PorColombia is pleased to announce that it has partnered with the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials (NALEO) on their national campaign, YA ES HORA ¡CIUDADANIA!, to assist in empowering Latinos in our community. The main goal for YA ES HORA ¡CIUDADANIA! (en español) is to naturalize, register and empower Latinos to take center stage in up-and-coming elections.
YA ES HORA ¡CIUDADANIA! is an historic non-partisan Latino civic participation campaign launched as the Latino community's action-oriented follow-up to the immigrant mobilizations of 2006. The campaign represents the largest and most comprehensive effort to incorporate Latinos as full participants in the American political process. Unlike past approaches which focused on one component of civic engagement, this multi-layered campaign takes a comprehensive approach that links naturalization to voter participation and Census enumeration under a single message: "It's time."
Naturalization
The YA ES HORA ¡CIUDADANIA! campaign was born of the pro-immigrant marches of 2006. To translate the mass momentum into action, the goal was simple – to inform, educate and motivate the millions of eligible legal permanent residents to apply for U.S. citizenship. Over 400 organizations nationwide contributed to ya es hora's success in surpassing its lofty goal of motivating over 1,000,000 legal permanent residents to apply for U.S. citizenship. Approximately 1.4 million applied by the end of Fiscal Year 2007
NALEO's 1-888-Ve-y-Vota toll-free civic participation information hotline assisted 38,320 callers with questions about naturalization, and thousands accessed information on the steps to citizenship through their website.
The work of YA ES HORA ¡CIUDADANIA! continued through 2008, with several workshops organized throughout the year, in addition to ongoing support for one-on-one application assistance. The campaign continues on into 2009, seeking to encourage the millions of Legal Permanent Residents still eligible to get informed and apply for naturalization in advance of the 2012 Presidential Elections. Visit their website for more information.
The campaign's national media partners include: Mi Familia Vota Educational Fund, NALEO Educational Fund, National Council of la Raza, Entravision Communications Corporation, ImpreMedia, Univisión and SEIU.
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