Happy Monday! My name is Kyrah Altman and I’m a senior majoring in Human Services and Social Justice and minoring in Public Health. I am thrilled to announce that the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) was chosen by the Students for Students Foundation (SfS) to receive $9000 of grant funding.
As someone who volunteered for TASSC, I can testify to the organization’s dedication to serve asylum seekers and create inclusive communities in the DMV area. Volunteering with TASSC impacted my self-awareness of implicit bias and helped me to empathize with professional challenges immigrant and asylum-seekers face. Moreover, it made awarding TASSC funding “even sweeter.”
Using a scoring system, our class narrowed down all grant applicants to the top three and subsequently invited them to present to the class. Since our one of our top three applicants were tied, we invited four total applicants to present to the class. Their presentation to the class was also professional, articulate, and moving. After thoughtful discussion and a second scoring of the final four applicants, our class collaboratively chose TASSC as the grant recipient.
We intended to distribute funds to organizations serving immigrant communities in the DMV to fund educational and professional opportunities. TASSC’s mission mirrored ours, specifically speaking to their desire to fuel socioeconomic mobility through education in their application. TASSC was chosen because of it strong programmatic proposal, attainable goals, clear objectives, and innovative vision. In fact, all of TASSC’s goals were S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and Time Bound). Moreover, TASSC had a strong contingency plan and ideas for additional funding. I am personally grateful to have found an organization with such close values and goals as the foundation my classmates and I created. I also believe education is the most powerful tool to use to address any social issue in the world; its benefits multiply, as well.
As a result of our class’s efforts this semester, SfS has the opportunity to forever change the lives of survivors who fled torture with little more than the clothes on their backs to restart their lives in the US. Our funding will support asylum-seekers to recertify their educational credentials from their home countries and/or establish a new profession. More specifically, the hours of discussion and editing that took place resulted in 60-100 survivors of torture being able to pursue short and long-term educational and career goals. The number of individuals being helped is 4x the number of students in my class...wow! This makes us feel like we truly had an impact on the community and that our actions can result in measurable change.
At the beginning of the semester, our class planned to distribute $5000 of funding to the winning grant applicant. However, after obtaining additional funding and collaboratively winning a blog-writing contest, SfS was able to distribute $9000 to the winning grant applicant. As a class, we decided it would be better to funnel the extra funds to the highest-scoring organization instead of splitting up the funding to serve more than one organization in the top three. By doing this, we gave TASSC the power and opportunity to maximize their funds and fill financial gaps in their organization. I personally believe this was the right choice. As someone who works in the nonprofit sector, I know how easy it can be to forget about unexpected expenses that arise during programming.
I hope that TASSC continues to receive the recognition and financial support that it deserves. While TASSC was named the 2018 Center for Victims of Torture Eclipse Award recipient and recognized as one of the best local nonprofits by the 2016 Catalogue for Philanthropy, it still requires funding, community support, and social capital to maximize the positive impact of its programs and engage members of the community. To donate additional funding to TASSC, please visit: https://www.tassc.org/donate.
On a personal note, I intend to stay in touch with TASSC to see how I can best serve their clients or partner with them in future endeavors. Social mobility crosses lines of gender, race, and class. There is no better way to boldly support and educate the community than fostering social mobility in underserved populations.
-Kyrah