Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003project’s impact within the community will increase exponentially. By the end of the third year theleaders will be ready to become even more involved in local issues, commissions and committees.Centro’s community immigrant leadership training project is expected to have long-lasting andpositive impact: new leadership in several communities; an increased number of naturalizedcitizens who are cognizant of their rights and responsibilities as U.S. citizens and their impact onlocal elections and governmental bodies; increased political influence on local, state and possiblynational issues; and a long-lasting, stable community-based organization serving the civic needs ofimmigrants.§ 10.3 Memorializing the Leadership ProjectThere are many important reasons to keep records of any leadership and civic participation projectsyour agency conducts:• It is easier to evaluate the success of the project if you have a record of how youconducted it. You are better able to see what areas went well and in what ways theproject could be improved.• It will be easier to develop reports about the project for anyone else, such as a fundingsource, if you can refer back to records of the project.• It will be easier to repeat and improve on the project later if you can refer back to agood record.• The leaders themselves and others in the community may want to remember what theydid, how they did it and the success they had.• Reports, newspaper articles and videos of the project can serve as outstandingmarketing tools to encourage others in the community to work on similar projects.• You should try to share what you did and learned with people in other communities andother areas throughout the United States so more immigrants and refugees learn thebest ways to be active leaders building more power among immigrants.There are many ways to memorialize a leadership project. We suggest you use a combination ofmethods tailored to your organization’s needs, resources and abilities. Following are some waysother organizations have memorialized their projects:• Keeping a journal of the entire training and any community activities that the leadersdid as part of the training• Writing a curriculum for the training and making notes about how the actual trainingdiffered from the planned curriculum• Making a video of the training and some of the community events the leaders did as aresult• Inviting a reporter from a local newspaper to do a story or series of stories on theproject• Inviting a reporter from the local TV or radio station to cover the training or acommunity event from the training10-3