The 2020 Susan G. Komen Chicago Race for the Cure

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advocacy consultant and campaign strategist Sean Tenner serves KNI Communications as president. KNI Communications is a firm that assists foundations and nonprofits with issues and electoral campaigns. Outside his professional endeavors, Sean Tenner is active in community works in Chicago for Susan G. Komen, the largest organization fighting breast cancer in the world.

Since 1997, Susan G. Komen Chicago has invested more than $18 million in breast health programs in the city. One way Komen Chicago raises funds is with the Susan G. Komen Chicago Race for the Cure.

To date, more than $2 billion in funds has been raised by Komen’s national Race for the Cure series. The money has been spent on breast cancer programs for education, research, screening, and treatment.

Since Susan G. Komen was founded in 1982, the organization’s investments in research programs have led to breakthroughs. For example, the survival rate for early-stage breast cancer in the 1980s was 74 percent. Today, that rate is 99 percent.

The 2020 Susan G. Komen Chicago Race for the Cure is scheduled for May 10. Komen Chicago’s goal is to raise $300,000. Registration for the Komen Chicago Race for the Cure is now open.

Forbes Feature on Abolition Institute Fighting Slavery in Mauritania

Sean Tenner is the president of the Chicago, Illinois, based KNI Communications, a non-profit advocacy support firm. Sean Tenner is also the founder of the Abolition Institute, an organization working hard to end slavery in Mauritania.

The Abolition Institute was featured in Forbes in July 2013. The feature highlighted some of the injustices enslaved people faced in Mauritania, while urging the public, as well as the US government, to take action.

Slavery is still practiced in the country of Mauritania, located in Northwest Africa, where tens of thousands of enslaved people are forced to work under the rule of elite owners while living in inhumane conditions. According to Forbes, those enslaved are often separated from their families, forced into labor, and denied access to healthcare and proper sanitation. Young enslaved women are even compelled to have sexual intercourse with their masters, thereby exposing them to pregnancy at a young age and related complications.

The Forbes article elaborates on how the situation was made worse by the ruling government of Mauritania’s denial of the existence of slavery in the country, as well as the United States’ lack of involvement in the matter. While Mauritania did criminalize slavery in 2007, enforcement of these laws is weak. The writer concluded with a call to the American government to take action, as well as to every day Americans to support organizations making a difference, such as the Abolition Institute.

Abolition Institute’s Efforts to End Slavery in Mauritania

Sean Tenner pic
Sean Tenner

A longtime Chicago human rights advocate, Sean Tenner guides KNI Communications and focuses on issue advocacy and electoral campaigns; in addition to helping non-profits achieve their philanthropic goals. Sean Tenner is also co-founder of the Abolition Institute, which works to eliminate modern day slavery in Mauritania.

As detailed in a 2015 Humanosphere article, the West African nation of 4.5 million people is mostly desert and features one of the most tragic examples of modern slavery worldwide. Race and descent based slavery – similar in ways to that which existed in the United States before the civil war – is widespread and slaves are subject to abuses such as rape and violence.

The Lighter-skinned ‘White Moor’ minority has typically held slaves of darker skin color. Slaves and descendants of slaves are known as Haratine. Crippling and deeply ingrained socioeconomic conditions are responsible for the continued practice of slavery as well. Every region of the country has seen elites historically engaged in owning and trading slaves.

Although slaves are not literally chained or physically restrained from leaving servitude, the bonds of master and the indentured are more often economic and psychological. This makes practices such as forced marriage and “exploitative sharecropping arrangements” all the more challenging to root out.

With a viral anti-slavery campaign having directed global attention toward the issue, the Abolition Institute directed advocacy efforts towards supporting vocational and educational programs helping those coming out of slavery. Programs have been designed to enable former slaves to reintegrate within Mauritanian society. Advocates work to ensure that programs help those in need and do not get bogged down in “the bureaucratic pipeline.” The work of Sean Tenner and the Abolition Institute has helped people leave behind a particularly brutal form of slavery and build new lives.