“It’s key that we communicate the message that voting is accessible and that being a voter is personally empowering,” said Yoel Solís, a recent participant in Project Vote’s new Nonprofit Partners Initiative.
As part of the Initiative, which is focused on providing training and support to nonprofit service providers in bringing voter registration to their communities, Project Vote recently partnered with the Federation of Neighborhood Centers (FNC), a Philadelphia nonprofit dedicated to building safer, healthier communities where people excel, ideas grow, and dreams are realized. Yoel Solís, Adult Education and Literacy Coordinator, coordinated the training. We asked Yoel to share about his decision to participate and the impact it has had on FNC.
AS: What do you do? Why do you do what you do?
YS: My title at FNC is Adult Education and Literacy Coordinator. I’m responsible for creating curricula and teaching in our workforce education programming, LearnForce21, and also for providing professional development for youth workers and other community workers through BEST (Building Exemplary Systems Training).
AS: Why is voter registration important to you?
YS: I think that it’s easy to be cynical about the impact that any one individual can have on the system, but the truth is that local officials, especially, can be tremendously responsive to the voices of their constituents. It’s not just voting that makes a difference, but also the ability to say, “I’m a registered voter in your district and I am concerned about X, so I want you to support initiative Y.” It’s key that we communicate the message that voting is accessible and that being a voter is personally empowering.
AS: Why did you choose to organize the training for your staff?
YS: Many of the individuals we work with are not registered to vote, and, since much of our work is with returning citizens, many of them may not be aware that they are eligible to vote. The better that we can educate and enable our program participants to vote, the more they are empowered.
We would like to make Project Vote Nonprofit Partners training a regular part of BEST, using our networks to help ensure that the message, skills, and practices of Project Vote reach as many Philadelphia community workers as possible. We would also like to schedule a Project Vote workshop in this fall or winter aimed specifically at youth workers, who are not available for summer workshops due to full-day youth programs.
AS: How will Project Vote’s training help your organization fulfill its mission in the future?
YS: A thriving community is one where the community members have a voice and an impact on policies and laws that affect them from the local to the national level. Empowering community members through high quality voter education and registration programming is a natural fit for what we do at FNC.
The mission of the BEST program, in particular, is to introduce best practices to nonprofit and community workers throughout greater Philadelphia, with a particular focus on youth workers. Providing this and future Project Vote trainings introduces BEST training participants to another avenue for empowering the youth and adults with whom they work.
Overall, thanks to Project Vote’s training, we at FNC are actively working to incorporate voter education and voter registration, and the best practices we have learned…into our enrollment process for all workforce program participants. Agency-wide we are beginning the conversation on how best to fold voter registration into our other programming.
Anjani Shah is an intern with Project Vote’s Nonprofit Partners Initiative for the summer of 2015.