INITIATIVES
The Coalition is composed of three working committees (Prevention, Research & Response, Advocacy & Policy). Each committee follows a monthly agenda and timeline in order to enact their annual goals and objectives.
- Prevention
- Research & Response
- Advocacy & Policy
Prevention
- To reduce instances of discrimination, bias and hate in Houston and to educate people how to respond.
- Within the coalition and in the Houston community, raise awareness of the prevention resources and efforts of member organizations.
- Create and develop programming to increase knowledge about discrimination, bias and hate, and provide tools for people to effect change in the community.
- Evaluate and pursue opportunities to speak with a collective voice to effect systemic change through advocacy.
- With key community partners, commit to executing an annual event focused on youth.
- With key community partners, commit to executing an annual event focused on educating the greater Houston community that reflects and develops the Coalition’s identity (A Day of Perspective is the template for this kind of event).
- Create communication channels among HCAH committee chairs to promote collaboration.
- Make strong, evidence-based cases regarding the need to directly address discrimination, bias, and hate via the
- Coalition’s website and through educational programming.
- Develop the process to evaluate legislation with potential impact on the Coalition’s goals.
Research and Response
- Support the coordinator in identifying research needs.
- Help to conduct and evaluate the research RFP.
- Serve as body to interface with and provide input to researchers.
- Use research to create a toolkit for community-wide implementation of best practices.
- Help to develop response capacity in new communities.
- Get and provide accurate data to inform.
- Share/disseminate the RFP.
Advocacy & Policy
- Expand awareness of systemic inequities by educating our members
- Harness the power of narrative to build and maintain movements through advocacy and lobbying on all political and social levels in order to create optimal circumstances for the emergence of justice
- Provide critical analysis to challenge and hold individuals, institutions, and systems accountable for harmful behavior; ultimately leading and informing the implementation of justice oriented strategies
Generations of American Indians have been Native and connected to the stolen land now known as the Texas Gulf Coast. Among them are the Atakapa-Ishak, Karankawa, Mariame, and Akokisa tribes. We honor their elders, past and present, as well as the Indigenous people from many nations who live and work in this region today. May this acknowledgement be a humble first step in the undoing of Indigenous erasure, providing accurate historical context while serving as a reminder to current non-native inhabitants, as we strive toward peace, reconciliation, and justice.