Mujeres Unidas y Activas

Healing and personal growth programs: MUA continued offering a variety of wellness and trauma recovery programs to members, including peer counseling, grief support groups, parenting groups, Zumba, nutrition, arts for healing, and group coaching. A total of 1236 immigrant women participated in one or more of these programs in 2024. Organizing/Basebuilding: In 2023 and 2024, MUAs Crecer la Base (Grow the Base) team of organizers received intensive training and regular coaching from the Groundswell Organizing Institute, which in turn strengthened our basebuilding capacity. In 2024, we exceeded our anticipated outcomes in this area, reaching 1415 immigrant women (goal: 800-1000), of which 950 expressed interest in receiving further information (goal: 400-600), and 408 new women began participating as members (goal: 150). Vocational training: 170 women participated in vocational training workshops in 2024. Topics included: CPR certification for childcare workers, negotiating a fair wage, ergonomics for caregivers, non-toxic housecleaning, using your phone to look for employment, and more. (Goal: 85)Leadership development: MUA offers the following leadership training series. -Basebuilding Training (3 sessions)-Group Facilitator Training (4 sessions)-Peer Counselor Training (4 sessions)-Leadership for Community Power Training (6 sessions) -Grassroots Fundraising Training (1 session)In 2024 a total of 56 women graduated from one or more of these training series, with a majority participating in at least two of the series. (Goal: 50) 102 women participated in one or more leadership committees, this was a significant increase from the steady 70-75 total active leaders weve had every year for the last three years. Grupo Mam: MUA currently offers twice monthly peer support groups in the Maya Mam language to Guatemalan women for whom this is their native language, and now provides community services navigation and peer counseling in Maya Mam in our Oakland office every day of the week. To date, over 170 Indigenous Maya Mam women have participated in one or more of MUAs programs, with approximately 35 Mayan women participating on a regular basis. In collaboration with Canticle Farm, in 2024 Grupo Mam expanded a community garden project in the Fruitvale area of Oakland. As of 2024, there are now Maya Mam speakers in every program and committee in MUA. In late 2023 our Board created two spots for Mam speaking members, with the goal of ensuring that Indigenous women have a voice in our decisions. In 2024, we brought our Mam Program Coordinator onto the management team. Another two Mam leaders are representing nannies and housecleaners on the Leaders Council of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Arts and culture: In collaboration with NAKA Dance Theater, MUA has been offering a variety of therapeutic and cultural arts programs to our members. In 2024 this included bordados feministas - an project to reclaim sewing circles as a feminist act via the embroidery of messages of empowerment onto patches that were then sewn into a quilt and displayed in local cafes and art galleries. Another project which ran from mid 2023 to late 2024 was the Weaving Wisdom project, in which Mayan Indigenous women from different municipalities of Guatemala met every Saturday at our Oakland office to engage in traditional weaving of Mayan clothing and to teach one another the designs of their regions. As a result, they produced new weavings that interwove the designs and colors of different regions into new beautiful pieces of art/clothing. These were then displayed for over a month in a beautiful art exhibit at EastSide Arts Alliance. Experienced weavers led guided tours of the exhibit for non-Mayan MUA members and allies, showing off their cultural and artisanal expertise. Advocacy Campaigns: Through our coalition work, in 2024 we achieved various policy victories statewide and locally, including:-The passage of SB686, a new statewide law which requires agencies that hire and employ domestic workers to comply with the CalOSHA guidelines -- the first ever enforceable health and safety legislation for domestic workers in California. -With EBASE (a local labor rights organization), we advocated for implementation of Oaklands Measure Z -- a law which we helped pass in 2019, which increased wages for hotel cleaning staff and created the Department of Workplace Enforcement Standards (DWES) in the City of Oakland. We arranged for DWES staff and prosecutors from the Alameda County District Attorneys office to meet with low-wage domestic workers and hotel workers to hear evidence on specific cases of severe exploitation and to advocate that they enforce laws against wage theft and sexual harassment in the workplace.