Beginning next Monday, May 2, Elianne Farhat will serve as Political & Community Organizer at the Minnesota AFL-CIO.
Elianne brings strong political and community organizing experience to the Minnesota AFL-CIO. In 2010, she served as Deputy Field Director for the Minnesota DFL coordinated campaign, where she implemented and tracked a statewide field plan to elect Governor Mark Dayton, and she served as Outreach Director for Margaret Anderson Kelliher, where she wrote and implemented a statewide outreach program, successfully engaging elected officials, labor, community groups, party caucuses and voters to increase visibility and vote counts. Prior to working for Governor Dayton and Speaker Kelliher, Elianne built ethnically, institutionally and generationally diverse coalitions to fight against harmful budget cuts as a Community Organizer with the Albany Park Neighborhood Council, and she did non-partisan voter registration and mobilization with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, both in Chicago. Elianne was raised in Minneapolis and lives in New Brighton.
Elianne's work will focus on building strategic and enduring relationships between labor and community allies in key, targeted areas of the state. The full-time, temporary position will be under the direction of the State Federation and is funded by the national AFL-CIO Solidarity Fund Community Organizers Project. The position is funded through November 8, 2011, and after the program is evaluated, may be extended through May 2012.