Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization

The space program seeks to bridge the gap between schools and community, and therefore the academic disparities for African immigrant children with the following goals as its main drivers: a) empowered parents-training and organizing parents so they develop the skills, confidence and knowledge they need to be leaders and advocates in their children's learning development and b) culturally-informed educators, training educators and school staff to ensure appropriate engagement, education and care is available to all youths and families will result to c) sustained success for somali youths, ultimately, ensure that somali youths will be ready for sustained success in school and in life. We worked in three Oregon school districts (reynolds, beaverton, hillsboro) and one in Minnesota (isd 742). (continued on schedule o) our preschool, cairo academy, operated 5 preschool classrooms in the portland metro area, with a total of 96 students. The majority of our students are low income (<200% fpl) and from the African immigrant and refugee communities. The cairo early childhood equity programs are culturally specific services targeting African immigrant and refugee families with children aged 0-5 years old in the portland metropolitan area.

Our job training program in Minnesota supports bilingual students attain a commercial drivers license (cdl) through a training program. We pay for students to receive cdl license training, support finding jobs, and receive financial literacy training to better manage their personal or business finances. In Oregon we provided youth with enteprenurship training. We helped them write buisness plans and assistance launching their businesses. We provided resume writing workshops for youth aged 14-24.

We provide an array of health and social services to the African immigrant and refugee communities in Oregon and Minnesota. We provided support to families during covid isolation and quarantine periods, and provided wraparound social service such as paying a month of rent, weekly groceries, utilities, and health care. We provided outreach and education around covid-19 effects and what self-isolation looks like. We have also provided vaccine education and outreach, such as making appointments for clients, hosting monthly vaccine events both onsite and door to door clinics. We partnered with other nonprofits to maximize our efforts in vaccine outreach and education. We also offered tobacco health education and worked to prevent youth tobacco use. (continued on schedule o)we also provided parenting education services, parent-child interactions (p-3 specialist) services and kindergarten transition services. We also offered eviction prevention rent relief program in Oregon for low income households in multnomah and Washington counties.

In Minnesota, we adovcated for tenant rights and hosted a law firm to provide free legal services to our community members.