Not too long ago, I helped out a friend who was running for local political office and went to a meeting at a neighborhood church where the topic was immigration reform. There was talk, there was discussion, but somehow the meeting didnโt gel, perhaps because despite their good intentions, those who organized the meeting didnโt have an immigrant story to share.
Iโm a journalist, so I couldnโt help wondering what was missing. Since the media is still often the message โ or at least a starting point to kick off a discussion about the message โ I realized what was missing were real stories about real people, to go along with the statistics.
The next time this group wants to meet, itย could turn to aย new initiative, appropriately namedย ONWARD,
whichย describes itself as โa story plus data project to advance an informed, productive dialogue on immigration in America.โ
ONWARD, which is set to go live this month, was conceived atย Active Voice, an organization of communication experts, who for 15 years concentrated on making film-based engagement campaigns to advance social change. The scope was broad and utilized storytelling through socially relevant films dealing with all kinds of issues โ healthcare, education, criminal justice, and of course, immigration.
But over the past year, the Active Voiceย team decided it was time to shift gears and โrefocus on โฆ deepening the connections between story, strategy and sustained impact,”ย as they wrote in aย farewell explainer.
What will distinguish ONWARD from Active Voice is the emphasis on one issue โ immigration โ and the focus on working with Christian faith-based communities that have made immigration reform a priority, or that simply want their congregants to know more about the issue.
โOur traditional model has been working with a single film and finding the right audience for it,โ said Shaady Salehi, who as executive director of Active Voice played a key role in the development of ONWARD. โWe were well poised to ask our expert partners what types of issues/stories would be most useful to their work, as opposed to assuming what would be useful. โ
Time and again, their partners said they wanted to be able toย take a more in-depth look at immigration storiesย and share them with their communities.
โWe have been working with immigration organizations for a while, and there has been increasing polarization and misunderstanding when it comes to immigrants and immigrations,โ Salehiย said. โWe launched this project as a way to push past that polarization and move โonward.โ That inspired the name.โ
ONWARD will provide a one-stop shop of curated films, video clips, and news stories paired with discussion prompts. It will also offerย โpairingsโ linking timely stories to scriptures that connect religious principles to what the real world brings to us.
Some of the first โbundlesโ or packages of material that ONWARD will make available willย focusย on films dealing with family issues within the broader framework of immigration — such as โSin Pais,โย whichย looks at a family separated by deportation, andย โIndivisible,โย whichย examines one familyโs struggle to be together again.

ONWARDโs key partners in the faith-based community are two organizations that have long been active aroundย immigrant issues โย Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Serviceย andย Sojourners.ย Welcoming America, a national network of nonprofit affiliates, is also onboard. Major funding is coming fromย The MacArthur Foundation.
โWe saw a tremendousย opportunity to work with communities of faith, to help peopleย understand the human implications of policies through the use of story, and help people betterย understand theย data and statistics and abstract news you see when you hear, for example, aboutย unaccompanied minors.โ Salehi said. โThere are a lot of headlines, but people donโt understand why people are undocumented, why people have so many assumptions.โ
ONWARD hopes to present immigration themes and topics in easy-to-understand and relatable ways. This means providing people with data and statisticsย and —ย for groups that seek it —ย insights to biblical teachings that relate to todayโs issues.
Salehi emphasizes that ONWARD is an inclusive organization with an inclusive scope. โWe brought in a consultant who is a theologist who had worked on social issues with communities of faith. She is reviewing those materials so they are relevant across denominations,โ Salehiย said. Materials will also be available to secular organizations or non-Christian faith-based communities.
At the meeting I attended in Florida, parents were asked to consider how they would feel if they had to send their child on a journeyย to another country. Family separation was something any parent there could understand on a gut level. But they didnโt have a story.
Next time, with the resources that ONWARD will be making available, that discussion may be more fruitful.