{"id":17627,"date":"2019-03-21T11:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T16:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/greenheart-goes-to-congress-advocacy-day-2019\/"},"modified":"2019-05-31T15:43:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T20:43:31","slug":"greenheart-goes-to-congress-advocacy-day-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/blog\/exchange\/greenheart-goes-to-congress-advocacy-day-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"International Exchange Advocacy Day 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Greenheart\u2019s External Relations Manager, Bonnie Washick, flew to Washington, DC to speak with government representatives about our exchange programs. She joined the\u00a0Alliance for International Exchange<\/a>\u00a0and over 100 representatives from other cultural exchange organizations to share the positive impact of these programs across the United States. Together, they met with representatives from nearly 150 Congressional offices!<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I sat down to talk with Bonnie about her trip:<\/p>\n

What were you most excited to speak about with Members of Congress?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s tough, but I\u2019d have to go with: Exchange Day. Exchange Day is the new name for\u00a0J Day<\/a>. At each office my \u2018Team Illinois\u2019 visited, we spoke about a big Exchange Day celebration that we\u2019re planning on August 5th\u00a0in Greenheart\u2019s hometown\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Chicago, Illinois. One of the reasons for changing the name of J Day to Exchange Day is that we wanted to make it clear to the public\u2014and\u00a0to our representatives\u2014what the celebration was all about: cultural exchange and the positive impact that it has\u00a0on our lives and communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The good news: the new name is working! Bonnie shared that representatives from Senator Richard Durbin, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Congressman Danny Davis\u2019s office all expressed interest in participating in Exchange Day this year.\u00a0You\u2019ll definitely want to keep an eye out for details of our Exchange Day celebration in Chicago,\u00a0similar events around the country,\u00a0and even the globe!<\/p>\n

What else did you talk about?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked our Members of Congress to continue funding the State Department\u2019s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at existing levels.\u201d Bonnie explained, \u201cECA funding translates into salaries and other support for the ECA staff in Washington, DC who make Greenheart\u2019s Work and Travel, Teach USA, Career Advancement Program, and High School exchanges possible. In addition, this funding provides scholarships for Future Leader Exchange (FLEX) students and Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) students, like Greenheart alumna\u00a0Sara Al-Zyoud<\/a>. ECA funds also support other State Department exchanges, like the Sister-City program that I participated in when I was a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonnie added, \u201cAsking our representatives to appropriately fund ECA staff and scholarship programs is incredibly important given a\u00a0recent recommendation<\/a>\u00a0from the White House Office of Management and Budget to cut ECA funding by almost 56%, from $700.9 million to 309.6 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow, that\u2019s a big cut. Should we be worried?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that we should be prepared to continue to advocate for these programs. Our Members of Congress need to hear about the positive impact that these programs have, especially from Americans who have direct experience with them as hosts, colleagues, friends, or participants. Last year, the administration proposed an even larger cut to ECA funding\u2014about 75%\u2014and that didn\u2019t happen. What we can learn from this is that sharing our stories works, but we need to keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there anything else that you want to share?<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was one more thing, which gets a bit technical. Simply put, we asked our representatives to retain a legal protection for the State Department\u2019s Exchange Visitor Program, called an \u2018appropriations directive.\u2019 This appropriations directive requires that changes to the program undergo a transparent review process. It was first introduced in 2017 in response to a\u00a0plan<\/a>\u00a0to cut several programs, including the Summer Work Travel, Intern, and Trainee exchanges. Adding this protection demonstrates how impactful\u00a0our advocacy efforts<\/a>\u00a0can be. Keeping it ensures that our government representatives and people like us\u2014exchange alumni, hosts, and other members of the exchange community\u2014have a chance to share how exchange programs benefit us as individuals, support our communities, and foster mutual understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last question: How can Greenheart community members get more involved in advocacy for cultural exchange?<\/b><\/p>\n

I love this question! Anyone can read through our new advocacy e-zine,\u00a03 Priorities for Cultural Exchange Advocacy in 2019<\/a>, to get a better understanding of the challenges we\u2019re facing and how we\u2019re working to respond to these challenges.\u00a0You can also keep an eye out for a Call-In\/Write-In campaign we\u2019re coordinating during Exchange Week in the District (April 15-19). Check out our\u00a0Advocacy<\/a>\u00a0page\u00a0the first week in\u00a0April for\u00a0details\u00a0about that campaign and\u00a0resources that will empower you to reach out to your representatives!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Greenheart\u2019s External Relations Manager, Bonnie Washick, flew to Washington, DC to speak with government representatives about our exchange programs. She joined the\u00a0Alliance for International <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24916,"featured_media":17630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,218],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-17627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exchange","category-greenheart-international","tag-advocacy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/24916"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/17630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenheart.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}