NGEC Fellows explore community voice, risk

The leadership teams of the 6 Organization Fellows of the National Gender Equity Campaign gathered on November 14th at the Neighborhood House.

The objective was to train on organization alignment within social justice work. Peggy Saika, the executive director from Asian Pacific Islanders In Philanthropy came and gave great support to the organizations efforts.

One of the pivotal training exercises of the day asked the group to understand the relationship between visionaries, communicators and implementers and to discuss effective approaches to helping people build a shared model of a community.

The groups worked together to map out plans and opportunities for 2010 to strengthen the strategic work of the organizations individually and as a cohort.

Bryan Thao Worra, a staff member of the Lao Assistance Center suggested to Mu Performing Arts that effort be made to designate the summer of 2010 a summer for Asian American Arts, citing the numerous arts and cultural festivals the Minnesota community is organizing next year including the CHAT Hmong Arts Festival, the Dragon Festival and the Lao Writers' Summit.

Chongchith Saengsudham will be taking the lead organizing with CAPI on a new coalition of refugee and immigrant women to strengthen their voices in the community in the future.

Executive director Sunny Chantanouvong offered many of his insights and perspectives in guiding the Lao Assistance Center through 2009 on issues of social justice and how there have been efforts to train and familiarize all of the different stakeholders with the issues and opportunities.

During this session, Sunny offered his direct peer advice to the staff of the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women as both organizations were asked how they deal with risk and the potential of conflicting with perceived 'traditional' values while building community.

Kevin Xiong from Shades of Yellow was continuing work to build the organization to meet the needs of GLBT Hmong, and shared some of his perspective from a recent trip to Thailand and Laos, and also a meeting with Dr. Vinya Sysamouth from the Center for Lao Studies.

This was a productive meeting with many positive reports from the other fellows and intensive peer exchange. Culture shift, risk taking and responsibility were frequently mentioned and discussed.

The participants discussed the relationship of boards, community members, staff, executive directors, funders and partner organizations in generating social schange.