New Nation Column: Time to Get Out Those Checkbooks

A sampling from Pollitt's newest Nation column of the excellent groups who could use your support during the New Year:

(Scan the full list here and even more ideas here)

1. Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center. Co-founded by Charon Asetoyer, who did so much to defeat South Dakota's proposed abortion ban (twice!), this project of the Native American Community Board helps women and children on or near the Yankton Sioux reservation. nativeshop.org

2. Gulf Region Advocacy Center. This Houston-based group provides free legal help to indigent capital defendants in execution-happy Texas. gracelaw.org

3. Freedom From Religion Foundation. If you have had it up to here with faith-based initiatives, creationism and clerical prying into our private lives, FFRF is the organization for you. ffrf.org

4. Bahia Street. Founded by a Brazilian sociologist and an American anthropologist, this group helps girls from the slums of Salvador, Brazil, with education, healthcare, food and counseling to help them break out of the cycle of poverty and violence. bahiastreet.org

5. WAW/AWF. More troops are not going to help Afghan women become literate or self-supporting or safe from violence. That takes local knowledge and hands-on involvement. Women for Afghan Women, on whose advisory board I serve, runs women's shelters in Kabul and other cities, plus a home for the children of women in prison. womenforafghanwomen.org.