Somali & Latino Neighbors' Cultural Awareness Workshop

Somali Women's Association

The Somali community is the fastest growing refugee population in Portland while Latinos are the largest immigrant population. In November, 2007 over 40 community members learned about Portland's Somali & Latino Community at

Central NE Neighbors. The cultural awareness workshop was led by Lul Abdulle of the Somali Women's Association (SWA) and Marco Mejia of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). These community leaders provided a presentation on aspects of Somali & Latino culture followed by a discussion.

                                                                              AFSC project with Latino youth

Somali Outreach Project

Somali Neighbors in Cully Connecting
Lul Abdulle of the Somali Women's Association has been working on Somali family outreach for Central NE Neighbors as part of our Community Engagement activities. Since June Lul has talked to about 40 families living in the CNN area. Many Somalis expressed the desire to connect to their community and are happy to have an opportunity to voice their concerns and to be more informed.

Through these conversations the connection to schools, neighborhood safety, youth involvement, and culturally specific communications are key community issues. The goal of this effort is to build on the identified needs by providing opportunities for networking with community groups, neighborhood leaders and service providers in the area. As well the idea is to build cultural awareness of Somali families in their neighborhood.

 Lul expressed:  "The majority of the community emphasized to get a free space to meet in order to educate themselves about the City of Portland and the way the system in this country works. For them it was a great news the offer CNN made about using its building during the weekend for community support group and leadership education. Plus CNN offered to bring speakers from the City of Portland especially ONI to talk about their programs and other community projects taking place within the City."

Community Awareness Project with the Native American Youth and Family Center

The "Together We Solve Community Awareness" Cross-Training project is a collaboration of NAYA and CNN with neighborhood, and under-represented groups.

The project consists of cross-cultural focus groups lead by local Native American Youth. The youth will be guided by NAYA's Youth and Elders council and partners. The goal is to build ties between community groups using engagement tools such as the Listening Circle. The idea is to share methods of community and problem solving strategies that build community capacity.

The project involves three workshops and a community event. The first focus group is with Latino youth from the neighborhood.

Leadership Workshop

Central Northeast Neighbors (CNN) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) collaborated to conduct a two-day leadership workshop at Madison High School in 2006. The workshops were initiated to connect youth to their community.

About 150 students participated from the leadership classes at Madison High School. The curriculum included various activities based on Popular Education to explore diverse views about community and participation.

We engaged in a dialogue about the place and role of youth in the community with an emphasis on social responsibility. One student expressed: "The reason why I get involved is to put myself in the shoes of others less fortunate" . Different perspectives were heard that ranged from the need for more community involvement to overcome issues such as gang violence to starting with being engaged in their school.