Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003• You explained how the meeting is important to the community and whatthe participants would get from the meeting.• You asked for a firm commitment to host a meeting.2. Role Play B and Exercise: How to convince a community member to come to ameeting.The trainer will first model the role-play and then will lead a discussion of therole-play before the participants do their own practice sessions.The trainer plays the role of a leader trying to convince other communitymembers to come to a meeting on naturalization. The trainer should choose one ofthe leaders to play the role of a community member who may or may not have aninterest in coming to the meeting. The community member will play the role of amember of a church or some other organization that is hosting the meeting nextweek. The trainer will try to convince the community member of the importanceof the meeting. The trainer should do the following during the role-play:• Start the role-playing by introducing yourself.• Tell what group you are from;• Explain what the group is about, and describe the positive things the groupdoes;• Share the purpose of the meeting and the time and date of the meeting.• Explain why the meeting is important to the community, and what thecommunity member and his or her family and friends would get from themeeting.• Give the community member a copy of a flyer announcing the meeting,and try and get a commitment to attend.3. Student PracticeThe students should break into 7-8 small groups with a trainer assigned to eachgroup. As time permits, half the students will practice convincing a minister tohost a meeting while the other half plays the ministers who need to be convincedto host a session. Then they can switch roles.4. CritiqueIf time permits, trainers and students critique each other on what they did wellduring their practices and what could be improved. If there is not enough time, thetrainers should say a couple of things about each role-play that went well and oneor two things that could be improved for next time. If there is enough time to do afull group critique, before doing a group critique, please review the followingrules on critiquing fellow students so the critiques are helpful and serve as an aidto improve. The trainers should be instrumental in making sure these rules arestrictly followed. The rules on critiquing others are:• First, give the leader a chance to critique himself or herself.12-37