Thread: NE-Workers center to offer training for immigrants

Workers center to offer training for immigrants

OMAHA.com
June 8, 2009
BY CINDY GONZALEZ

Day laborers and immigrants have a new place to go to build leadership skills and learn about rights and responsibilities on the job.

The Heartland Workers Center in south Omaha — created ultimately to increase political and civic participation among foreigners and their families — was announced Sunday at a luncheon that culminated a three-day leadership training workshop for immigrants.

Mayor-elect Jim Suttle, along with Omaha State Sens. Brenda Council, Jeremy Nordquist and Heath Mello, joined more than 50 workshop participants at the luncheon at the Regency Lodge near 107th and Pacific Streets.

Both the Workers Center and the training were part of an ongoing effort by groups including the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Office of Latin American Studies to address challenges that confront communities in flux because of immigration.

The weekend event, funded by a Ford Foundation grant, was described as historic because it brought noted organizers from countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico to provide the training for immigrants living in a dozen cities in Nebraska and other Midwestern states.

Oscar Chacón, director of the Chicago-based National Alliance of Latin American & Caribbean Communities, said foreign facilitators have success by offering a different level of trust and understanding of the immigrant workers' history.

He said the dialogue and partnerships are to continue, although the training sessions already produced results.

Iliana Casillas, for example, plans to return to Columbus, Neb., and apply the techniques she learned to develop a legal assistance office for immigrants. She also now has more contacts and resources to draw upon for expert advice.

Lucia Simon, a student at Omaha's College of St. Mary, said she picked up communication tips and feels better-equipped to motivate other students to participate in campus and outside affairs.

Other payoffs will come later, Chacón said, as the budding leaders step into key roles that shape their fate in their new communities as well as the countries from which they came.

"We are the fastest-growing minority in the country," he said of Latinos. "We have a huge load on our shoulders."

He said local immigrants are uniquely positioned to apply U.S.-learned strategies to change conditions economically and politically in their native lands. That will reduce demand to leave.

"The happier people are, the less likely they'll think of migration as a way of solving their troubles," said Chacón.

The Heartland Workers Center, based at the Latino Center of the Midlands, 4821 S. 24th St., is among ways Latino leaders hope to build skills and leadership capacity, said director Sergio Sosa.

Already, the center is working with day laborers who gather in a south Omaha parking lot. Some passers-by have complained that the men make them uncomfortable and leave litter in the area.

The hope, said Sosa, is to find a more private facility where the workers can also take English and computer classes while waiting for an employer to offer them a day's work.

Funded by the Mammel Foundation, the center has medical, legal, academic and other professional partners to offer guidance to low-wage laborers and their families.

Sosa expects the center's work to benefit the overall community by increasing job-related safety and encouraging involvement in local affairs.

"The workers will be learning not only about rights, but about responsibilities," he said.

Contact the Omaha World-Herald newsroom

http://www.omaha.com/article/20090608/NEWS01/306089728

AIDING AND ABETTING!

Quote:
"The Heartland Workers Center in south Omaha — created ultimately to increase political and civic participation among foreigners and their families — was announced Sunday at a luncheon that culminated a three-day leadership training workshop for immigrants.

Mayor-elect Jim Suttle, along with Omaha State Sens. Brenda Council, Jeremy Nordquist and Heath Mello, joined more than 50 workshop participants at the luncheon at the Regency Lodge near 107th and Pacific Streets.


"The weekend event, FUNDED BY A FORD FOUNDATION GRANT, was described as historic because it brought noted organizers from countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico to provide the training for immigrants living in a dozen cities in Nebraska and other Midwestern states."


Native-born U.S. citizens are out of work across the Midwestern United States: where are the job skills and political and civic leadership training workshops for them and their families?

It is a credit to Edsel Ford that he quit the Board of Directors of the Ford Foundation because he thought it was moving too far away from the principles of its founder, his grandfather.