GLOBAL LATINIDADES PROJECT COMMUNITY INTERN CRISTINA AWADALLA Receives $10,000 UCSB Social Justice Grant to support Santa Barbara County Immigrant Legal Defense Center

The Global Latinidades Project (GLP) community intern Cristina Awadalla and the Immigrant Legal Defense Center (ILDC) received a $10,000 Social Justice Research Grant from the UCSB Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The Robert and Liisa Erickson Presidential Chair in English and GLP have pledged matching funds of $10,112, for a total project budget of $20,112. The Principal Investigators for this grant are Cristina Awadalla, doctoral candidate in Sociology, and Professor Ben Olguín, Professor, Robert and Liisa Erickson Presidential Chair in English. The grant period begins in July 2022 and will run through December 2022.

The particular goal is to expand the ILDC Know Your Rights workshop series, and overall outreach activities, to better serve recent arrival im/migrant youth. The program will take a holistic approach to support youth as they learn to navigate legal and educational systems and get rooted in their new community. Additionally, the overall budget for the project is designed to support the expansion of a partnership between the UCSB English Department’s Global Latinidades Project and the Immigrant Legal Defense Center (ILDC) in efforts to bridge the town-gown divide. Moreover, this funded project will provide UCSB students with training and experiences to make them competitive candidates for careers in the nonprofit sector. Costs include student stipends, graduate student intern salary supplement, community Promotorx (facilitator) stipend, advertising and curriculum materials, equipment and technology, as well as travel and per diem. Summer job opportunities for UCSB students will be announced in May 2022.