Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

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Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003• Immigrant communities, led by the participants in the Inspiring Leadership Initiative,eagerly engaged in the project, implementing new community-based programs,forging coalitions, and, in one instance, creating a mutual aid association.• The LIRS ambassadors embraced their mentoring role, using their new connectionswith the community to learn new perspectives and to move into new and excitingareas of advocacy.• Seventeen leaders asked to become ambassadors, formally representing LIRS in thebroader U.S. society.The project helped LIRS to identify the critical components of success:• Relationships matter! The project benefited from a strong emphasis on building andfostering relationships, and using relationship-building as a key approach to bridgebuilding.• Learn by doing. Experiential, hands-on learning methods worked particularly well; acommunity learns more by holding a press conference than studying how to do one.• Coach and mentor to success. Ongoing mentoring and coaching was provided to boththe immigrant leaders and service provider staff. Both local ambassadors and LIRSnational staff provided support through one-on-one consultations, site visits, meetingsand conferences.• Networks are stronger than individuals. LIRS facilitated the building of networks andfostered the feeling of being part of a larger group by holding monthlyteleconferences, utilizing an email listserv, providing opportunities for action andadvocacy.• You can’t be too flexible. Each site identified different communities, identifieddifferent needs and took different approaches to working together. From hostingcooking classes so that immigrants could learn the art of the American-style birthdaycake to reaching out to local police to develop greater mutual understanding, eachcommunity designed a unique approach to empowering the community.The service providers that participated in the initiative all exhibited certain characteristics thatled to the success of the initiative: an organizational culture of flexibility and openness;awareness and recognition of the changing needs in the community; support at high managementlevels, with an acknowledgement that the organization’s mission was carried out throughcommunity development; experienced staff; and a value on appropriate risk-taking,resourcefulness and creativity.Some of the lessons LIRS learned during the two-year pilot phase included the need for strongcultural competencies in all participants. Every person comes from or has a culture—a surfaceculture comprising folkways and customs such as food, dress and music, and a deep culture,including attitudes toward time, modesty, respect, family and community. Both native- andforeign-born participants needed to look beyond the surface culture markers and learn to delvedeeper into understandings of the deep cultural differences.The Inspiring Leadership Initiative worked closely with the Immigration Legal Resource Center(ILRC) to develop curriculum and training methodology and materials. Founded in 1979, ILRC2-3
Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003is a San Francisco-based national resource center whose mission is to work with immigrants andcitizens to make critical legal assistance and social services accessible to all, regardless ofincome, and to build a society that values diversity and respects the dignity and rights of allpeople. ILRC specializes in providing training, technical assistance and publications tononprofits who work with immigrants. ILRC’s work centers on issues concerning immigrationand citizenship law, policy and advocacy work, community organizing, leadership training, andimmigrants’ rights.The goals of the Inspiring Leadership Initiative were met by the following means:• Building links among LIRS ambassadors, immigrants and service providers.• Developing a new ambassador role as mentor and key team member at each pilot site.• Engaging ambassadors to serve as mentors to community leaders and developing peerpartnerships between community leaders and ambassadors working together onbehalf of LIRS and their communities.• Training community leaders to become ambassadors and facilitating access to theapplication process.• Building skills through national and local training through our conference and on-sitevisits. On going coaching and mentoring through teleconferences, site visits, one-ononetelephone consultations, listserv and newsletter.• Linking immigrant communities with traditional U.S. power structures andinstitutions and with other immigrant communities.§ 2.3 The LIRS Inspiring Leadership Initiative TrainingAs part of the Inspiring Leadership Project, LIRS and ILRC held a three-day leadership trainingin December 2000 in Baltimore. This training helped provide much of the material for thismanual. The event involved approximately 35 people from five different CBOs: Lutheran FamilyServices of Nebraska, Lutheran Refugee Services of Colorado, Political Asylum Project ofAustin, Lutheran Social Ministry of the Southwest and Lutheran Social Ministries of NewJersey. Each CBO sent one to three staff members, one LIRS ambassador and two to eightcommunity leaders who had immigrated to the United States from Africa, Latin America, Asiaand Europe.The purposes of the training were as follows:• Introducing the participants to skill building exercises.• Encouraging participants to start thinking about how to initiate leadership trainingand development in the communities that they serve.• Training volunteers to help CBOs provide better services.• Stimulating civic engagement activities.The first day of the training was designed for staff members of the participating CBOs and theambassadors who volunteer with them. Approximately 15 people were present. The second and2-4
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§ 8.9 ConclusionInspiring Leadersh
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B. Critique of the brainstorm sessi
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