Damayan's New Newsletter, the Damayan Dispatch
Dear Damayan members, supporters and community,
With the upcoming U.S. administration, we are faced with huge and urgent challenges. We now, more than ever, need to unite, act quickly and decisively, and we need you to make it happen.
Our new newsletter, Damayan Dispatch, promises to be a very important tool in strengthening communication between you and the organization, to reinforce our organizing. We look forward to sharing with you what we have been working on. This edition of the Damayan Dispatch will cover events from June through October and we will have a new edition out in December. Between the 2016 National Domestic Workers Alliance Congress and the Damayan Workers Cleaning Cooperative Open House, we have had a very productive last few months. With our powerful and committed membership and our strong relationships with our allies, our victories include to date:
Helped low wage workers, mostly domestic workers, recover more than $800k in unpaid wages through collaboration with legal partners.
Helped 28 survivors win trafficking visas (T visas) and retrieve their stolen wages from traffickers. Sixteen have been reunified with their families and brought a total of 33 Filipino children to the U.S.
Launched the first Filipino workers office cleaning cooperative in late 2015, able to pay workers $15 per hour and organizing a second and comprehensive workers cooperative.
Damayan has recently expanded by doubling our caseload, meaning we are and will be able to offer legal services for immigration and labor cases to more members of our community. As we enter this new chapter, we are proud of and inspired by our victories. We look forward to continuing to work for the empowerment of the Filipino domestic worker community and economic justice.
Salamat!
To sign up for the Damayan Dispatch email list, click here
To download a PDF of the Damayan Dispatch (first edition), click here