Ideas for Change: Stage Two

by Dave Bennion · 2009-02-04 07:00:00 UTC
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Change.org founder and CEO Ben Rattray writes about the next stage of the Ideas for Change project you might have heard about last month.

In the next week, we will launch campaigns around each of the 10 winning ideas in collaboration with a group of awesome nonprofits.  Each nonprofit is committed to involve each of you in the process of unfolding and running its national advocacy campaign.  They will be using the platform here at Ideas for Change in America to regularly blog about campaign updates and upload videos from in-person activities such as key government meetings, giving you a transparent look into the heart of each campaign.

As regular readers will know, "Pass the DREAM Act" was one of the winning ideas presented to the new administration a couple weeks ago.  Now DreamActivist has written the first DREAM Act post on the new Ideas for Change page outlining the reasons for this campaign and the students' plans for getting Congress's attention:

Struggles for civil rights are not won in a matter of days and the undocumented youth fighting for their DREAMs have gone from their young teens to young adults, fighting to stay and contribute to a country that has no problem taking their taxes, but denies them full citizenship rights.

Now is the time to make this change. We cannot afford to lose more of our K-12 investments to deportations, especially when this country needs to cultivate a young workforce to keep social security solvent. It makes little sense to educate alien minors using taxpayer dollars only to shut the doors to higher education, never earn back those investments and instead, breed a permanent underclass of wasted talent and potential. It makes even less sense to turn away youth from serving in the military on their own accord.

We open this blog to suggestions on how to advance this cause and also encourage individual and group efforts in solidarity.

In the coming days, we will be highlighting undocumented student and ally blogs in frequent pro-migrant blog round-ups, including video blogs covering on-the-ground activism.

An action will be up shortly for everyone to petition their representatives and Senators to co-sponsor the DREAM Act.

Student groups and grassroots organizations are also welcome to submit their videos and materials, as well as guest-blog, so that we can build a stronger coalition for the DREAM Act and pass this piece of legislation in 2009.

Leave a comment and watch the Ideas for Change page for updates on how to participate.  This is about you and your power to influence public policy.  Get involved!

Dave Bennion
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