Familes USA announces two new fellowships

Announcing Families USA fellowships for 2006: Applications are now being accepted for the Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice and the Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice.

The Wellstone Fellowship for Social Justice is designed to foster the advancement of social justice through participation in health care advocacy work that focuses on the unique challenges facing many communities of color.Through this fellowship, Families USA hopes to expand the pool of talented social justice advocates from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly from the Black/African American, Latino, and American Indian communities.  The goals of the Wellstone fellowship program are three-fold:
 
1.     To address disparities in access to health care; 
2.     To inspire Wellstone fellows to continue to work for social justice throughout their lives;  and  3.      To increase the number and racial and ethnic diversity of up-and-coming social justice advocates and leaders.

Families USA will select one talented and motivated candidate to fill this 12-month fellowship.

The Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice was created in 2005by Philippe Villers, Founder and President of Families USA, to inspireand develop the next generation of health care justice leaders.  Thegoals of the Villers fellowship program are three-fold:

• To improve access to health care for all Americans, especially for low-income and other vulnerable constituencies;
• To develop a network of young leaders who share a passion for social and health care justice; and
• To inspire Villers fellows to continue to work for health care justice throughout their lives.

Villersfellows will be given the opportunity to work on a variety of healthcare justice issues during their year-long tenure at Families USA inWashington, DC.  They will also be exposed to a variety of differentskill sets and an understanding of various advocacy strategies,including producing analytic reports, disseminating effective messagesthrough the media, understanding the workings of the federallegislative process, building successful coalitions, and e-advocacytechniques.