We will be discussing and planning the details for a larger community forum Saturday, January 16th to eduate our diverse communities about these important statewide tax measures.  IRCO’s ENGAGE Steering Committee, and several partner groups such as APANO, are supporting a Yes on Measure 66 and 67 effort.

Tuesday, December 1st 6:00 PM
Russian Speaking Network Office
12414 E Burnside, Portland, OR 97233

Please join us and RSVP 503-235-9396×104.

BEAVERTON — Msgr. Morton Park, who invented Portland’s Catholic outreach to refugees, died Sunday at Maryville Nursing Home. The tall, amiable priest was 84.  News Article

Condolences.

Graduates of IRCO’s ENGAGE and other community of color, immigrant and refugee leaders contribute to this project, including former IRCO Community Development Coordinator Ronault LS Catalani.

Thanks to Thomas Ngo Photography.

You are all invited to attend the first African communities gathering to discuss matters of interest to the development of African Communities in Portland and around Oregon.

Saturday, November 14th
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM IRCO Africa House 8523 SE Stark Ave, Portland

This program will be led by Roland Clarke, African Community Development Specialist with contributions from Djimet Dogo, Coordinator Africa House, Lee Po Cha, IRCO Associate Director and Valerie Palmer, President Africa House Advisory Board, Secretary IRCO Board of Trustee’s, Senior Research Associate, OHSU Global Health Center and Director CROET Toxicogenomic Laboratory. It is important that we hear from you so please reserve your place for lunch and the discussion.

The Purpose of African Community Civic Engagement program
Goals for 2009-2010

• Build a coalition of leaders who share a vision for improving the welfare of African community.
• Develop a coalition that is able to communicate widely with the community, mobilize community members to participate in advocacy efforts, and increase community involvement in civic life.
• Identify leaders who are positive role model, active in community, in positions of power and influence, and have a vision of working together.
• Prioritizing goals for improving the welfare based on the leadership skills in the coalition, the importance of the issue, the winnability, and how the goal will build the coalition.

[rsvp by clicking here]

The purpose of the meeting is to educate Northwest Health Foundation staff about the African community, communicate needs of the community, and how these needs are or are not being met.  You may also discuss African organizations and their programs.  We hope to build and strengthen relationships between the African community and Northwest Health Foundation staff.

This meeting is the first in a series of meetings.  The overall goal is to strengthen the relationships between local funders and the African community, and dialogue about the opportunities and challenges for funding African community organizations.

All attending this meeting will be invited to the second meeting which will held in 2010 to focus on developing recommendations to funders to enhance funder support forAfrican community organizations, and strategies for improving civic engagement and advocacy efforts.

We would like to have representation of all African communities and organizations.  Attendance is limited to 20-25 people, two from each community or organization working with Africans.  Lunch will be provided along with transportation reimbursement ($25.00) or bus ticket/pass for each attendant.

Please reserve a space by Tuesday, Nov 17, 5PM if you are interested by responding to this invitation. Selection would be based on the first 25 persons who reply before or on Tuesday.

Date & Time: Saturday, November 21, 1pm-3pm

Place: Africa House, 8523 SE Start Street, Portland OR 97216

Thanks!

Roland Clarke 503-235-9396×104 rolandc (at) mail.irco.org

African Community Development Specialist

Civic Engagement Project

Beyond its findings that the district had violated the Civil Rights Act, the February audit of PPS’s program for teaching students like Abdikadir also found too many immigrant students were in the equivalent of educational silos. They were enrolled in classes to improve their English but had little or no access to classes beyond electives. Besides missing out on opportunities to learn what the general student population was learning, immigrant and refugee students weren’t earning the credits they needed to graduate.

If you’re looking for reasons to puff out your chest and take pride in being American, then take note that the first six Nobel Prize winners announced this week are U.S. citizens.

Here’s something else you should know: Four of those winners were born outside the U.S.

That dynamic neatly summarizes the current state of our innovation economy. We are increasingly dependent on brainpower from overseas that migrates here to drive the research and discoveries we need to power economic growth.

Silicon Valley has been a bigger beneficiary of this influx of brains and talent than perhaps any other region in the U.S. And that means we have more to lose when the debate about immigration turns to demagoguery.

However you feel about the H-1B visas that our tech companies hunger for, or the swarms of bodies crossing our borders to pick our crops, these hot-button topics obscure the reality: We need these immigrants to renew our economy and to prosper. Our demonization of them is shameful.

Read the full article online.

Portland is 12th in the nation for refugee resettlement, according to a 2007 report by the Brookings Institution, bringing in 34,000 refugees from across the globe between 1984 and 2003. But it’s also one of the whitest cities in the country.

-Oregonian January 2009

the Coalition was founded in 2000 to strengthen the organizational capacity and operational efficiencies of its members through inter-agency mentoring, collaborative service delivery, and shared resources.

Through collective engagement, the Coalition also provides its member MAAs with a strong vehicle for:

• Building and strengthening bridges to mainstream service systems
• Promoting culturally and linguistically appropriate services and a better understanding of ethnically diverse populations in non-ethnic communities and
• Competing for state and local service contracts.