Project Update June

Dear all,

Another update for the Ahiska Turkish Community Building Project is available on the blog. The technical assistance for the project is being available upon request, and NSC is working with partnering organizations and the community to meet the needs for technical assistance. NSC is looking to extend the project services, however, please note that the project is getting to its end by the end of the month of June 2006. Also, please have a look at the pictures of events held on the blog.

We would like to make an announcement that NSC together with IRC project SOAR and Turkish American Multicultural Family Services is holding a workshop provided by project that will address the conflict issues within the community, leadership building, issues of cultural preservation, negotiation, building the self-help structure within the Meskhetian Turkish community in greater Philadelphia and Lancaster area. The workshop is going to be held on July 22nd, the place and exact times will be reported once the logistics and agenda are confirmed. We are hoping to get leaders as well as potential leaders of the community together for a day of discussion about the community leadership trends, acquiring negotiation skills and talking about self-help and cultural preservation. Women and young people who are involved in the community are encouraged to attend. We are hoping to get a diverse group of people from the community who could play roles of leaders in the community. Please contact Leyla Dursunova at (215) 893-8400 for more information, or if any member of the community you are working with is interested in attending, they would need to RSVP in advance. The community leader, Mikael Latipov, arrived to Philadelphia from Krasnodar recently, who was an organizer of the hunger strike in 2002 together with human rights activists that caught attention of the international community. We are excited to have Mr. Latipov on board with the project. We appreciate the opportunity of having project SOAR's input into the project and value the established collaboration between the two agencies and we are looking forward to continue accessing the resources and assistance provided by IRC.

NSC project coordinator went to Vermont in order to provide technical assitance to the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program there. On the 29th of March the coordinator met with staff and service providers (health, education, social serivces) working with the Meskhetian Turkish population. The presentation included the cultural and historical background of the refugee population, lessons learned from the resettlement program in Philadelphia, informational session on NSC’s community building efforts, as well as questions and answers. On the 30th of March the project coordinator will meet with the ethnic community in Vermont for a questions and answers session, as well as together with the staff to identify most pressing needs of the community. The general information about the resettlement program in the U.S. and about issues that were of an interest to the community were discussed, as well as resettlement experiences and stories of Meskhetians in Philadelphia were shared with the community.

ORR regional workshop
The NSC coordinator and Director of Social Services department attended a workshop organized by ORR by the IRC’s project SOAR. The valuable information on the work and issues of ethnic CBOs, leadership trends within ethnic communities, and community building and development was gathered at the conference, and it also offered a great opportunity to network with the ethnic CBOs nationwide and learn from their experiences.

On May 27th NSC together with Turkish American Multicultural Family Services organized the financial literacy and home ownership workshop for community in Lancaster. The training focused on building credit history strategies as well as home ownership. The workshop was conducted in Turkish by volunteer professionals in the field, thanks to the Turkish American Multicultural Family Services. We also value and acknowledge great collaborative efforts from Lutheran Children and Family Services and Church World Services offices in Lancaster for all their support in putting a workshop together and outreaching to the community.

Please check out the pictures from the trip to Please Touch museum, World Refugee Day dance by the Ahiska Turkish dancing group organized by Nargiza Karimova, as well as pictures from the picnic on June 17th.

The photo documentary project was introduced to the youth at the picnic where they were asked to document their lives in the U.S. using photography. The photos will be developed and posted on the web log.

Please contact us with any question or concerns.