During the past year, in the 2023 grant period, formerly the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition, now recently unveiled as ÓRALE, has indelibly supported the growth, leadership, and development of 43 community members who graduated via our immigrant liberation-centered leadership program for undocumented and impacted community members and their families. Astoundingly, in this past grant, we have bore witness to the incredible strength, resilience, and the powerful growth of innate leadership that exists within each and every of our leadership academy graduates. As shared by our organizing team, who directs the program, foundationally and at the heart of what every graduate and student goes through, is a real deepening of tangible organizing skills that they can later use in their professional careers as well as a transformative space where they are challenged to deepen their understanding of how systems of policy work coupled with systems of oppression work so as to inherently inform the challenges they and their families experience in their daily lives. ÓRALE’s leadership academy is unique in that it develops the innate leadership skills of immigrant community members while at the same giving students a deeper understanding of systems that have been designed to work against them and systems that are incredibly fraught with discrimination and xenophobia. Incredibly, ÓRALE’s Leadership Academy conducted a combined leadership training of a series of political educational workshops, with a total number 135 leadership and education training hours for community members. It is via the School for Unity and Liberation SOUL adapted training program that our community members received highly specialized instruction on topics that truly inform their capacity to feel empowered to lead in

their communities. What’s truly remarkable is that ÓRALE’s leadership and development program not only grapples with questions around a City’s investment into structures that harm our communities of color (like policing, ICE monitoring, incarceration) but lends itself to a transformative opportunities for students to become advocates for change through advocacy, training, budget teach-ins, trainings, Know Your Rights education, public comment, and public speaking training. Truly, in an astounding demonstration of the Leadership Academies’ power is one story of our graduate, Claudia Hernandez, who shared with us that it was because of the Leadership Academy that she was able to change the discourse of their life for the better, for one, that was in alignment with her innate power and the needs of her family. Recently, Claudia shared with us the depth of the impact that the Leadership Academy had for her when she advocated for herself and for her family’s economic development by seeking out a new path in her career and pushing others to see that had the wherewithal to deserve a new work position. She stated that it was because she had skills that she developed in the Leadership Academy that she felt encouraged to advocate for herself and transform the trajectory of her journey in where she was working previously. Community members that we build power with not only are included but have a sense of autonomy, where we help fortify their sense of belonging in spaces that historically and intentionally have been exclusive. It is from the fabric of community-led organizing that we bear witness to the ways in which these shifts intrinsically shape the lives of our base and the community that we organize with. An example of this can be seen with a local Long Beach community member, Iris, who became an integral part of the Long Beach Justice Fund Oversight committee. Iris, who came to ÓRALE in need of anti-deportation support, later found herself deeply committed to leading those very same efforts and organizing within the committee to ensure that community members at risk for family separation and deportation had the proper legal supports necessary to keep our most vulnerable community members protected, safe, and in deep reverence during legal proceedings. Irrevocably, through community- led shifts, we witness the profound transformation that happens when directly impacted community members are leading bold iterations of change. ÓRALE believes that community members like Iris are the engines behind real social change, liberation, and how communities inevitably truly thrive, our leadership development pipelines support this work.

ÓRALE is pleased to report that the first cohort of 15 graduates were trained in 2023, with an additional 19 participants who are completing their training this winter 2023. The following is a snapshot of Cohort 1 Successes, we are excited to report that:

• 86.7% of leadership academy graduates reported that leadership academy training and courses helped them in learning complex terms, functions of economic systems, race and ethnicity, gender identities
• 86.7% of leadership academy graduates reported that the topics in the class inherent value, wisdom, and were meaningful for their day to day lives
• 92.8% of leadership academy graduates indicated that they learned new concepts to which they plan on utilizing to organize and make change in their futures and their communities

Further, leadership academy students/graduates were surveyed and based on the self-reported data, the experience was incredibly valuable and most said they would like to continue working with ÓRALE and join in our mobilization efforts into the next year. Ninety percent of those surveyed said they learned new skills and concepts and 80% said they could see how our training classes could be valuable in their future learning and life. One student said, “ Leadership Academy provided me with the space and opportunity to explore concepts that I would have never been able to freely discuss otherwise. I felt empowered to learn about the prison industrial complex and how it impacts and shapes the lives of immigrants today. I feel more empowered to speak up when I see injustice now.”

ÓRALE had to adapt our programming slightly in order to achieve the purpose of our IMPACT fellowship which is meant to be an added component to our Leadership development pipelines. Because ÓRALE is intentional about ensuring that our fellows and program instructors are impacted community members, we decided to adapt and focus our efforts on the Alternatives to Detention campaign efforts and advocacy. Through the ATD campaign and advocacy work, ÓRALEs’ advocacy and engagement focused on affirming and that these so, the so‑called alternatives to detention (ATD), including ankle monitors, mobile phone apps, case management, and other forms of control and surveillance, are unjustified and inconsistent with the belief ATDs and stop short of the freedom all people deserve and cause immense physical and psychological arms. Contrary to what the name alternatives to detention implies, ATDs only further entrench and expand the detention system rather than reduce reliance on detention. Our Organizing Program Manager supported the oversight and ensured that in our IMPACT fellowship program this year, we steered our focus and energy to ensure the success and coordinated efforts from those who are experiencing detention via ankle monitors and other said devices are at the forefront of this work.

As aforementioned and as highlighted, Claudia Hernandez, who shared with us powerful testimony of her experience in the Leadership Academy where the development of her advocacy truly impacted her own life, the life of children, and subsequently the trajectory of her future undeniably. To further highlight this, Claudia shared that she learned about our leadership academy through a parent group that she is a part of when someone shared a photo of our upcoming leadership academy and she felt called to join. Claudia shared that because of the new advocacy skills she had gained with us, she felt empowered to apply for a new position and role. What she thought would only be a temporary position has now become a full time position as a domestic violence advocate, where she supports women who are in the process of finding safety in their communities. As Claudia stated, “Taking the workshops with Leadership Academy, is what I needed in my life. Someone who believed in my vision! It opened doors for me to continue motivating my colleagues. As an immigrant woman, it made me believe in myself more than ever. The support and classes helped me become stronger and create a vision for my dreams and not give up. At 50 years old I am achieving my dreams of working and helping people like me. And it's in the Leadership Academy that my vision of the future came to life and where I learned that I can achieve this.” Claudia’s testimony is a remarkable story of how our Leadership Academy impacts the lives of our community members in every aspect of their lives, and we are so honored to support many graduates just like Claudia.

Moreover, In 2023, with the organizing, support, and mobilizing efforts of ÓRALE’s leadership academy graduate and their advocacy, we were able secure an additional $1.1 million for the Long Beach Justice Fund to expand services beyond removal to include Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) protections, Victims of Crime visas, Trafficking visas, and other forms of immigration relief. ÓRALE is a trusted organization and messenger in the community, many immigrant families whose statuses’ limit them from accessing legal services and safety net programs often find refuge and trust in our advocacy and legal services. Our Leadership Academy graduates’ testimony and advocacy were critical to ensuring the continued support and investment of the City.

Our objectives were met and another critical example and affirmation of effectiveness is demonstrated by the latest policy win for the City of Long Beach. ÓRALE led efforts to change the Long Beach City Commission compensation policy. ÓRALE organized, mobilized partners, and advocated to change the City’s commissioner compensation policy, and, in a historic moment, on March 21, 2023, the Long Beach City Council amended the compensation policy so that undocumented community residents can now serve on the City’s commissions without violating federal law. On February 19, 2023, Mayor Rex Richardson signed that into an official city ordinance and now undocumented parents and individuals can apply and serve on city commissions. As Mayor Rex Richardson stated at the signing ceremony, “ÓRALE is making a mark in the City of Long Beach and changing the lives of undocumented families now and into the future.” Our leadership academy

graduates provided moving and compelling testimony to make this historic win realized in the City of Long Beach, this will impact undocumented immigrants for generations to come.

Lasly, the support from LA2050 from the past year with our Leadership Academy allowed for and laid the groundwork for the development and dissemination of our newly launched membership structure and membership program. ÓRALE’s membership model launched in Summer 2023 involves integrating alumni of our leadership development pipeline programs to deepen and engage community, strengthen organizing priorities, fortify membership structure, and broaden our base building priorities. Through this work, communities who are a part of our previous leadership academies and our membership engagement have helped to lead and inform the arch toward dynamic shifts that change the trajectory of our local and statewide policies like those mentioned above. We anticipate that through the new membership, we will be able to create and deepen the ecosystem via membership within ÓRALE, develop the groundwork necessary to have integrative and engaged community for the long-term strategy around systems transformation work, integrate the the organizing and campaign priorities into the membership base, and build the underpinnings for a dynamic immigrant movement centered in abolition and liberation for BIPOC communities most impacted by harmful punitive systems in our communities.

One of our continued lessons is always to remain flexible, that is imperative in the work of policy change and advocacy through statewide organizing and community organizing. We also had to adapt our IMPACT fellowship and that taught us to remain diligent about our priorities in ensuring that the fellowship is led by directly impacted individuals and not compromising the importance of this. Having a directly impacted individual is incredibly important for this program and we appreciate having learned this firsthand this year.

As a result of adapting our IMPACT fellowship, ÓRALE deepened its connection and collaboration with Community Justice Exchange, an organization who we collaborated with to develop, share, and experiment with tactical interventions, strategic organizing practices, and innovative organizing tools toward prison industrial complex abolition and detention abolition.

You can find ÓRALE’s work and our rebranding highlight in this Long Beach Post article, entitled “Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition rebrands as ÓRALE, will continue empowering local immigrant communities” HERE

Leadership Academy Photos

Leadership Academy in Action– Graduate of Academy Advocating for Safety Net for All in Sacramento, CA in April 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCm2xEPmM-U

ÓRALE will continue our plans to further develop our leadership academy programs next year. Organizing is at the heart of our organizations’ mission and we do not aim to deviate from this, our North Star lies in our capacity to build power and organize our communities’ into the future we all deserve.