Welcome to the fourth edition of The Overbrook Foundation Newsletter.  In this edition you will find reports, news and articles, from and about our grantees, that highlight and celebrate their work and accomplishments which are supported, in part, by The Overbrook Foundation.

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Amazon Watch - Corporate campaigns to defend the rights of indigenous peoples and protect pristine rainforests of the Amazon Basin have led to significant victories over the last decade. You can read more about the work of Amazon Watch and view some excellent photos of this area in its newsletter.

Consumers Union - In June 2005, The Overbrook Foundation awarded Consumers Union a grant for the electronics component of its program: Promoting Greener Choices: Products for a Better Planet. Consumers Union will be using the grant to generate an information, education and action resource on electronic waste, which will be based on www.greenerchoices.org. We will have more information on its work in the next newsletter.

Consumer Reports Online offers an easy to use checklist to help people decide whether to move to a new computer, click here to view.

Corporate Accountability International - This Overbrook grantee publishes a periodic newsletter detailing its work. The Fall 2005 issue has articles about soft drinks in India, water use in Africa, cigarettes in Asia and big oil.

Corporate Ethics International - CEI is leading the effort to establish the Big Box Collaborative in Washington, D.C., a coordinating center for labor, environmentalists, faith communities, and others targeting this industry. At CEI's 2005 Business Ethics Network (BEN) annual conference, BENNY Awards and $10,000 prizes were given to top campaigns targeting Taco Bell, CitiGroup, and Mt. Olive. BEN is a professional association for corporate campaigners and NGOs. Click here to learn more about BEN and the BENNY award winners.

Environmental Defense - A short article about Environmental Defense's Paper Calculator - an online tool to measure pollution and environmental impact of various paper choices, www.papercalculator.org.

ForestEthics
ForestEthics recently won a campaign to protect five million acres of rainforest. On February 7, 2006, the government of British Columbia committed to one of the most important environmental measures in history — the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement. ForestEthics played a key role in this unprecedented agreement between environmental groups, logging companies, First Nations (aboriginal groups) and the government of British Columbia — a measure which protects over five million acres of rainforest from logging. The victory was covered in over 1,000 news outlets worldwide.

Click here to read The New York Times report.

Click here to read The Washington Post article.

Forest Stewardship Council - The January 2006 newsletter of the Forest Stewardship Council highlights the certified area of 22 million acres in the United States, a dramatic increase over previous reports.

Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano - FFLA continues its work at the Galapagos Marine Reserve, you can read about its recent work with the fisherman that work this area of the world.

ISEAL - The ISEAL Alliance has announced the availability of the revised Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environment Standards. You can read more about the Code by visiting their website, click here.

New York Botanical Gardens - An article about its ongoing work to develop sustainable forestry in Salva Maya, Mexico. You can click here to read a previous article on this effort.

WildAid
The team at WildAid documents its successful trainings for Park Rangers at the Galápagos National Park Service. WildAid has made great strides in ensuring that the Galápagos is the best-protected marine reserve in the world. Click here to read this article.

A recent article in The New York Times describes how demand for an Asian delicacy is decimating the population of this ancient fish and threatening ecosystems worldwide. Click here to read this article, Shark Fin Soup.

WorldWatch Institute - Reach Out And Saving Trees and Much Ado About Ethanol are two articles about the work of this Overbrook grantee.

Alliance For Justice - In the January/February 2006 issue of Foundation News and Comment, there is a description of the assessment tool developed by Alliance Commentary For Justice. This tool that can be used to gauge the effectiveness of grants made for advocacy specific projects.

Center For Reproductive Rights - In Kansas, a trial opens to determine if an existing law prohibiting sexual activity by minors is unconstitutional. The Center has provided legal counsel and you can click here to read what The New York Times reported on this case. The Center is also sponsoring a symposium this March 3 and 4 at Columbia University, Equality and Reproductive Rights. You can read more about the symposium by clicking here.

Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military - The University of California Blue Ribbon Commission Report, Financial Analysis of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" How much does the gay ban cost? was released to the Congress on February 14, 2006. You can read selections from the report by clicking here or for the full report click here.

Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project - CHAMP has launched a pilot program for community organizing and mobilization, Prevention Justice Partnership. You can read more about CHAMP's work in its newsletter.

Community Resource Exchange - Community Resource Exchange (CRE) announces its move to a larger more flexible space and provides details about its free workshops for start-up non-profits.

Click here to read their move announcement.

Click here to read more about their startup program.

GenderPac - Death by Gender: Mobilizing Against Violence is a summit hosed by GenderPac scheduled for May of 2006 in Washington DC.

The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network - No Name-Calling Week, a project of GLSEN and Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, in collaboration with more than 40 national education organizations, officially kicked off in schools nationwide in February, 2006. The project is aimed at grades five through eight, but students and educators at other grade levels can easily adapt the program and materials.

Click here to read the Miami Herald coverage.

Click here to read the Richmond Times Dispatch article.

Gay Men's Health Crisis - Local cable news NY1 covered the introduction of the GMHC HIV testing van as it took to the streets of New York City in high risk neighborhoods.

Human Rights Watch - The February 2005 issue of Impact, CHRW's newsletter, details some of the work of this Overbrook grantee in the African nations of Egypt, Sudan and Morocco.

Independent Press Association - An IPA (Independent Press Association) survey finds that ethnic and community press often get shortchanged when dealing with New York City.

Neighbor to Neighbor - Recently, this Overbrook Foundation grantee and a local chapter of the AFL-CIO demonstrated at a Friendly's restaurant to draw attention to the cutting of health care benefits of their employees. You can read some of the media coverage of their work: click here for coverage by The Republican, here for Worcester IMC, and here for The Daily Item.com.

New York Civil Liberties Union - More than one third of people who are arrested and arraigned in New York City must wait over 24 hours in jail before even seeing a judge or being informed of the charges against them. This pattern of long processing times means that people arrested even for minor offenses may have to leave children without childcare, miss days of school, or lose their jobs, all because the justice system cannot process them within the period of time mandated by the courts. You can read about NYCLU's work in the report, "Justice Delayed, Justice Denied", a study of arrest-to-arrangement times in New York City by clicking here and you can read about the "Charge or Release" bill, by clicking here.

PAX, Inc. - Our Children, the national Parent Teacher Association magazine, published a package on protecting children from guns. The articles profiled PAX's ASK (Asking Saves Kids) and SPEAK UP campaigns and offered tips on what readers can do in their homes, schools and at the homes of others to keep children safe from gun violence.

Pro-Choice Public Education Project - Recognize! is a new project from Pro-Choice Public Education and will launch in 2006. It consists of newly created images based on its research that will serve as tools for organizations to better engage and educate young women of color about reproductive health and rights.

SATELLIFE - This Overbrook Foundation grantee has been given the opportunity to take a simple idea based on information technology and expand it nationwide in Uganda.

WITNESS - In 2005, WITNESS (www.witness.org) launched a new model for assessing the success of its campaigns and methodologies. These metrical charts, called "dashboards" in the growing field of nonprofit and for-profit evaluation, provide an at-a-glace look at concrete criteria for measuring and analyzing the progress of their key activities. Through these biannual reviews, WITNESS gathers perspective on its work to ensure that its collaborations are as effective as they can be.

Young People For - YP4(Young People For) is a project of the Overbrook grantee, People For The American Way. This edition of its newsletter highlights some of its work during the past year and contains news about its alumni's and fellows.

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