Voices from LA Youth Media Lounge

Young people who attended the LA event discussed a wide range of issues in the New America Youth Media Lounge at the National Family Convention, from getting paved roads in their town to immigration issues to global warming.




Visit New America Media for more coverage of the Convention.


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Voices from Chicago Youth Media Lounge

Young people at the Chicago event also had a lot to say about what they most wanted to see change in their community.



You can see more convention coverage at New America Media.

Click below for more information about:
Equal Voice for America's Families

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More from the Convention: Jackie and Ray from El Paso

Attendees Jackie and Ray from El Paso share about their experience on Convention Day.



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Young People Speak Up at the New America Media Birmingham Youth Lounge

Young people were interviewing each other live with Flip cameras about what they most wanted to see change in their community.

Here's what some of them had to say in Birmingham.



You can see more convention coverage at New America Media, which has spent the past 9 months covering the Equal Voice Campaign.

Click below for more information about:
Equal Voice for America's Families

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Huffington Post Carries Convention Coverage

We were live blogging on the Huffington Post from the convention!

Read all the posts and watch the videos here:

Third Convention Yields Ambitious National Family Platform - Attendees Discuss

Republicans and Democrats Had Their Say -- Now Hear From America's Families

Working Families Hold Own Convention - Adopt Comprehensive Plaftform

Republicans and Democrats Had Their Say -- Now Hear From America's Families

Check the Huff Post on Sunday for more Equal Voice National Convention news, and see ongoing Campaign coverage from New America Media.

Live Blogging from the National Convention on the Huffington Post

We're following Joyce Cook in Los Angeles, and blogging live to the Huffington Post.

Click here to see the first post.

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Join the National Family Convention Online

Today is the day!

More than 16,000 people will be gathering tomorrow in Birmingham, Los Angeles, and Chicago for the Equal Voice for America's Families National Family Convention -- and the ratification of the National Family Platform that reflects the input of more than 10,000 people at 60 town hall meetings across the country in the past year.

We wanted to make sure you're aware of all the materials available online to participants and supporters.

• Not attending the convention in person? You can watch the convention live on the Equal Voice for America's Families website or here on the blog, where we'll also have the latest news and videos from the convention cities.



• For the past week, New America Media has been publishing profiles of some of our convention attendees. Check out our Campaign Updates or visit the New America Website to learn more about some of the people attending tomorrow's conventions.



• If you haven't already done so, you can download the national platform here. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page to select the platform language.)



• Our newest LifeCaster Sonya talks about some of the issues families face in south Texas. Check out all the latest LifeCasting Episodes on our LifeCasting Across the Digital Divide webpage.

As always, help us spread the word about our important day tomorrow by forwarding your favorite video or blog post to people you know.

To stay up to date on the Equal Voice for America's Families Campaign and our efforts, sign up for our email updates on the right or become a fan of the campaign on Facebook.

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Armando Garza inroduces new Lifecaster

Sonya and her daughters talk about some of the issues families face in south Texas.



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Less than 48 Hours To Go!

As the Republican National Convention wraps up tonight in the Twin Cities, we're making the final arrangements for the third major political convention of the last two weeks -- the National Family Convention this Saturday in Birmingham, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The latest numbers:

* 15,000+ attending from the Foundation’s grantmaking regions (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and Washington)
* 2350+ hotel rooms
* 11 Languages – English, Spanish, Khmer, Somalian, Hmong, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Creole and ASL
* 800+ airline flights booked
* 200+ buses – local and charter
* 32,100+ meals served
* 1925 children in childcare
* 100+ exhibit booths

Check out the additional information -- including the list of keynote speakers in all three cities -- here.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to become a fan of Equal Voice for America's Families on Facebook. And check back here through the weekend as we bring you the latest reports -- and details of the national family platform -- in the coming hours and days.


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Corey Camphor Responds to Obama's Speech at the DNC

Lifecaster Corey Camphor responds to Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.




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An Addiction to Advocacy Overcame Homelessness

New America Media continues with their series on Delegates from the Other America, who will be attending the Equal Voice for America's Families National Family Convention this Saturday in Los Angeles, Chicago and Birmingham.

Today's profile focuses on Charles Jenkins, who will serve as a delegate representing the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) at the Chicago convention gathering:

Earlier this year, Jenkins served as a CCH delegate to an Equal Voice special session. “I worked on the policy packet, a four-day policy forum where we hammered out policies.”

Jenkins says he was honored to have been selected by his peers at CCH for the task, designed to distill concerns from town halls across the country to produce a comprehensive policy platform. “It was spiritually enriching, informative, enlightening, and an opportunity that few people are blessed to have."...

As an African-American, he says he makes no apologies for championing the concerns of his people and is a forceful spokesman for self-reliance. African-American communities have a host of issues to confront, “but, if we don’t build commerce so that the money earned in the communities stays there long enough to do some good in the ‘hood,” the profit from goods and services in those neighborhoods will continue to flow to other ethnic groups. “I don’t have any animosity toward them,” Jenkins says, “I’m just looking to resolve our own problems.”

Sometimes those problems are personal. Jenkins’ own life veered off course when he indulged in drugs with the enthusiasm he has now channels into community organizing. “I didn’t even have a drug of choice,” he recalls with a self-deprecating chuckle. The use of “alcohol, whatever was available,” resulted in “drug addiction, the whole ball of wax.” Eventually, after bouncing among the homes of relatives, he found himself homeless, “moving from one shelter to another.”

In 1991, after two and a half years adrift, Jenkins came into a "warming center" -- a place of refuge to ward off frostbite, hypothermia, and hunger. The facility hosted several organizations, including CCH. Through a CCH counselor, Jenkins became at first captivated by, then immersed in the organization’s advocacy on affordable housing and homelessness. Being of service “was an incentive for me to kick my habit,” Jenkins says.

Read the complete profile of Charles Jenkins here.

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Living Paycheck To Paycheck While Patrolling Mississippi Schools

We now have just days to go until more than 16,000 people will gather to ratify the National Family Platform at this Saturday's convention for working families!

So who is going to be attending? This week, New America Media is profiling National Family Convention attendees like Tinsa Hall (pictured above):

Tinsa Hall’s heart, vast as the Mississippi Delta, still breaks at memories she wants no school-aged child ever to endure. It’s 20 years since Robert Merrill, her favorite uncle, was shot seven times and killed while attending Greenville High School, a school one of her four children now attends. A dispute between Merrill’s female cousins and rivals had escalated, the circle of actors grown, until he, once protector, became a target.

As a founding member of Parents on Patrol for Success, Hall and a group of volunteer parents walk the hallways of several Greenville schools. “Maybe if the kids see us, they wouldn’t act as bad,” Hall says, explaining the reasoning behind the group’s debut in 2006....

Hall serves on the staff of Citizens for a Better Greenville (CFBG), an organization dedicated to improving the socio-economic conditions in this predominantly African American city. During the summer, CFBG hosted an Equal Voice for America’s Families town hall meeting, drawing 400 people from across the state....

The impetus of Hall’s activism grows out of her own experiences. She fears for the safety of Greenville’s children and dreads that her time away from home may test her own marriage. President of two parent teacher associations and the vice president of a third, she logs in long hours, sometimes getting in “at seven, eight, nine or ten o’clock at night.” Over a week that never seems to end, she is at “minimum wage,” by her estimation. Yet, all in all -- including her marriage -- Hall says, “I have been blessed.” She is proud of her work at CFBG: “It’s an underpaid job, but I love what I do.”

Read the complete profile of Tinsa Hall here.




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