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Yale University and Child Care Aware of America collaborated on the first large-scale study of child care providers (57,000+) during the early months of the pandemic and found that child care programs were not associated with the spread of COVID-19 – a small glimmer of relief for parents, caregivers and providers who struggle daily to understand what’s best for kids at this moment.
Bending the Arc, a documentary that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2017, is finally available on Netflix. According to a review in the Washington Post, the film describes how Paul Farmer, after visiting Haiti in 1983, teamed up with two friends and began to “push the international community to care about medical treatment in developing nations.” The three eventually founded Partners in Health, a longtime WKKF grantee.
In Mexico, the news outlet Aristegui de Noticiasreported that Periodistas de a Piereceived the Mexican National Journalism Award for its in-depth reporting project “Yumanos, los indios más olvidados de México”(Yumanos, the most forgotten Indians of Mexico). The series of stories depicts the lives of descendants of a nomadic people in Baja California. It is part of the WKKF-supported series Color de la Pobreza (Color of Poverty).
Dedicated local leaders—like those of the WKKF Community Leadership Network (WKKF CLN) with the Center for Creative Leadership®—are essential to their communities’ efforts toward racial healing and building a more just and equitable future for children. Troy Glover, a New Orleans fellow, recently spoke at the IREX Impact Fellowships Summit about investing in leaders of color and building coalitions for long-term change.
WKKF CLN fellow Leroy Silva was named to the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development’s 2020 Class of Native American 40 Under 40, joining WKKF CLN Class One fellow Ventura Lovato and grantee Agnetha “Jamie” Gloshay among its distinguished awardees.
Along with fellows in Mississippi – who continue a decades-long movement for racial healing recently marked by the adoption of a new state flag – local leaders like these continue to lift up their communities.
Haiti’s newspaper of record Le Nouvelliste reported that Michèle Pierre-Louis received the Women Political Leaders Trailblazer Award for 2020. Pierre-Louis is a former prime minister of Haiti and founder of WKKF grantee Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty (FOKAL). In her acceptance speech, Pierre-Louis said she wanted to share the award with all of her colleagues, in Haiti and abroad, “who have been a constant source of inspiration.”
Kesha Cash is raising the bar. Impact America Fund II closed recently with $55 million, the largest fund raised by this Black woman founder and general partner of Impact America Fund. According to Forbes, McKinsey forecasts impact investing to grow to more than $300 billion this year. Social impact companies need fund managers like Cash and her team to reshape the sector and drive more capital to communities of color.
Omidyar, Ford Foundation and WKKF are seeking for ways to support grassroots organizations and build participatory decision-making outside of the election cycle. Carry on the Fight Fund will work with specific states to build long-term capacity within communities. When movement leaders drive how problems are defined, decisions are made and solutions are created, meaningful change becomes possible.