11350 Baroque Rd. Silver Spring, MD 20901 301.593.0241
www.airfound.org
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Dear Sir,
The African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation(AIRF), cordially invites you to our 6th Annual Conference entitled, Keeping the Spirit, Elders as Models and Youth as New Leaders, at Montgomery College, Silver Spring, MD, on Friday and Saturday November 16th and 17th 2007, from 8:30am-5:00pm daily.
Over 200 conference attendees discussed the challenges, triumphs and contributions of African Immigrant and Diaspora youth at last year's conference. Mr. Michael Strautmanis, a Jamaican immigrant and General Counsel for Senator Barack Obama (D, IL) delivered the keynote address on democracy, political education, and community participation.
We also heard presentations from community and student leaders from the United States, Ghana, Eritrea, Kenya, Liberia, Ethiopia, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Sudan...
One of the young men, we featured at the conference was a high school student who we shall refer to as OB. OB was dealing with a number of issues at school and home. At school, he was working to catch up with an education that had been interrupted back home in Africa, by war. Socially, he was negotiating his identity as a new African in America and fighting the recruitment efforts of local gangs. Much to his dismay, a local youth gang was trying to drag him back into a life that he had left behind. The older boys were impressed with his fearlessness in the face of their intimidation tactics.
"They don't understand...after what I've been through, why would they even try to touch me?" ( OB)
On the homefront, OB was fighting to relate to his mother. His mother was working hard at two jobs and working even harder to deal with the loss of her husband to the war. When he was referred to AIRF, OB had been expelled from high school and was beginning to succumb to the enticements of the gang members. He was also becoming more and more estranged from his mother.
Through the work of AIRF founder, Dr. Wanjiru Kamau, and the mentorship of some older men in the organization, we were able to help OB resolve some of the issues. He has since moved away from his old neighborhood and the turf of the gang that was trying to recruit him. He resides with his younger “no-nonsense”aunt and visits his mother on the weekends. This arrangement has provided both mother and son the time and space they both needed to begin the healing process and strengthen their bond. As a result of last year's Conference, OB was accepted at another high school...
…This year we will investigate the institution building capacity of the African immigrant and diaspora community in the Greater Washington area and beyond.
Our objective is two-fold: First, involve elders actively engaged in the process of institution building. Second, by investigating the institution building capacity of the elders, we learn to build the leadership capacity of the youth. This process serves to unify and celebrate the entire community by highlighting the collective efforts of both young and old in preserving and, where needed, modifying tradition for the good of the society.
The AIRF programs that guided our efforts in this year’s Conference are:
- The African Council of Elders Mediation Project which supports African-Centered mediation and conflict resolution approaches for refugees in schools, homes, neighborhoods, worship and work places through referrals from legal systems.
- The African Cultural Competency Training Program which is designed to provide African cultural knowledge, cultural awareness, and skills to work effectively with the African community. Training is provided to care givers, employers, law enforcement, school educators, hospital personnel and to Africans themselves.
In developing the theme for the conference, we operate from the premise that African immigrants, refugees and other communities are not victims or problem to be solved. Instead, each individual and community has valuable contributions designed to shore up deficiencies in the societies that we inhabit. These contributions, if properly developed and advanced, have the potential of helping us to become a more productive, effective and humane society. In this transformative process, the youth are both our present and our future and the elders have the time-honored responsibility of reaching out to youth and pointing out the way(s)…
This conference represents a coming together of our communities. It is our opportunity to reflect on an inspirational elder, and to research their passion and contributions to strengthening our community. In this way, we will connect with that which helps us to preserve and “Keep Our Spirit”.