SPRING NEWSLETTER 2004

Changemaker: Roberta Hawkins
Founding Executive Director, Alliance for Better Long Term Care 

Roberta Hawkins’ eyes are as sharp as her tongue. That’s why one nursing home administrator calls her “The Hawk.”

Roberta Hawkins, PHOTO: DAVID O’CONNOR

“And I still get mad when I see neglect,” she warns.

Yet beneath Roberta’s tough talk lies the heart of an angel—a guardian angel for more than 10,000 residents in Rhode Island’s 103 nursing homes and 80 assisted living facilities as well as those receiving home health care and hospice services. Roberta is the founding executive director of the Alliance for Better Long Term Care. Families call Roberta and her staff when they suspect abuse by caregivers. Front-line care givers call when their employers cut corners on care.

But nursing home administrators and owners frequently call Roberta and her staff, too. They value Roberta’s knowledge and wisdom, her passionate advocacy for better public support for elder care, the Alliance’s help with training and its ability to trouble-shoot problems with difficult families. With contacts and expertise in every facet of the long-term care community, the Alliance acts as mediator and problem solver, an honest broker between patients and facilities and between facilities and state regulators.

Roberta became the first independent State Ombudsman for long-term care in 1999, but she’s been defending Rhode Island’s elderly for 27 years. In the late 1970s, 200 elderly patients were left without care by an unscrupulous nursing home owner. Rhode Island’s consumer rights activists saw that long-term care consumers needed an independent advocate. Roberta’s grandmother inspired Roberta to become that advocate.

Although Roberta was earning her degree as a social worker by then, she learned her most essential lessons at home. As a child, Roberta learned to stick up for principles, to care for others and to question authority from her grandmother. Many years later, Roberta’s Gram taught her another lesson. When the older woman fell and broke her hip at age 87, doctors recommended nursing home placement without surgery. They said Gram would never walk again. Roberta knew better.

“My grandmother never gave up. She was mentally strong.” Roberta bet one doctor a bottle of brandy that her grandmother would be on her feet again. From her gurney, her grandmother whispered, “make it a case.” The doctor did the surgery and her grandmother did walk again. Each day for the next ten years, her grandmother mended clothes or washed dishes, even if the task took all day. Doing these simple chores helped her stay happy, active and healthy almost to the day of her death at age 95.

Roberta would like to see all nursing homes provide a similar sense of dignity, usefulness and control over daily life to their residents, but the barriers are high. “We ask young women and men to lift and clean patients for $9 or $10 per hour. Each certified nurse assistant or orderly cares for 10 residents or more. They have no retirement plans and few benefits.”

Half of the residents have no family but the staff, yet high turnover and use of temporary workers deprive residents of long-term friendships with caregivers. Little wonder that residents are sometimes ignored or even mistreated.

“That’s when I show up,” says Roberta. “I believe most people are dedicated, caring and committed. So, if there’s a problem, let’s fix it. We show the staff in nursing homes that it’s always about people,” says Roberta. “Give patients back their control. Don’t do things for them! Let them struggle with their clothes and hair. Don’t treat them like babies.”

Fourteen associate ombudsmen at the Alliance help Roberta carry out her role as troubleshooter, responding to more than 2,500 calls per year. The Alliance’s work includes petitioning the courts in guardianship cases, providing expert testimony to the legislature, advocating on a range of committees and councils dealing with long-term care and training for care givers and probate judges on elder care issues. The Alliance also maintains a network of volunteer ombudsmen and has coordinated an active intergenerational program of visits to residents by children and teenagers for 16 years. Roberta sees our over-reliance on high-cost nursing home care as one symptom of our throw away society.

“Not everyone needs nursing home care. Not all old people are at death’s doorway! If we go on this way, every other block will be a nursing home.” Roberta says better pay for caregivers and better-defined levels of care to ensure maximum self-reliance at the least cost for each older person are two much-needed reforms. So are alternatives to nursing home care, such as assisted living and at-home support for families with older members.

But, most important of all, we must learn to value every generation, from childhood to the end of life. “Our society counts people out long before they are ready,” Roberta says. Every day, Roberta struggles to count people back in. JWH

Welcome Staff and Directors

Andy Galli

It’s our good fortune to have Andy Galli, a former executive director of the Coalition for Consumer Justice, back with The Fund to serve as Campaign Coordinator. In recent years Andy has run some high-profile political campaigns and has served as a department director for the R.I. Secretary of State. He brings a wealth of experience in government service, media relations, teaching and advocacy. A graduate of St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, Andy sits on myriad boards and commissions, including the R.I. Council for the Humanities, People’s Power and Light, R.I. Permanent Commission on Civic Education, City of Providence Police External Review Authority, and Roger Williams National Memorial Commission. He is president of Rhode Island Campaigns, LLC and a former board member of CHisPA.

Attorney Kelly Thompson has joined the Community Mediation Center of R.I. as executive director. She was with the Cleveland Mediation Center for ten years, where she was a practitioner in mediation and conflict resolution, program director, acting executive director, facilitator, trainer and communication consultant. A strong proponent of social justice, Kelly is focused upon communication, conflict resolution and mediation, program development and management, volunteer coordination, team and consensus building and facilitated negotiations.

Mark D. Pechenik is the new executive director of the Hope Center for Cancer Support. He will lead Hope’s efforts to expand its program, services, fundraising and outreach. A resident of Cumberland, Mark was formerly the director of the North Attleboro Council on Aging. NHV

Changemaker: GiGi Colson
Founding Executive Director, Institute for Poverty Awareness and Education

GiGi Colson	PHOTO: DAVID O’CONNOR

GiGi Colson, founding executive director, Institute for Poverty Awareness and Education

I don’t just want to alleviate poverty,” says GiGi Colson, director of the Institute for Poverty Awareness and Education (IPAE), a Fund member agency in Woonsocket. “I want to eradicate it. Like slavery.”

Some of the world’s poorest women inspired GiGi to attempt this gigantic task.

“These were the rockbreakers,” says GiGi, “living in abject poverty along the river.” They lived in Matigara, in India’s West Bengal province. Many were refugees from religious persecution in Bangladesh. Others would never escape the exploitation and brutality of their own husbands. “I’m no more than a dog or a cow,” one woman told her. “I see the birds in the trees and wish I could fly away, too. But I can’t.”

Yet when the young woman from America asked what she could do to help, the women didn’t ask for charity. They told GiGi about something called the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and asked GiGi to find out more.

GiGi followed this quest to Bangladesh. There, she learned about the “microlending” revolution led by Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank over the past three decades. Grameen has developed powerful financial tools and products that have made credit and savings truly available to people who live on less than one dollar per day.

Grameen Bank supports thousands of village-based saving and lending groups. Meetings include financial education, skill-building and participation in group decisions as well as group savings and lending transactions. By balancing loans with savings, by keeping the first loans small and short-term and by using the power of the group, Grameen has achieved a repayment rate that is the envy of many traditional banks. Millions of clients have started new businesses, paid for the education of sons and daughters or built secure homes with savings and loans made possible through Grameen and its imitators.

These methods have worked all over the world, and eventually they worked in Matigara. After much study and persuasion, GiGi got an Indian nonprofit to help her establish a Grameen-style savings group for women in the village. Today, the savings group has 260 members. They face incredible obstacles, yet bit by bit members steadily achieve their dreams, like building shelter or a latrine, paying school fees, or creating a tiny grocery store.

In 2001, GiGi was sitting in a conference on micro-credit in New Delhi when she suddenly asked herself, “Why don’t we do this in Woonsocket?” The business plan for Project Thrive was written right then and there.

In the spring of 2002, IPAE launched its first “Thrive” circle of 11 women and one man in GiGi’s home town of Woonsocket. Monthly meetings are part classroom, part self-help, and entirely dedicated to helping poor people look their own poverty in the face. During one exercise, participants brought in every unpaid bill in the house. They then tested their worst fears by sorting out and adding up the actual amounts owed. In most cases, the real debt total was lower than imagined.

Still, debt is one of the major barriers between Thrive members and their dreams of owning a home, starting a business or simply having enough money to buy new clothes for their children. So are the widespread lack of “financial literacy” and positive financial experiences, particularly among women.

Over the course of the 18-month program, every Thrive participant creates a budget and a “self-business plan” to work themselves out of debt and into the lives they have always imagined for themselves. For many, simply becoming debt-free is an enormous enough achievement. Other Thrive participants have started their own businesses.

Thrive will graduate its fourth and fifth groups by April and the organization continues to learn, adapt and grow as it goes. The environment could not be more different from distant Matigara in India, yet some essential elements are the same. The support of a peer group, incentives for saving and access to small loans would be familiar in Matigara. Most familiar of all would be the process of discovering what may be achieved with discipline and persistence over time.

GiGi’s persistent dream of abolishing poverty has deep roots in these two different places as well. Thrive clearly reflects her widowed mother’s courage and optimism as she raised six children by herself working at a Woonsocket laundry. It also draws from the deeply felt compassion inspired by GiGi’s experiences with Mother Teresa in her House for the Dying in Calcutta and her annual visits to India to “walk with the poor.”

“Poverty should be in a museum,” GiGi declares. “We have everything we need to end poverty. If people are given the tools, they can get out of poverty. If we want to give them the tools, they can grow the garden.” JWH

Day Care Providers Heard

We’ve finally made it to a point where people are listening,” boasts Gail Washington, executive director of Day Care Justice Co-op. “It’s justice.”

The Co-op represents 270 state-certified, home-based, child care providers who organized a Cost of Care Campaign to seek to bargain with the R.I. Department of Human Services on issues of pay and benefits. Day Care Justice Co-op research documents that certified providers earn an average of $2.76 per hour and work an average of 70 hours per week.

Co-op staffer Chas Walker, now employed by District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, led the organizing effort which resulted in the state Labor Relations Board voting in March to allow home-based providers to unionize and to negotiate with the state. The Rhode Island providers had previously received acclaim for winning the first health care benefits nationally and have now won the first right to unionize.

“Our women are looked upon as professionals,” says Gail, “and they speak for us.”  NHV

Grant From National Foundation

The Fund is proud to announce that it has received its first grant from a national funder, $50,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The grant is for the Providence Asset Building Coalition to create opportunities that empower low-income individuals and families to strengthen their capacity to achieve financial stability and sustain well-being. The Coalition, a group of organizations and local residents, will determine the financial literacy trainings and programs necessary to achieve its mission. The Fund is grateful to the Annie E. Casey Foundation for entrusting our organization as fiscal agent.  NHV

All Children’s Theatre Ensemble

All Children’s Theatre Ensemble hosts an ambitious spring agenda. Its 8th annual R.I. Youth Playwriting Festival will feature winning plays from teenage writers on April 30, May 1 and 2. Travel to Puerto Rico in “The Legend of Juan Bobo and the Horse of Seven Colors” April 10, 17, 18 and 25. Enjoy the classic “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” May 14–16 and 21–23. For further information, visit their website: www.ACTinRI.org.

Childhood Lead Action Project announces its 2nd annual Rubber Ducky Derby in September 2004. People purchase rubber ducks, each with its own identifying number. The ducks flock together as the water current moves them toward the finish line. The owners of the first ducks win prizes. The Project has received recent grants from Haymarket People’s Fund ($7,000), Frank Hazard Charity Fund ($7,000) and Juanita Sanchez Fund of The Rhode Island Foundation ($1,000)

R.I. Parent Information Network received $24,000 from The Rhode Island Foundation and $17,981 from R.I. Human Resources Investment Council to support its Parent Consultant Training Program. The program is designed to increase the capacity of women, who are mothers, to obtain the education and experiential opportunities they need to become equal partners in their families, work and community.

Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services held a lottery to select winners of five homes, which the organization rehabilitated. Nearly 70 applicants vied for the chance to purchase the beautifully restored houses valued between $140,000 and $175,000. Greater Elmwood is also rehabilitating 36 lead-free apartments for rent to low-income families.

Mental Health Association of R.I. kicks off its 14th annual Mental Health Month on May 3 at 1 p.m. at the State House. The event will feature music and presentations by Jane Hayward, Laureen D’Ambra, Dr. Dawn Picotte and Daniel Wall. MHA will host its Annual Meeting with a luncheon at noon on May 27 at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick. The theme will be affordable housing for persons with behavioral, health and other disabilities.

1855 William H. Dyer House on the South Side of Providence

SWAP/Stop Wasting Abandoned Property won raves for its historic preservation of the 1855 William H. Dyer House on the South Side of Providence. At its opening, SWAP was commended for quality affordable housing to revive and brighten a growing diverse neighborhood. SWAP earned the 2003 Rhode Island Monthly Design Award Gold Medal for Commercial Interior Design for its conversion of a warehouse on Eddy Street in Providence which now houses Casey Family Services.

Hope Center for Cancer Support raised more than $20,000 from its 20th annual Christmas Run for Hope in Newport. Blue Cross/Blue Shield, New England Gas Company, Citizens Bank, Lifespan and the Comprehensive Cancer Center and Perot Systems Healthcare were among the sponsors. Congratulations to Mary Cahill and Alvin Stallman for once again leading HOPE’s successful signature event.

Habitat for Humanity of R.I. dedicated the “House the Senate Built” last July. Senators Chafee and Reed, along with many other volunteers, helped with its construction on Manton Avenue in Providence. Habitat is working with Bike & Build, a nonprofit organization that raises money for and awareness of affordable housing through cycling trips across the United States. Bike & Build recruits college students who donate their summer to cycling and fundraising. Its Providence affiliate plans to construct a Habitat home in Providence.

Joe Garlick, Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation PHOTO: DAVID O’CONNOR

Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation’s Joe Garlick and West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation’s Sharon Conard-Wells were 2 of 43 of the most respected and seasoned community development executive directors in the country to graduate from “Achieving Excellence,” a performance-enhancement program conducted by Harvard University, Neighborhood Reinvestment and a team of executive coaches. Joe and Sharon also serve as Rhode Island’s representatives on the Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, serving three-year terms.

Galilee Mission to Fishermen provides clam chowder or chicken soup and rolls on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the docks in Galilee. Often 100 people take advantage of the meal. The organization runs a Fisherman’s Relief Fund to help fishermen and their families in times of need with groceries, rent or utility bills.

Day Care Justice Co-op received a $1,500 grant from the Juanita Sanchez Fund of The Rhode Island Foundation. The award will provide English as a Second Language classes for Hispanic/Latino childcare providers. Juanita Sanchez, who had been the adolescent program coordinator for Providence Ambulatory Health Care Foundation, worked tirelessly for the unmet needs and rights of Hispanics.

Robyn Frye,West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation

West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation’s Robyn Frye was nominated for the national Volvo for Life award. Her husband Everett nominated her as a “community hero.” He lauded her volunteer efforts in helping youngsters, women in prison and people addicted to alcohol and drugs. A community organizer, Robyn is as well known on the streets as at the State House for helping the most neglected individuals and lobbying for substance abuse treatment facilities. She is an inspiration to all.

ACORN and George A. Wiley Center continue their effective organizing efforts to have the R.I. Public Utilities Commission, under proposed legislation, adopt an Affordable Energy Plan. The program would reduce significantly the numbers of low-income customers whose heat or electricity would be shut off. The proposed plan would be paid for through a 1% surcharge on utility customers.

NRI Community Services is holding its Community Champions 2004 Series of dinners with jazz at Chan’s in Woonsocket. The dates and featured bands for the next performances are April 29–Planet Groove, May 27–Becky Chace Band, and June 17–James Montgomery Band. Among those being honored are Lee Dolphonse, Dr. Stephen DiZio, Elizabeth Earls, Bridget Bennett-Lewis, Claire Rosenbaum, Dr. Pat Feinstein and Corrine Z. Nolan. For further details, visit www.nricommunityservices.org.

CONTRIBUTING WRITER: Jonathan W. Howard

PROGRESS is published to inform friends of The Fund for Community Progress about the activities and concerns of its member agencies. Gifts to The Fund have a definite impact on solving problems of poverty, hunger, homelessness, mental illness, housing, discrimination and other issues of injustice. PROGRESS stresses the importance of your continued support as together we "build a better community."