers. It was a dream come true, that we could write a bill of rights for our rights, no matter the immigration status of domestic workers. … It didn’t matter if we sacrificed our salaries, or hours lost because we were going to Sacramento at night and return[ing] early the next morning. We kept on struggling; we will not give up fighting for domestic workers, because it is our duty.”
The challenge continues as implementation of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights begins, and Liberty Hill is standing by its grantees as they find ways to engage employers of domestic workers to write fair contracts and aspire to reach a “gold standard” of workplace conditions.
The empowerment that is felt by their grantees, however, has prepared them for the next phase. Guadarrama shared, “I am not afraid any longer, I am not afraid, I feel brave now, than when I first got here. I know I have rights, I am a human being, and this is my country also.”
Thank you, Liberty Hill, for the great work that you do!
Check out these photos from the 2014 NCRP Impact Awards reception celebrating the work of Liberty Hill Foundation, and that of fellow awardees Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, The California Endowment and Hill-Snowdon Foundation.
Jeanné Isler is field director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow NCRP on Twitter (@ncrp).
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