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An interview by Rumi Forum Director Jana Luedtke, with Jannah Scott, Th.D., Deputy Director, Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships, Department of Homeland Security under President Obama's Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships Initiative.
Biography:
Dr Jannah Scott was appointed by President Obama in March 2009 and served as the Deputy Director, Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that role, Dr. Scott provided access to programs, policies and engagement opportunities for faith-based and community groups on a broad array of homeland security issues.
Her primary focus areas are interfaith dialogue and cooperation; disaster preparedness, response and recovery; citizenship and immigration: religious accommodation and the department's faith-based information-sharing initiative.
Prior to her presidential appointment, Dr. Scott served as policy adviser, faith and community initiatives for former Governor Napolitano. Dr. Scott received advanced academic degrees from UC Berkeley in Planning, Policy and Regulation.
She is an ordained minister, having received license and ordination with the First Institutional Baptist Church of Phoenix, Arizona and JGM-Enternational PrayerLife Institute. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in Theology from the Desert Rose Christian College, an ORU-affiliated theological school.
Jannah's passions are family and developing relationships across the global community.
Full Rumi Forum interview transcript:
Jena Luedtke: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Rumi Forum. Today we have Dr. Jannah Scott with us today. Dr. Jannah Scott is the deputy director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the US Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Jannah Scott was appointed by President Obama in March of 2009 and currently serves as the deputy director, as I just said, of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at DHS.
In that role, Jannah provides access to programs, policies, and engagement opportunities for faith-based and community groups on a broad array of Homeland Security issues. Her primary focus areas are interfaith dialogue and cooperation, disaster preparedness, response and recovery, citizenship and immigration, religious accommodation, and the department's faith-based information sharing initiative. Prior to her presidential appointment, Jannah served as policy advisor of faith and community initiatives for former governor and now Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Jannah received advanced academic degrees from UC Berkeley in planning, policy, and regulation. She is an ordained minister having received license and ordination with the first institutional Baptist church of Phoenix, Arizona and JGM International Prayerlife Institute. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the Desert Rose Christian College, an ORU-affiliated theological school. Dr. Scott's passions are family and developing relationships across the global community. Today, Dr. Scott will be speaking with us about President Obama's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Initiative. Please welcome, Dr. Jannah Scott.
Dr Jannah Scott: Thank you. Well, on behalf of President Obama and Joshua Dubois, who's the executive director and special assistant to the president for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and of course, on behalf of Secretary Napolitano, I bring you greetings. I want to recognize some people in the audience today before we start. Some women who came out and really warmed my heart. The National Council for Negro Women DC chapter. We have Ms. Miranda Lewis, Mrs. Alberta Gaskins who actually served C. Delores Tucker for over 30 years and helped to get the Sojourner Truth statue or bust established in the nation's capitol. And Mrs. Hale's wife of the late Reverend Hales who chaired the DC chapter of Opportunities Industrialization Center and the NAACP.
And I'm just so grateful to have them here with us today. I'm sure there are others here that I should be recognizing, my sister from the Muslim community and several others, but I certainly wanted to let you all know how much we appreciate your coming out today. These women have been a great support for African-American women across the nation and have had luminaries come out of their ranks, the least of which is Dr. Dorothy Height who went home to be with the Lord last year. So thank you for being here. I'm glad to bring you greetings on behalf of the administration and to share with you about the president's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships initiative.
President Obama established the office for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships because he recognizes a truth that you all know well. We are facing some pretty big challenges in this country. We have too many young people who aren't getting the education they need, we have an economy that we need to work to get back on track, we have too many families struggling to make ends meet. And related to the work that we do in Homeland Security, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that our nation is properly prepared for any kind of disaster or other type of hazard that would come our way. If we're going to meet all these challenges, the president knows that we need to do so not only in Washington, D.C. but also in local communities. And we need to partner with people like you, like the Rumi Forum and your is it 200 and some affiliates across the country now?
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yes. Yes.
Dr Jannah Scott: I've only met about 14 of the affiliates, so I've got my work cut out in meeting all the association affiliates. And that fundamentally is the work of the faith-based centers in 12 agencies plus the Corporation for National Service. How many of you can tell me besides DHS that you know of an agency that has a Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships? Can you just yell out one or two of them?
Speaker 1: HUD.
Dr Jannah Scott: HUD.
Speaker 1: Education, labor.
Dr Jannah Scott: Education, labor. Sir, you raised your hand.
Speaker 2: There's 13 of them in the back here.
Dr Jannah Scott: Oh, you've got the book. See, he's got the list.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: He's got the cheat sheet.
Dr Jannah Scott: Okay. So that's a good place to lead people, is the back of the partnerships for the Common Good Report. And you can see the list of the 12 centers plus the 13th strategic initiative. We call the one at Corporation for National Services Strategic Initiative because they're a quasi agency. But we're doing things a little differently from the previous faith-based and community initiative, and I'd like to describe some of those differences and talk about ways that we can partner together. The previous office was set up with the goal of quote "leveling the playing field" which meant making sure that faith-based groups had equal access to federal grants and resources.
And while we realized the importance of that goal and the need to ensure that faith-based and community groups have equal access, the goal of leveling the playing field didn't really speak to what we're doing on the playing field, what we want to achieve through partnerships with faith-based and community organizations. So President Obama and Joshua Dubois identified four goals, four things that we want to achieve on the playing field through the partnership between the federal government and faith-based and community groups.
The first one is ensuring that faith-based and community groups have a role in this nation's economic recovery.
The second one is promoting responsible fatherhood and healthy families.
The third one, most politically challenging, but important nonetheless, is finding common ground on the issue of abortion and,
The final goal is promoting interfaith dialogue and cooperation.
In coordination with the National Security Council, the White House office is charged with assessing how the federal government deals with religion abroad and finding ways to bring religious actors together to fulfill these common goals.
So these are the four things that we want to do while working on the playing field and what we want to do where we want to develop partnerships with folks like you.
The way that we actually move forward on these issues and these priorities differs agency to agency. And in the dialogue time that Jena and I will have, I'll be able to share a bit more about how we do this work in Homeland Security. Across the government though there are many opportunities for nonprofit organizations to partner and serve communities.
How many of you here are from nonprofits?
Okay. A few.
How about other government agencies? Okay. Which one is that?
Speaker 3: US Environmental Protection Agency.
Dr Jannah Scott: Okay. EPA has a faith-based center. Our newest, actually.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Exactly.
Dr Jannah Scott: Is that what you said? Environmental Protection Agency.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Oh, it's their newest, yeah. Yes, yes.
Dr Jannah Scott: Shabeka Jenkins Carter is the director and we'll have to talk afterwards so I can get you connected.
We have someone else from universities or business sector here?
Okay.
You should note that this work is not just about grants, it's really about civic engagement and partnerships with the federal government. So in addition to our offices and centers being able to inform nonprofits about grant opportunities, we also identify the other non-financial yet equally important civic engagement opportunities. The center is looking forward to partnering with you to bring about the changes we need and that our families deserve. And I'm confident that through these partnerships, we will have brighter and more prosperous days ahead.
Thank you.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Thank you.
So can I open up the conversation with a question that might be on the minds of some of our audience members? The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is coming up. The formation of this department was set up after 9/11 and was the result it came out of this. And so a lot of folks, a lot of people in this country associate, I would say including myself, Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security with anti-terrorism. We wouldn't really consider it to be an agency that would be looking at bringing communities together or over disaster relief in say, Joplin, which I think it's a wonderful thing now that is on the radar, at least in my understanding, and I hope in others' understanding. Can you speak a little bit about that and that transition to a more broader initiative policy approach?
Dr Jannah Scott: When the agency was established in 2003, it actually brought together 22 separate entities and components under one umbrella. The anti-terrorism mandate was one of those components, but in addition to that, we processed tens of thousands of new citizenship applications into the country every year where people actually become US citizens. And if any of you have ever had an opportunity to attend one of the citizenship services it is one of the most moving times. You may have often seen them on television at the White House where the president actually is involved when we have service people who are getting their citizenship in the United States.
In addition, how many of you knew that the US Coast Guard was part of Homeland Security?
A couple of people. Few people.
We also deal with issues such as immigration and customs enforcement, border patrol, pandemic response and bio-terrorism response, but we also have some interesting areas within the department that deal with things like civil rights and civil liberties. Of course, we have transportation administration. We also have offices that deal with things related to how people are processed through when a disaster happens and then after the fact, how do we ensure that they get recovery?
So it always has been a broad mandate for the department, but I think because the lean forward has always been around counter-terrorism in the minds of most Americans, that has been the face that's been out there. I think the fact that Secretary Napolitano did take time to go to Joplin when she certainly could have sent administrator Fugate, gives you a sense of the broader direction, more unified direction that the department is taking under the Obama administration. We are taking a direction of being one DHS and that one DHS representing not only counter-terrorism and border security, but also representing resilience for communities, representing citizenship and immigration and other things as well.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yeah, and I have seen that with the new administration. I've seen that the focus has been on disaster response and preparedness, or shall I say that the face has changed somewhat in terms of that for myself, personally, that I've really seen an effort towards it being just a broader or it has a broader approach, but that seems to be the face more or less than counter-terrorism or the face that it had previously.
Dr Jannah Scott: And we're trying to do more just to add to that,... to educate people about Homeland Security in that several offices now have what you call offices for public engagement. And those offices have a mandate to actually reach out in local communities around the country to help people get an understanding of how not only DHS works, but also give DHS an understanding of how things work on the ground and where we might improve our processes and procedures. This is done quite extensively through our office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, through our Citizenship and Immigration Services office, through our office for... They call it ICE Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and several others. We're actually taking stock of that right now, and when that report comes out, I think the public will actually be pretty surprised at how much public engagement is actually going on to help people understand more about the agency as well as help the agency understand more about communities.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: That is for sure. Community engagement is at its peak. It's been a wonderful few years of that. I know many communities, like you said, those other affiliates that we have have had a lot of community engagement with the agency. So can you speak about specific communities or, we had Max Finberg speak, Director of the USDA Center for Faith-Based Neighborhood partnerships, and he gave a wonderful example about farmers. I believe, if I get this wrong, I apologize, but in Missouri, who set up a farmer's market at their local church. And it was really moving to me to hear about this because we hear a lot about the plight of farmers in this country and how it is such a difficult job and so unstable, and it was really wonderful to hear that sort of initiative going on for their community. So to have access to food for everyone to have access to less expensive means of getting their food.
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, I could think of several examples. One that actually involves one of your affiliates I'll share briefly and then maybe one related to the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. In Denver, Colorado, of course there's the Mosaic Foundation and they had asked us to come and speak at one of their interfaith and intercultural dialogue dinners. And in that invitation, we actually were given the opportunity to extend it to some of our local partners. So we invited the Director for Homeland Security for the state of Colorado, who actually is stationed in Denver. He came out with some of his staff, as did the special agent in charge for the FBI.
And at that dinner, they were so impressed with the diversity of the community that the Mosaic Foundation had brought together that that night, the Homeland Security Director had asked me if the Mosaic Foundation people would be willing to meet with us the next morning. So we were able to meet with the Homeland Security Director and they have since become part of his interfaith preparedness Coalition for the state of Colorado. That's a brief example. One that involves the aftermath of Haiti. Obviously that was the worst international disaster that our nation had seen, and USAID is actually the point for that. But DHS had a lot of work that we needed to do inside of the United States, believe it or not, related to Haitians who lived here, who actually were coming up on the end of their time in the United States.
And after much thought and analysis and discussion and approval from the White House, the Secretary was able to approve what they call an extended temporary protected status to Haitians. But then it was about getting the word to Haitians, bringing them out of the shadows, so to speak. And in five cities around the country where we found the largest Haitian populations, we were actually able to connect with faith-based and community groups to get the word to Haitian people that their status in the United States would be temporarily protected because of the devastation in their home country. And as a result of that, we had tens of thousands of people who applied before the deadline in order to be able to remain in the United States and remain safe while their country was being rebuilt.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: That's wonderful. Yeah. Briefly going back to when we were just talking about security and looking at it as more of a broader approach in terms of things like Joplin, Katrina, looking at that as being a security for the people of this country and instead of security always being linked to a say terrorist activity or something outside of the country, if you will. So more of a homeland situation, true to its name. Can you talk about work that's being done with the Center on these various... The current situation in Joplin and in Alabama and maybe even Katrina, still? Katrina relief. Can you speak about those initiatives? What initiatives are being done on the ground there, like the real work?
Dr Jannah Scott: And with my colleague with EPA here, I'd certainly also like to include the BP oil spill in the aftermath of that.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Thank you. I was thinking about... This is what... Yes, thank you.
Dr Jannah Scott: The President has made it clear that his administration is committed to seeing these communities recover in the long term. After the TV cameras have gone after the initial response, which FEMA is really the agency for the initial response. After all that is done, there's still months and sometimes years of recovery that these communities have to go through. And FEMA is part of a team of federal, local, state, and faith-based and community organizations who work together. FEMA is not the team and DHS actually is the parent of FEMA, so to speak. And so given Alabama as an example, just briefly after the initial horror of the tornado and the devastation of those communities, the administration sent several officials including Secretary Napolitano and Secretary Donovan of HUD.
Because HUD has a major role in rebuilding the homes and providing people with a new permanent place to stay, even though they go through temporary housing for a while.
And what the center did in that role, the Director for the faith-based center, David Meyers, went down with the external affairs team and actually hosted a meeting of anybody who knows the demographics of Alabama and Birmingham area, know that hosting a meeting of African-American pastors is the thing to do there. And so he hosted a meeting to provide them with information on how their communities could regain, recover, rebuild. What we find oftentimes in disaster stricken areas is that there are pockets of people who, because they have not been connected with emergency management before, don't know what to do to get help. This happened in Katrina. We saw at the five-year anniversary, the unevenness of recovery in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. In communities where people really were not connected and didn't know what to do, five years later, you still had people living under blue tarps.
And so our role is the center really is to try to reach out to these faith leaders and these community leaders who really are not connected to make sure they get the connections they need. A quick example out of Alabama, I received a call a couple of weeks ago that the Small Business Administration, which is one of the agencies involved in recovery, was getting a lot of applications for loans because when you have a disaster, you go to the SBA to get a loan to rebuild. Many of the applications were being denied and the resubmittal deadline was coming up very short. So we had, as a center, we were the only people that this pastor knew to call because my director had been down there and we were able to connect him with the proper people so that they could bring visibility to that issue.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: I think this really speaks to the...
Speaker 4: Will you take some questions or not?
Dr Jannah Scott: Yes, sir.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yes. We will definitely do that in just one minute. Thank you.
Dr Jannah Scott: Thank you.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: I think this is a testament to the community engagement piece that you spoke about a few minutes ago. I think that this administration and their outreach efforts in connecting communities and recognizing the abilities of these communities to do such good and to really be leaders in recovery efforts, in community building. And I just think it's phenomenal the work that these centers are doing in terms of community outreach.
So, all right. All right. Yes sir. We will now...
Dr Jannah Scott: Before...
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: But before, yes, exactly. I just remembered. Before we do transition, would you like to say any remarks?
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, I'd just like to thank everyone for coming out. I know this is hard coming out on your lunch hour, and I'm just really grateful for the diversity in this room. I see some faces smiling, some frowning, so I may have the answers to your questions today, but I may not. But if I don't, please know that we will follow up with you. My business card is actually in the piece that I gave, and if you don't want to ask your question out loud today, feel free to email me and we'll be sure to get back to you. I want to make a plug in that report for the disaster preparedness piece. We are coming up on the 2011 national preparedness month.
We're looking for people like you to sign up on ready.gov/community so that we can send you information and you can be in communication with us about how we can better prepare our nation. Not only is this the 10th anniversary of 9/11, as Jenna rightly pointed out, but it's also very critical time in our nation and we really want to get the word out to people in communities across this country about the importance of preparing against all hazards. And the best way we do that is through people like you. So again, thank you for coming out today and I'm more than welcome to take questions.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: And I just want to say, Jannah, she said you can contact her and her contact information is there and she will get back to you. Jannah travels quite a bit and she is very busy, but she is always good about responding to your emails or your inquiries. So Cynthia.
Dr Jannah Scott: Thank you, Cynthia.
Cynthia: I hope to follow up later, but I wanted to just say that I think what brings all of us here is our commitment to nonviolence, that we believe in peace through dialogue, and that's that this [inaudible] inspired movement is very prophetic in that regard, and it's in keeping with all the nonviolent traditions of King and Gandhi, et cetera. And I think what I want to know is what is being done with respect to the faith-based tradition of this piece through dialogue overseas, in conjunction with the State Department efforts in places that would really benefit from dialogue.
And it almost seems simplistic and just one of those givens that yeah, everyone should dialogue. I mean, can we talk? But there are many places in the world where you really can't, and even in places like some parts of France, they're so anti any sort of religion that if you even try to bring a dialogue into the religious realm, it's just considered completely impolite. So I'm wondering if anything that we're doing in our government here is in doing things in tandem with the state department overseas to bring this movement, this nonviolent piece through dialogue overseas.
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, I'm glad you asked that question. I may not be able to share the whole of the answer because of course, by protocol, things should be announced coming out of agencies as they see fit. But I can tell you that in the President's most recent executive order around Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, for the first time, the State Department was included as a coordinating agency with the other 13.
Now, they don't have a faith-based center yet, but they do have people working out of their Office of Global Affairs who are working on faith-based issues.
In addition, USAID, which does have a faith-based center and which is the development arm of the State Department, so to speak, has been working with the White House on a topic called Religion and Global Affairs. Many of the agencies, including DHS, have contributed to that effort because even DHS, although we're Homeland, we have people in 80 embassies around the country, and there is discussion about how religion and faith needs to have a place in foreign policy.
You'll remember former Secretary of State Madeline Albright in her book, the Mighty and the Almighty, where she talked about the importance of faith in foreign policy. Secretary Clinton, I believe, shares that belief and is beginning to do some work in the State Department toward that effort. I think you'll hear other announcements coming out in the future in relation to what the State Department is doing. Because I'm not with State, I don't feel at liberty to share those specifics, but I can tell you that things are happening and I'm really glad you asked that question. That might be somebody you want to invite to a forum out of their Global Partnerships Office.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: I think that's very good idea. Yes, Zarinah.
Zarinah Shakir: My name is Zarinah Shakir, and some of the people here know I produce and host a television show called Perspectives of Interfaith, and also I'm back on radio now doing a show once a week on WPFW called The Struggle Continues. And what I wanted to actually ask of you, Jannah, or Dr. Scott, and to follow up on this lady's statement and then this gentleman back here, with Homeland Security with this administration and when you all first came in, do you all meet with other departments, the Department of State, with EPA, with the military, and all of those? Do you all have joint meetings where people can all be at that round table to discuss some of the issues that we're faced with, i.e., this is with the Congress, where Congressman Peter King and some of them are speaking about the radicalization of Muslims in the prisons and how people are approached when we come into the country or even when we leave and how people are pulled aside, pulled out of the line to check us or however?
I'm always pulled out. My grandson was pulled out. He was three years old, and this was way before you all were in, but I think I was embarrassed and humiliated to see that this man was telling me to have my grandsons stand on the mat where an adult is supposed to spread their legs. He was three years old, and he said, "Can you make him behave?" And I said, "Yes, I can, but I'm not." I said, "Because this is not a child's activity. He doesn't know what's going on." So my question really is, how do these departments come together and try and work out issues? Do you all have surveys where there are questions or can we send questions to different departments and then have some of those addressed in some way and go to a website and find out if there's an answer?
Dr Jannah Scott: Let me speak to the inter-agency collaboration because I think there were three questions in there. We do have daily calls with the White House and the other 12 agencies and the 13th center to talk about the various issues that we're seeing. And the White House actually convenes these conferences called Partnerships for the Common Good. The next one is being hosted July 28th in Denver. They've done one in Philadelphia, one in New Orleans, and I think they're going to do a few more.
Question one. Question two related to individuals who have specific concerns about the way particularly that they are treated in Homeland Security circles, whether that be at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at airports or at the border or other places. We do have something called Travel Redress Inquiry Program, or TRIP. And on dhs.gov, which is our general web address, you can Google "TRIP" and you actually get a form.
It asks you a series of questions and you can put your information or not, and that information is passed on to our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. And their compliance section actually looks into hundreds of TRIP reports every week where people have had whatever kinds of complaints. Not just about TSA, but all over the DHS enterprise.
Again, 22 agencies and components. Your third question related to, do we have round tables where people can bring these kinds of issues? Specific to DHS. We have the Civil Rights, Civil Liberties Round Tables. Right now, we're hitting eight cities across the country on a quarterly basis, and the staff is actually headquartered here in D.C., and would certainly be willing to come and speak to a group in D.C. I don't think they do round tables in D.C. because they can always send staff to groups here.
But at those meetings, while they do not discuss individual cases, they do hear from the community so they can get an idea of the trends that are happening out there, particularly with certain communities. So that's how DHS does it in terms of getting information from the community, getting information from individuals, and then how we work as a faith-based and neighborhood partnerships group to come together on a daily basis and through our conferences.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yes.
Nina: Yes. My name is Nina Shadakin. I am an independent observer.
Dr Jannah Scott: Thank you for coming.
Nina: Yes. I'm not sure if this relates to your department, but maybe you know. A few months ago, the Department of Homeland Security hosted a conference and in it they invited two speakers who like to talk about Islamophobia, and then some Muslim organizations protested about this. So we were wondering, I was wondering whether for the conference hosted by the Department of Homeland Security whether they did not consult, for example, to invite also speakers from the Islam mainstream. Why, for example, the two speakers, who are well known in the Muslim community in America, being anti-Islamic? And, for example, during the forum hosted by Peter King also I think there were no Muslim speakers from mainstream Islam. Could you explain about that? Thank you.
Dr Jannah Scott: I'll speak to the Congressman King issue. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who actually is from Arizona, so I know him personally, was invited by Congressman King. Homeland Security had nothing to do with that. In terms of a conference that we hosted, without knowing the particulars, I wouldn't know an answer to that. If after this meeting or if now you could share with me a little bit more about where that conference was and who from Homeland Security was there. I would certainly want to find out. We have a really good engagement group in our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and we have people in several components across the department who are actually Muslims themselves and who are very familiar with the dynamics of Muslim communities. So I'd really like to know where that conference was and who put it on so that I could follow up as to what happened with that.
Nina: I could email you.
Dr Jannah Scott: Okay.
Nina: It was a few months ago.
Dr Jannah Scott: Yeah, I'd like to find out.
Nina: And, actually, it was for the national level, that conference.
Dr Jannah Scott: Yeah, I'd like to find out because I don't even remember being there myself.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yeah, I don't recall such a conference.
Dr Jannah Scott: So please email me about that and I'll be glad to follow up.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yes. Exactly. Okay
Alberta Gaskins: My name is Alberta Gaskins and I'm from Washington D.C. I wanted you to expound on what you meant by "the mosaic". I keep seeing that symbol by churches. Is it a destination or is it just part of the faith-based language?
Dr Jannah Scott: I'm not sure about that. One of the RUMI Forum affiliates is called the Mosaic Foundation, and I'm not sure why they chose that name. Maybe you could shed some light on that.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: A mosaic compromises diversity of, patterns comes to mind because I see a mosaic of pattern, if we talk textiles and whatnot. Stained-glass, for that matter. So I think it's speaking to the mosaic of society and diversity of human beings.
Dr Jannah Scott: It symbolizes diversity.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yeah, it's symbolizing diversity of humanity.
Dr Jannah Scott: But that's the actual name of a group in Denver that is the sister organization to this group.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: And I think it's a positive. It's used in positive.
Alberta Gaskins: That's what it is. It's exactly what you said, the Mosaic Church is right in my neighborhood. That's why I'm trying to ask you.
Dr Jannah Scott: And so maybe they're saying we invite diversity into the church, because a mosaic really is a combination or a conglomeration of a lot of different patterns and colors, usually.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Exactly. Exactly.
Dr Jannah Scott: So that may be.
Zarinah Shakir: I was just going to say also, there's the Mosaic Foundation also here in D.C. which is representative of women of the ambassadors from around mostly the Middle East. They're not all necessarily Muslims, but I was just looking at some old paper works and envelopes that I had of one of their events a few years ago and ran upon it yesterday and I said, "Oh yeah, the Mosaic Foundation." So that's a group of spouses that work with fundraising for various programs inside the United States and outside.
Dr Jannah Scott: Okay. We had a lot of new people come in after the fact. I don't know if any of them have questions.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Yes, I was thinking the same thing.
Dr Jannah Scott: Hello.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Hello in the back.
Patricia Maloof: Hi, I'm
I'm with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.
Dr Jannah Scott: Wonderful. You're talking about Clinic, right?
Patricia Maloof: With Clinic, right.
Dr Jannah Scott: We work with Clinic quite a bit. Thank you for coming.
Patricia Maloof: All right. Well, I was just wondering if you could mention, I saw in your publication about the grant making efforts, can you say anything about what are your priorities or goals when it comes to grant making? And, how is that done? Is it done from your office or is each of the separate 13 deciding on their own what they will do? Or, how does it work?
Dr Jannah Scott: None of the faith-based and neighborhood partnership centers actually have grants. In federal government, the grant process is part of our overall procurement process, and it usually goes through a programmatic office within the larger agency. So various program offices have things that they do through congressional authority on a pretty regular basis. But in the Obama administration, the President has identified the four priorities that we talked...
Speaker 5: So those would be the same form for grant making?
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, no, not necessarily. I want to say though, that from a programmatic perspective of what these centers are operating on, we seek to build our goals around the president's for priorities for faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. But that does not preclude a faith-based or community organization going after grants in any of the 62 or more federal agencies that meet the priorities of their community or of their mission. For example, with Clinic, you know that they have the annual immigration integration grant. And so that's not necessarily part of the President's initiative, but it's certainly an initiative that involves faith-based in community groups. And it's something that comes out of DHS out of our US citizenship and immigration services on an annual basis. And so our role in the centers is not so much to provide the grants, none of us provide grants, but what we try to do is ensure that people know what grants are available based on the passion and the mission of their organizations.
Patricia Maloof: And could I ask one more question-
Dr Jannah Scott: Yes, ma'am.
Patricia Maloof: ... Since I have the mic. You mentioned immigration earlier and I was wondering, does your office have any special initiative around a more positive perspective of immigration or welcoming the stranger? There's so much negativity out there in the general public and they're missing the gifts and the strengths of the people who are really here. And I was wondering if there are any initiatives that you are working on either locally or nationally related to immigration?
Dr Jannah Scott: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has its own office of Public Engagement, and we have actually, from a leadership perspective decided to support their efforts as opposed to establishing a separate initiative out of the DHS Center. So we work very closely with Mariela Marelo and Sally Blauvelt and their staff as they go out across the country to try to, how would you say, shape the narrative around the whole idea of citizenship and immigration.
Patricia Maloof: I was just thinking from a faith-based perspective, that's why I asked.
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, most of our large organizations that do this work are faith-based. Catholic, the Lutherans, United Methodists, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. So it's built into the whole process with CIS. But what we have decided to do from a leadership perspective is to not get in front of our Office of Public Engagement in that area, but to support them in their work and to try to open it up to more houses of worship as they ask us to partner with them. I should clarify that while the DHS Center has a mandate across the agency, we are actually grounded in FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And as a result of that, a lot of our focus is on disaster preparedness response and recovery. It's only through the work of a couple of us in the center that we end up reaching out to other parts of the department. And as you'll notice in partnerships for the Common Good Report, Disaster Preparedness Response and Recovery is what is highlighted in that.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Exactly. All right. Yes, ma'am. Last question.
Netty Hills: The person that just spoke had a concern that I do have as well with regards to what's happened in our country in recent times with so many groups coming to communities. And yet it seems that our communities are not what they once were. Now, I do realize that we have always found ways to assimilate, whether it was through food or whatever, there are ways that we get to know each other. Instead, it seems the other way around. There seem to be more that are take off to help us to get to know what their beliefs are and whatever. And if you don't think the way I do, we really can't quite get together. I wondered if the president had a concern about that because it seems, as you pointed out earlier, there are people coming in the thousands all the time and our communities, I live in Washington, DC, I'm Netty Hills. I'm sorry I didn't say that upfront.
But our communities are changing to the extent that I wonder sometimes if we are communities anymore. And I think that should be a concern of the President, that with so many persons, and as you say, they all want to come to America and feel that there are so many opportunities. But by the same token, because I grew up with any number of ethnics that we went to school together, we knew each other, and you became a part of the group that came to you, which I don't see that happening now. And religion, unfortunately, I would hate to think that religion could be one of the things that could separate us more broadly than anything else. I know that in this country we have loads of churches, we have all kinds of churches. Seems to me that that would be a good place respecting because when a young person or in whatever age goes to the service, they do find ways to worship together. We have belief in God. So I think I'm wondering if the President has that as a concern.
Dr Jannah Scott: I think he's not only recognized that as an issue, but he has actually put his attention through these centers for faith-based and neighborhood partnerships on it. That is why the fourth goal is interfaith dialogue and cooperation. Because as center representatives in communities, one of our biggest roles is to be a catalyst for people coming together across faith lines, across ethnic lines, and to work together on solutions to problems that plague our neighborhoods and our communities. I don't know if we've not made a big enough outreach into the DC area yet, but I can give you an example of something that really chilled me and warmed my heart at the same time in Miami, Florida. I was with some people today when I was sharing with them about this, they were saying, "Well, Dade County is one of the most isolating counties in the country. How could that have happened?"
But we actually have been working with communities across spectrums, across faith lines, across age groups, across ethnic groups to get them involved in interfaith disaster preparedness. We had our closing meeting on June in preparation for our big ceremony in September. And in June, we had 45, 50 people in the room. And several of the people, one lady started it, but several of the people were saying, "You all are like a catalyst for us to come together as a community." There was so much energy because people had not even spoken to their neighbor who was of a different race or of a different ethnicity or of a different religion until we said, let's come together around this issue where it could affect you all because disasters don't discriminate.
And so to me, I think that the work of interfaith dialogue and cooperation, the talk and the do, the relating and the working together really is how the president has decided that his faith-based and neighborhood partnerships efforts will address the concerns that you mentioned. Now, granted, we only started two and a half years ago, some of us less than that because it took time to get some of the political appointees on board. But we are hoping that by the time this president leaves office, that we can really say that we've been able to bring communities together where we have more understanding of each other, where we're able to communicate with each other, and we're able to work together on some of the problems that we face.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: As a director here, I direct the Center for Interfaith and intercultural dialogue, and to see this as one of the four main components initiatives of this office is out of this world for me. I think it is absolutely brilliant. I cannot believe it sometimes. I look at the word interfaith dialogue on the website and I have to kind of look twice because this is very important that it has been put out in the front to say that this works and that it's not just a sector of society that's acknowledging that if you will, a small portion of society. Because unfortunately, interfaith dialogue is happening just might not be happening on the levels that we in that world would like to see it happen. And so for that acknowledgement there, it's wonderful.
Dr Jannah Scott: And I just want to acknowledge Mrs. Hales, because there is still much more work to do. And what I would encourage you, Mrs. Hales, is we are in contact with the National Council for Negro Women. If you see an opportunity for us to help engender some connections in communities that you know that there's still a lot of tension or what have you, please let us know. And I will take that back to the White House so that we can get some action around that, out of some of the centers, because not only is DHS engaged in this, but the Corporation for National Service also has a big role in this. And they often have leveraged the power and the influence of the First Lady of the United States to bring people together. And so please be in touch with me about that so I can bring that concern back.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Well, hopefully with those initiatives though and with the disasters, that's an opportunity for communities, hopefully communities see that as an opportunity to come together and to work together to rebuild their communities.
Dr Jannah Scott: And even before a disaster happens, we want to be in the mix with groups like yours to help bring people together and to begin to develop those relationships prior to something terrible happening.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: All right, with that, I just wanted to thank you all for coming today and especially Dr. Scott for joining us. She's a very busy schedule and very busy lady doing very good work. And so thank you for being with us today.
Dr Jannah Scott: Well, thank you. And I want to thank the group for the very thought-provoking questions and want to encourage you, please, if there's more conversation you'd like to have about how you can engage with DHS, how we can engage with your organizations. I put my business card in these books for a reason because I really wanted to honor RUMI for the work that they do, and particularly the Foundational Philosophy of Hizmet service to community. But I also want you to know, feel free to reach out to us. Thank you.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Thanks Jannah.
Dr Jannah Scott: Thank you.
Jena Luedtke, RUMI Forum: Thank you.
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