Emerge Massachusetts

Emerge Massachusetts is part of a national movement to address the under-representation of women in elected office at the local, state, and federal level. Although the network is only eight years old, there are Emerge affiliates in nine states: Arizona, California, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

Families for Freedom

Families for Freedom is a grassroots network of families with loved ones facing risks of deportation that works with detainees and advocates for immigration reform.

Chinese Staff and Workers Association

When a fellow employee was fired at the Saigon Grill because he was too old,  Jerry Wang took a stand. That got him fired, too.  Since then, Wang has come together with other Chinese Staff and Workers Association (CSWA) members…

Center for Constitutional Rights

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR…

Sylvia Rivera Law Project, New York City

The small things in life that many people take for granted – like using a public restroom – can be a battleground for transgender people. The big struggles in life can be much much worse. A trans woman, who found herself placed in a men’s prison, faced various health risks and constant sexual harassment. She was left with no options and very few rights.

Minustah vole kabrit, a Film by Rachel Smith and Leslie Norville

This is a story about Haiti in the years preceding the January 12, 2010 earthquake. It is also a story about outsiders, told from the point of view of the filmmaker, Rachel Smith, an outsider who goes to Haiti with a video camera. The film follows Enock, elected president of a community organization in the slum of Cite Soleil, as he seeks development aid for his neighborhood – an area infamous for gang violence. Meanwhile, it shadows two United Nations peacekeepers – Chris (an American officer), and Marcos (a Brazilian soldier) – as they work within the mission, toward its mandate for security and stability in Haiti. Gradually, the local politics and codes of behavior between peacekeepers and locals become more complex. The film asks: Can peace exist in the midst of poverty? At what point does an outsider understand the nuances of a place enough to help? January 12, 2010, the earthquake hits, devastating a country already in crisis. The filmmaker returns to the UN and to Cite Soleil.

Rwanda: Beyond the Deadly Pit, a film by Gilbert Ndahayo

In 1994, Gilbert Ndahayo hid to survive Rwanda’s days of genocide only to return to his childhood home to find it destroyed, his parents killed, and their corpses dumped, along with 153 bodies of his neighbors, in a pit in his back garden where he played as a boy.

13 years later, Ndahayo focuses his camera and his compassion on his home in ruin, behind a convent where his neighbors had sought sanctuary. He records the quiet beauty of survivors, the haunting accounts of the nuns who witnessed the horrors, and a rare confession by one of the men who murdered his parents.

Economies of Incarceration

A Radio Program by Sylvia Ryerson

The number of people incarcerated in the state of Kentucky has increased by approximately 750% since 1974, growing from 3,000 to 22,500 inmates. As shocking as these numbers are, they reflect a nationwide phenomenon. The United States today has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with approximately 1 and one quarter million people behind bars today. Such staggering statistics have created what is often referred to as “the prison development boom.” Since the 1980s, as skyrocketing rates of incarceration have continued to fuel the demand for prison construction, it has become widely accepted knowledge that building prisons in economically depressed regions will help promote broad-scale economic growth. Many of these new prison sites are in rural communities. Approximately one quarter of all rural prison construction nation-wide has been concentrated in four regions: The West Texas Plains, the Mississippi delta, south central Georgia, and here in the southern coalfield region of Appalachia.

The Irritable Heart, a film by Richard Poller

Leo Rising Productions is proud to present The Irritable Heart – The Story of Sergeant Twiggs, a documentary film that chronicles one soldier’s struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and seeks to unravel the mysterious bond between two brothers that resulted in their bizarre and heartrending deaths.

The Irritable Heart goes beyond bare statistics as it explores the personal agony of a dedicated man and decorated soldier who was slowly consumed by the mental illness he developed in service to his country.

On Coal River, a film by Adams Wood and Francine Cavanaugh

On Coal River takes viewers on a gripping emotional journey into the Coal River Valley of West Virginia — a community surrounded by lush mountains and a looming toxic threat. The film follows a former coal miner and his neighbors in a David-and-Goliath struggle for the future of their valley, their children, and life as they know it.

Donor-Advised Grantee: Interfaith Worker Justice

Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) is a network of people of faith that speaks about religious values as a way to educate, organize, and mobilize. IWJ works withing religious communities on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits, and conditions for workers, and give voice to workers, especially workers in low-wage jobs.