ProjectSummary

ICP has been awarded a five-year demonstration grant to model a community-building project for refugee communities in Harrisburg and Erie, Pennsylvania. Included in the project are recently arrived Bosnian, African, Russian, Iraqi, Kurdish and Cuban refugees. This project encourages refugee communities to participate in collaborative efforts and create a shared, multi-ethnic vision for immigrant communities whose numbers are too small in any given location to sustain independent community organization. ICP's partners for this project include Tressler Lutheran Services and the Hispanic Council of Erie.

The goals of the project are:

• Help emerging refugee communities identify their own assets and resources in order to strengthen their communities
  
• Assist refugee communities organize themselves into effective self-help groups
  
• Encourage refugee communities to participate in collaborative efforts through a shared vision of the capacities and assets of the broader refugee and immigrant communities
  
• ncrease refugees’ access to resources and services by building and maintaining bridges to other communities and mainstream local resources and organizations

Based on published reports, refugees resettled in the United States over the past five years have been ethnically more diverse and geographically more dispersed. This trend is reflected in the growing number of new and emerging refugee populations arriving in communities across Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, these newer groups of refugees include persons from the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia), Iraq and Kurdistan, Cuba, Africa (Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda) and those from the former Soviet Union (Pentecostal Christians, Ukranians, in addition to the continuing arrivals of Russian Jews).

Self-help or mutual assistance associations have had a long history in the resettlement program, and many have developed into vibrant, successful community-based organizations. However, the smaller size of newer ethnic communities makes community building and organizing more difficult for individual communities today. A strategy that has growing support is to create more broadly-based refugee coalitions or multi-ethnic associations. Multi-ethnic coalitions have been formed in the past, but almost exclusively among Southeast Asian communities and a few African communities and in limited locations across the country. One notable exception to this trend has been the creation of the Refugee Communities Coalition of Philadelphia (RCCP). In 1993, all the existing refugee MAAs (Mutual Assistance Associations) in the region joined under this one association within the leadership and guidance of staff at the former Pennsylvania Heritage Affairs Commission (PHAC). The success of this refugee community development experience led to the development of the proposal for a Multi-ethnic Community Resources Project. Former PHAC staff now working at the Institute for Cultural Partnerships, along with experienced managers or refugee programs, oversee this program.

Tressler-Lutheran Services and Hispanic Council of Erie joined with ICP in proposing a three-site, community-building project: two in Central PA (Harrisburg and Lancaster) and one in Erie. This project uses a number of effective community development programs to build a broad base of support within each of these refugee communities and initiate a series of programs and activities to then build bridges to mainstream community resources. The project also employs a number of multi-ethnic and asset-based community building strategies to help emerging refugee communities organize themselves into effective self-help groups. ICP consulted with refugee communities in the planning and development of the proposal and these communities are closely involved in the implementation phases of the project itself.

In many areas of the country it is very difficult to effectively organize refugee communities along single ethnic lines due to the smaller size of the many communities. This project outlines a model that make it possible for emerging refugee communities to work within a broader, community-wide effort. This model is designed to help refugee communities take better advantage of the skill and resourcefulness of their own members as well as other refugee groups. This more broadly based community development model also lessens the isolation tendencies of specific ethnic community associations and avoids some of the inter-ethnic fractional disputes within groups such as the Iraqis and Bosnian. Eventually creating a more broadly-based ethnic association also eases in the bridge building with mainstream organizations and government agencies. While this project does not include a distinct employment services component, increased employment and self-sufficiency opportunities will directly result from greater communication and networking among refugee groups as well as new relationships between the refugee communities and mainstream organizations and businesses.

In both Erie and Central Pennsylvania the isolation of these newly emerging refugee groups is a serious concern. Too many refugees come into their new neighborhoods without a community with which to identify. Critical self-help instruction and modeling is not readily available, retarding both family stabilization and community development. The lack of these resources can lead toward isolation. Such a process have been confirmed through discussions and meetings with many refugee leaders in newly arrived and emerging refugee groups. This project is specifically designed to address many of the organizing issues faced by the refugee communities and the agencies helping them in small and medium-sized resettlement sites. Ethnic community building in these locations lacks the critical mass of individual refugee populations needed for successfully forming discrete organizations. Experience with these populations has taught that refugees who feel isolated and without a sense of community will take longer to become self-sufficient.

Currently sponsored communities in Central PA

ICP currently is supporting two emerging refugee community project in Central Pennsylvania. These include the African Immigrant Community Project and the Bosnian Immigrant Community Project. Both of these community projects is emerging as a unifying force for refugees from these communities.

The African community has chosen the name of Umoja African Cultural Community (UACC). Umoja is a Swahili word (one of Africa’s richest and most widely spoken languages) that literally translated means oneness or unity. The root word is MOJA which means ONE. Umoja is pronounced as: Wu-mo-jar. The prefix U modifies the root word making it a noun, just as -ness does in English.

The mission of the UACC is to create opportunities for all people especially African children and youth to come together to experience, appreciate, preserve an enrich their culture and its diversity and that of others, thereby, strengthening family ties through an ongoing process of education, participation in cultural activities, exposure to other cultures, with the purpose of bridging cultural gaps, facilitating harmonious coexistence in a diverse community and to strengthen commitment to assist the needy, especially African refugees and immigrants to enable them to achieve smooth transition into the host cultures.

ICP will soon sponsor the posting of newsletters and information from both of its community based projects. Check back for upcoming links to information about the Bosnian and African communities in Central PA.