The Jewish Fund For Justice — a two-year-old national Jewish grantmaking institution which funds efforts to combat poverty and social injustice in this country — has announced the award of eight year-end grants with which the Fund will exceed its 1986 grantmaking goal of $100,000.
One of the JFJ grants will provide continuing support for an innovative program that assists Navajo Indian farmers in their efforts to employ Israeli desert cultivation techniques; other grants will support community organizations in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico and California which are working to change the conditions that keep people poor and powerless.
Under its newly established Fund for Israeli Technical Assistance, JFJ will award $30,000 to the Seventh Generation Fund for its Navajo/Israeli Intensive Crop Production Project in Arizona’s Painted Desert.
The grant will underwrite the salary of Ron Scherzer, an agronomist on leave from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, who is helping Navajo farmers adapt Israeli drip irrigation methods for use on their own land. The Project, now in its third year, has dramatically increased crop yields and has brought the Navajos new income and increased self-sufficiency, according to JFJ.
OTHER GRANT RECIPIENTS
Si Kahn, chairperson of JFJ’s Board of Directors, said that other grant recipients include:
Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), a church-based community organization which voices the concerns of Baltimore’s low-income and minority residents.
Pennsylvania Public Interest Education Fund (PennPIEF), which provides assistance to economic justice campaigns in the state.
Naugatuck Valley Project, a coalition of labor, religious and community organizations in Waterbury, Connecticut, which is working to avert economic disinvestment in an area of aging industries and high unemployment by promoting worker ownership and other alternatives to plant closings.
Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition in Prestonburg, Kentucky, which supports grassroots organizing in rural Appalachian counties to promote progressive taxation, prudent land use and environmental protection.
Proyecto Libertad, a legal support project based in Harlingen, Texas, which provides and assistance to Central American refugees who are fleeing political violence in their homelands and face detainment, mistreatment and the threat of deportation upon their arrival in this country.
Southwest Organizing Project, a community organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which has launched a program to fight toxic contamination of the water supply in the city’s low-income neighborhoods.
Women’s Economic Agenda Project (WEAP), an organization in Oakland, California, which promotes public awareness and legislative advocacy to reverse the growing impoverishment of women and their families.
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