The Maura Clarke-Ita Ford Center
Mary Burns, SC and Mary Dowd, OSU, Co-Directors
138 Bleecker St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11221
(718) 452-0167
(718) 452-5173 fax

Although this organization is relatively new (incorporated in the autumn of 1993) and still relatively small (currently serving about 100 women), it's already an impressive model in its pragmatic, goal-directed and holistic approach to providing poor and predominantly immigrant women the tools they need not merely to survive but thrive.

Named after and inspired by two religious sisters, natives of Brooklyn and Queens, who were martyred after giving their lives to working with poor people in El Salvador, the MCIF Center works with a largely Latino (Dominican) population in the very poor Bushwick section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood that some locals call "burnt-out Bushwick" because of the devastation there following the urban rioting of the late 1970s. Much of Bushwick is restored today, in housing of variable quality that ranges from the successful and well-kept low-rise "Hope Gardens" public-housing units to new infill housing subsidized with public funds.

This kind of problem, and the issues surrounding a local school district considered one of the city's worst, prompt a clear and consistent sub text to MCIF's education programs: Everything they do, from teaching English as a Second Language to General Equivalency Diploma classes and job training, is built on the base of community organizing, and specifically, organizing based on the principles of the Industrial Areas Foundation, in which Mary Burns was trained: Organizers don't do for the residents the things that the residents can do for themselves ... power is relational, and builds on relationships ... and there's power in organized people as well as in organized money. They work to integrate the process by combining education and community organizing and to use it as the basis of adult learning. It is from this model that they address education in the local school district.

It works like this: Women come to MCIF for educational programs, which run through the school day (while their own children are in school) in an old, sturdy school building that was once the parish school of Bushwick's still-impressive St. Barbara's Church. In the morning, in classes of 18 to 20, they learn English or get GED instruction; in the afternoon, they move over to job training classes (sewing, keyboarding, etc.), as well as citizenship classes, parenting and similar survival skills. An aspect called "Leadership Skills" is integrated into all aspects of the program, focusing on turning participants into neighborhood leaders on issues of importance that range from public-school problems to this year's key topic, welfare "reform," with particular focus on immigrant populations.

A major goal is moving women from welfare to work, through the traditional avenue of job training as well as more audacious dreams of economic development within the community. Bushwick's poor women are caught in a Catch-22, Mary Burns says, in that few entry-level jobs are available in the community (and most of those are now taken by "workfare" recipients in the city's Work Experience Program, known as WEP). It's simply not realistic for a mother of small children to travel to Manhattan to work for minimum wage daily, with no day-care for the children and less than a living wage to be made.

So she's hatching a truly innovative plan, and one with a fair chance of success: Seeking the assistance of college students in business, MCIF hopes to come up this spring with a business plan that they can take to a major clothing firm interested in "social marketing," encouraging this firm to work with the organization to create a small clothing factory right there in Bushwick. This would be a model, humane factory demonstrating the RIGHT way to restore the working economy of inner-city neighborhoods, offering on-site day care and a living wage. Under Burns's plan, the factory would produce a signature line of school uniforms, a potentially saleable item that would raise money while addressing still another urban issue by creating an appropriate form of school attire that would be attractive and that youngsters would LIKE to wear.

MCIF is accomplishing a great deal on a shoestring; its annual budget of $140,000, put together through aggressive grantsmanship, supports a full-time staff of two plus 1 1/2 teachers provided by the city public schools, and eight part-time workers hired entirely from the community, including a welfare-liaison worker, herself a veteran of years in the system, who helps new arrivals into the system learn to cope.

"Many people believe that the reason for large numbers of persons in Bushwick living below the poverty line and on public assistance is the fact that 'no one cares or wants to change,'" Burns and Dowd write in the organization's 'one-pager.' "The women we work with speak of the change they see in themselves as they gain confidence in speaking English and so find themselves better able to fight for a better life for themselves and their children. The energy and enthusiasm they generate are contagious. Every day the women find themselves doing things they never imagined possible."

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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