ISAAC stands for the Interfaith Solidarity and Accompaniment Coalition. ISAAC is a joyful and committed coalition of over a dozen community partners, twelve member faith communities, and hundreds of individuals working together for immigration justice in Northern Colorado. ISAAC formed in early 2017 with a mission to work in solidarity for human dignity and immigration justice, co-creating communities of welcome, recognition, healing and accompaniment. Our work was initially anchored within faith communities, but is now equally anchored in community based partnerships and faith partnerships throughout Larimer County. Our vision is to co-create a context in Northern Colorado in which everyone feels safe and supported, where all are recognized for their amazing contributions to our community, where all forms of wisdom are honored, and where all can thrive to their maximum potential. We also strive for a context of meaningful connection, in which people from different backgrounds come into communion with one another, learn from each other, hold space for one another, find joy and common purpose, and are mutually transformed through their relationships. In ISAAC we believe that alone we know a little, but together we know a lot! Our approach to immigration justice is multifaceted:
1. Education, support and incubation: we educate faith communities to be excellent partners in immigration-related work by studying key issues and being willing to both examine their own role in perpetuating injustices as well as recognizing their radical and prophetic potential to effect change. We also give logistics and volunteer support to those communities wishing to bring their resources to bear and become a fiscal sponsor or logistical or physical incubator of a local project. Successful examples are the Immigrant Freedom Fund, the Community Dreamer Fund and the Sanctuary Everywhere Program.
2. Direct accompaniment: we partner directly with a dozen community organizations and 3 school districts to bring assistance from our Emergency Fund to immigrants and asylum seekers for whom no safety-net exists (precisely because their status renders them ineligible or agency requirements jeopardize human dignity). Through this fund, we have served hundreds of households with low barrier cash assistance during COVID19, scholarships for immigration legal fees and processes, and larger cash grants for families experiencing a crisis.
3. Support for emergent BIPOC leaders and projects: currently we support a cohort of emergent BIPOC leaders through the Cultivamos program, so they can build the projects of their dreams (providing stipends, logistics support and capacity-building support); we provide $300 mini grants to impacted individuals experiencing hardship who are also working in some capacity to uplift their community; and we support workforce empowerment programming such as our Adelante Project, which brings intergenerational support to parents wishing to build capacity through classes and licensing programs and summer training fellowships to 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrant youth. We support and incubate small projects by connection to a faith community (or broader audience) for their products. Recent examples are support for Betty Aragon and Mujeres de Colores' last two documentary films on essential workers, the Hispanic Women's Farming Proyecto, Fuerza Latina's worker-owned cooperative, resident-led community events in mobile home parks and El Sueño Latino - a beautiful grassroots organization in Loveland.
4. Self-Advocacy on rights and resources: (1) We provide train-the-trainers events for our partners and school districts, such as our recent workshops on the Child Tax Credit and ongoing Housing, Worker and Immigration Rights Clinics. (2) We convene direct community clinics and events on housing/workers rights, vaccine clinics, immigration clinics, workforce development support and gear drives for migrant youth. We hold these community-based clinics in partnership with our faith communities, local institutions (library and school districts), and fellow grassroots organizations (Fuerza Latina, Mi Voz, BIPOC Alliance, Alianza NORCO, La Familia, etc). It is critical to us that these events be for the community and by the community, thus we directly support community leaders (youth and adult) as the core volunteers and organizers for these events. The events have also become a deep healing space to combat competition between organizations and work in a beautiful spirit of healing justice and radical collaboration across the Larimer County social justice ecosystem.
5. Local education and advocacy: we work to educate, inform and equip ourselves, our faith communities and emergent leaders to advocate with local or statewide agencies and with representatives in positions of power so that, collectively, we can create a context in which all community members can thrive no matter their immigration status, language or education background. Sometimes this means advocating for a reduction in barriers at the hyper-local level, sometimes it means joining a statewide campaign, and other times it means convening roundtables and colectivos to build creative programs in the gaps, even as we work for system change.
6. Creating spaces of mutual understanding: we work to create spaces in which impacted community members and faith communities come together in hands-on projects and events, like vigils or accompaniment events. Through these shared spaces, we seek to create a community of connection and mutual understanding across populations that otherwise have little opportunity to interact on equal footing towards a common goal. The relationships built in these spaces and the love and energy generated, transform us as individuals and transform our community. In love for our community and with the love that transforms community...
