August 21, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
The award: The 2011 American Express NGen Leadership Award, which recognizes a nonprofit leader age 40 or younger who has helped solve critical problems in society
Who gives the award: Independent Sector
The winner: Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
About the winner: Ms. Poo, 37, has dedicated her career to helping domestic workers, who are largely excluded from labor laws. In 2000 she helped start Domestic Workers United, in New York, which organized domestic workers to fight for fair labor standards, respect, and recognition. The organization convinced the New York legislature to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights last year, which gave domestic workers such rights as overtime pay and paid vacation. At the workers alliance, she oversees a coalition of smaller groups around the country.
How she became interested in the cause: From her experience growing up. Ms. Poo’s family immigrated from China, and she says the women in her family did an unfair share of work at home. “I remember thinking back on my childhood and never having an image of my mother sitting down,” she says. “I remember how much work she did and how invisible and how taken for granted that was.”
Plans for the future: Ms. Poo is helping to get a domestic workers bill of rights passed in California and is working on a campaign that focuses on the importance of people who are paid to care for older people as demographics shift.
