Women's Leadership and Networking Day 2014 Spotlight - Ursula Hyman

In the lead up to our 3rd Annual Women's Leadership and Networking Day, the YWCA wanted to take the time to tell you all a little more about our fabulous guest speakers. Today, we're shining a spotlight on Ms. Ursula Hyman: leader, community organizer, and lawyer extraordinaire.

Ms. Hyman is a recently retired partner from Latham and Watkins LLP, an international law firm where she practiced with the firm from 1983 through 2013.  She chaired Latham’s Public and Tax Exempt Financing practice and the global Mentoring Committee, as well as Latham’s Los Angeles Pro Bono and Women’s Committees.

Her extensive credentials include representing a variety of entities from non-profit organizations to major public-private partnerships.Ursula’s primary passion is bringing dignity to others, for which she was recently recognized by the Los Angeles Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, an international organization dedicated to helping the poor. She also received the first “Disaster Saves” award for “Exemplary Service and Leadership” awarded from the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Association.  She was recognized as Century City Chamber of Commerce Women’s Business Council as one of their Women of Achievement for 2008. The annual Women of Achievement Awards honors women in the community whose professional dedication, charitable involvement and commitment to excellence are an inspiration. In 2010, Hyman was named one of the Top 50 Fabulous Women of Influence in the Pasadena Foothills Region.  In 2011, she was named by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal as one of the "Top Women Lawyers in California”  and she has annually been named a “Super Lawyer” since that award began in 2004.  In 2013, Hyman was selected as one of "Los Angeles' Women Leaders in the Law" by American Lawyer Media in partnership with Martindale-Hubbell.

Ursula is also currently a board member and Chair of Development for FVO Solutions, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with barriers to entry find meaningful employment. She is also Vice-President of the Los Angeles Regional Council of St. Vincent de Paul where she also chairs the Housing Committee and sits on the Executive and Finance Committees.  She sits on the Board of St Francis Medical Center, an inner city hospital, where she serves on the Finance, Audit and Bylaws committees. Ms. Hyman chairs the Women’s Ministry Project at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, and leads women’s workshops at St Elizabeth of Hungary church.


If you're interested in hearing Ms. Hyman speak, click here and register today!

Pasadena Mentoring Partners 3rd Annual Breakfast

Organizations that support and motivate local youth celebrated National Mentoring Month by uniting at the Pasadena Mentoring Partners’ (PMP) 3rd Annual Breakfast, on Saturday, January 11, 2014. The event brought together city officials and local leaders with members of several community and faith-based groups that provide support, guidance and opportunity to hundreds of disadvantaged youth throughout Pasadena and Altadena.

Attendees heard inspirational success stories from young people and their adult mentors while enjoying a hearty and healthy meal prepared by area firefighters. The gathering culminated with a keynote speech by homegrown NBA star Ryan Hollins, the Los Angeles Clippers center who is also an alumnus of John Muir High School and Washington Middle School.

We would like to thank the our mentors for being apart of our children's lives and for the hundreds of hours spent forming long lasting bonds with future doctors, lawyers and scientists.

Coordinated since 2008 by the Flintridge Center, Pasadena Mentoring Partners provides leadership, resources, training and opportunities for networking to mentoring-focused organizations in the Pasadena/Altadena area. PMP supports mentor matches of some 200 PUSD students through partners such as:

·    A Step Ahead

·    Boys and Girls Club of Pasadena

·    Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters

·    Flintridge Center

·    Lake Avenue Community Foundation

·    Mentoring and Partnership for Youth Development

·    YWCA of Pasadena-Foothill Valley

 PMP is also grateful for the collaboration and support of resource champions including:  

·    All Saints Church

·    La Pintoresca Teen Center

·    Pasadena Fire Department

·    Pasadena Police Department

·    Pasadena Unified School District

The World Gets a Dose of Girl Power

The World Gets a Dose of Girl Power

Women across the globe marked International Women's Day with marches, demonstrations, and celebrations over the weekend. In France, women hopped on motorcycles to raise awareness on Saturday, while women in Spain and Turkey gathered for organized protests. Meanwhile, Lebanese women spoke out against domestic abuse, female US soldiers attended an event in Afghanistan centered around women's progress, and 10,000 people in the Philippines set the Guinness World Record for the largest human woman symbol. Take a look at all the events surrounding International Women's Day around the world.

Women in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, gathered to celebrate International Women's Day.

In Paris, women took to motorcycles for an All Women on Bikes event held across France.

In London, people protested violence against women.

In Turkey, a couple wore parody versions of the iconic We Can Do It! propaganda posters.

Visions of the Past, Inspiration for the Future

YWCA Pasadena Hosting Photo Exhibit Featuring the Women of the Civil Rights Movement

The YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley will be hosting a photo exhibit and reception celebrating the women of the Civil Rights movement, entitled "Visions of the Past, Inspiration for the Future." Photographs of known and unknown heroines of the Civil Rights Era will be displayed in an exhibit on February 28th at the YWCA facility in Pasadena. This exhibit features the work of veteran Southern photojournalist, Boyd Lewis, and highlights the courageous women and allies in the cause for racial equality.

"Women created the struggle for social justice in America," says Lewis, now a Los Angeles teacher living in Altadena. "And we ignore their heroic and often dangerous fight for human rights for all at their peril."  The photographs celebrate well-known women such as Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, and lesser known freedom fighters like Lillian Lewis and Ethel Matthews. There are over 45 black and white documentary photographs to be shown at the exhibit - most of the photos have never been published.

A special presentation during the exhibit will feature guest speaker, Rachel Thomas, a former YWCA member and Muir High School graduate. Ms. Thomas will share her inspiring story of breaking free from human trafficking, and how she uses her experience to help end this violence. Ms. Thomas speaks throughout Southern California, encouraging communities to get educated and get involved in the fight against sex trafficking today.

If you would like to hear more stories about the women of the civil rights movement, please join us at the YWCA's photo exhibit and reception on Friday, February 28th, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm, located at 1015 N. Lake Ave, Suite 105. The reception also includes food, drinks, and conversation about today’s fight for human rights.





Visions of the Past, Inspiration for the Future:  Women of the Civil Rights Movement
Friday, February 28, 2014
5:00 - 8:00 pm
Special presentation at 5:30
Modern Day Slavery: Sex Trafficking in Our Communities
Rachel Thomas, M. Ed.

YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley
1015 N. Lake Ave, Suite 105, Pasadena, CA 91104
To RSVP, call 626-296-8433 or email jkubel@ywca-pasadena.org

Rosa Parks: The Spark of Revolution

Rosa Parks: The Spark of Revolution

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama to Leona and James McCauley. She grew up on a farm with her mother, her brother, and her maternal grandparents, Rose and Sylvester Edwards. Both were former slaves and strong advocates for racial equality. She was no stranger to discrimination herself; as she once saw her grandfather standing in front of their house with a shotgun while Klan members marched down their street. In elementary school, she had to walk to school while school buses took white students to their new school. "I'd see the bus pass every day, but to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world," said Mrs. Parks. Her secondary school, Montgomery's Industrial School for Girls, was burned down twice by arsonists. Parks began attending the Industrial School at age eleven, but left school in 11th grade to tend to her sick grandmother and mother. She never returned to her studies.

Instead, she began to work at a t-shirt factory in Montgomery, and shortly after, she met and married Raymond Parks. He was a barber and an active member of the NAACP. She joined the organization in December of 1943 and became active in the Civil Rights Movement. Mrs. Parks was elected secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and continued in her position until 1957.  As secretary she worked on numerous cases with the NAACP, including investigating the gang-rape of Recy Taylor, and the Scottsboro Boys case, in which nine black teenagers were framed of rape by an all-white jury and nearly lynched.
In 1944, Mrs. Parks held a job at Maxwell Air Force base, where she first experienced life without racial segregation, as the base did not permit racial segregation because it was federal property. She would later say that this experience had opened her eyes to see how the world could really be. Mrs. Parks worked as a housekeeper and a seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Durr on the base. They were a politically liberal white couple who encouraged and helped sponsor her to attend the Highlander Folk School, a training center for activists, where she was able to learn about utilizing civil disobedience for worker's rights and racial justice.

At the time of her famous refusal to give up her bus seat, in December 1955, bus drivers in Montgomery had become accustomed to requiring black passengers to give up their seats to white passengers when no other seats were available. Despite the fact that the city's bus ordinance did not give them specific authority to demand a passenger to give up a seat, they would routinely refuse service to those that did not comply, and often called the police to have them removed. As the bus filled with white passengers, the driver noticed that some white passengers were standing in the aisles. Because Mrs. Parks was seated in the front row of the black section, she was asked to stand and give up her seat. When asked "Why don't you stand up?" Rosa replied, "I don't think I should have to stand up."  She was arrested. People have assumed that her refusal was because she was physically tired; but she would later state that that she was simply tired of giving in. This was no coincidence, it was a thoroughly conscious act of protest.

Despite similar protests happening across the city, Mrs. Parks refusal became the spark for the boycott of Montgomery's city buses.  E.D. Nixon, the head of the local chapter of the NAACP, began to formulate plans to expand the boycott, placing ads in local papers, and printing and distributing handbills in black neighborhoods. Thus began the Civil Rights movement in earnest.

Mrs. Parks herself, however, suffered a great deal of hardship in the time following her arrest. She and her husband had received death threats, lost their jobs and apartment, and eventually had to move from Montgomery to Detroit to live with Mrs. Park's mother. There she began work as a secretary and receptionist in the office of US Representative John Conyer, and also served on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

She also founded the Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development in 1987. This organization educates young people about important civil rights and Underground Railroad sites throughout the country by providing "Pathways to Freedom" bus tours. In 1992, she published her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, and in 1995 she published Quiet Strength, which focuses on her faith and the role that it played in her work and her life as a whole.

Mrs. Parks received many awards, accolades, and distinctions in her lifetime, including the Spingarn Medal, the Martin Luther King Jr. Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and was named on TIME's list of "20 Most Influential People of the 20th Century."  Rosa Parks died at the age of 92 in Detroit. There were many memorial services in her honor, including lying in state at the United States Capitol.

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day...No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."   - Rosa Parks