African Immigrants in North America do contribute to community building

On December 12th, 2013, the African Immigrants and Senior Citizen Institute, USA held a teleconference leadership series workshop entitled “Are African Immigrants contributing to community building?”. There were 28 people on the call. The two guest speakers were Dr. Peter N. Abotchie, President of the Council of Ewe Associations of North America and Lady Amie Jallah, Program Director for City Gate’s Out-of-School Time programming and Co-founder of the Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation. The moderator of the teleconference was Dr. Doris Dzameshie, the Program Director of African Immigrants and Senior Citizens Institute. Both speakers agreed that African Immigrants in North America and Canada were contributing to community building. This has been done by providing scholarships to students in Junior and High schools, building class room blocks, distributing clothing and food, holding English as a Second Language classes and afterschool programs in low income neighborhoods. Some of the other programs organized by African immigrants include coordinating a family life center, holding legal services and economic empowerment workshops and having cultural shows to entertain seniors in retirement homes. To further help in community building most African Immigrants join groups like Council of Ewe Associations of North America, Council of Ghanaian Associations or belong to small community faith based churches like Bethel and Alafia Church. These organizations come together as a group to help each other with socioeconomic problems or to celebrate major life events.

Some notable quotes of the teleconference include

“Social support is very important to the wellbeing of the African Immigrant” – Dr. Peter N. Abotchie

“Grant funders love to see organizations collaborate on presented proposals.”- Lady Amie Jallah

“One of the bottlenecks to community building is fundraising and should therefore be done all year round” - Mr. Seshie Artie

“How can people contribute to community building if they do not have documentation and nobody is addressing that issue”- Mr. Vincent Kossi

“Other minority groups are taking advantage of the community services so why are African Immigrants not doing the same?” - Tsatsu Nyamadi

“Leaders in the African Immigrant community need to find better ways of collaborating with each other” – Mr. Mawuli Agbenu

Recommendations from the teleconference include:

1. There is a need for more collaboration among the immigrant groups

2. The need for quarterly webinars or town halls on relevant issues like immigration at local hometown association meetings

3. The importance of information gathering and dissemination in a timely manner to the community

4. There should be an increase in the use of social media like Facebook sites and websites to disseminate information relevant to the socioeconomic problems of African Immigrants.

5. Hometown Associations and community based churches need to become more active in advocating for the immigration needs of the individuals in the various groups.

CEANA Website - http://www.ceanaonline.org/

AISCII Website - http://www.aiscii.org/

Transcribed by Dr. Doris Dzameshie