During national Welcoming Week each year, communities bring together immigrants, refugees, and native-born residents to raise awareness of the benefits of welcoming everyone. OneJustice is proud to be one of many nonprofits participating in Welcoming Week around the country. This national network of nonprofits is working in a variety of ways to support locally-driven efforts to create more welcoming, immigrant-friendly environments. The goal is to create more welcoming communities that improve the quality of life and economic potential for immigrants and non-immigrants alike. During Welcoming Week 2017 (September 15 to September 23), the Justice Bus project is working with local communities from San Joaquin to San Diego counties to bring groups of urban volunteers to staff “pop-up” immigratio
n clinics, including DACA renewals in light of the Trump administration’s recent termination of that program.**
One of the beautiful things about our Rural Justice work is the deep relationships we have forged with rural communities – including the on-the-ground networks of social services nonprofits, grassroots organizing groups, and local leaders in these communities. These leaders and organizations are already building justice and empowerment in their own communities. In fact, their daily work is exactly what activates the goals and concepts that Welcoming Week exists to promote.
And it just so happens, that sometimes these local movements need lawyers to help out with components of their work and to help local residents address the individual legal problems they are facing. It has been an incredible honor that OneJustice gets to partner with these local networks to bring in groups of urban attorney and law student volunteers to help meet that need, in partnership with the community. What an amazing invitation – and truly a privilege – to be able to be play a supporting role to their leadership, their fight for justice on their own terms, and the power they are building in their communities.
So yes, Welcoming Week’s vision of inclusive communities – for all of us, regardless of citizenship status – is a vision that OneJustice supports. And yet, we believe it is also vitally important to recognize that these rural communities are also welcoming OneJustice into their lives, their fight for justice, and their work. They invite groups of urban volunteers – who are often learning about the rural experience and rural California for the first time – into their movement. They welcome our volunteers into their community centers, houses of worship, schools, senior housing complexes, and even community gardens – to jointly create these “pop-up” mobile legal clinics. That mutual expression of welcome is at the very heart of the Rural Justice Initiative – in fact, it is what makes the work possible in the first place – and that is what OneJustice is celebrating this week.
** Attorneys and law students interested in volunteering at DACA clinics around the state should check out OneJustice’s website at www.OneJustice.org/DACA/Volunteer and watch the 3 free trainings on helping with DACA renewals in the Pro Bono Training Institute website.