Sub-categories in this issue

• Racial/Religious Profiling
• Driver's License Eligibility
• Education for Immigrant Youth - Dream Act
• Heath disparities
• Racial Conflict between immigrant groups
• Legal barriers to successful integration - 287G program 

Types of Service   short-term  |  ongoing school year  |  summer

•  African Services Coalition—Volunteer with an African immigrant or refugee at their home. Tutor the children, help adults with their English proficiency through general conversation, and assist adults with basic socialization skills.  
• Glenhaven Multicultural After School Tutorial – Provides tutoring and mentoring to children, who are refugees from the highlands of Vietnam, as well as children from Liberia, the Sudan, and many other countries. Serve as a mentor and plan field trips.  Tutees within the center are facing many different issues that include internalized racial inferiority; racism within their schools; society and their peers; anger management and post-traumatic stress from their memories of living in the refugee camps or living in war-torn nations, and so much more.  Tutors work to help with students' homework, but also as figures of compassion, support and motivation. 
• Glenwood Library ESOL with Adult Immigrants—Work with Immigrant adults from various countries to increase their English proficiency, assist with acclimation to the community and offer cultural exchanges.  

•  

  Latino IMPACT- This site is looking to increase the number of Latinas and Latinos in college; and to accomplish that goal, there are two different groups: the middle school tutoring, which meets twice a week at their respective local schools to tutor in different subjects and to participate in prevention and retention activities and workshops, and the youth group team, which meets once a week to mentor and prepare Latino and Latina high schoolers to go to college, at Bennett College, a local college.

  Project Here has now been renamed Latino Impact.** 

•  

  Newcomers Schools - GCS Newcomers School serves recently arrived immigrant and refugee students in grades 3-12 who are novice English speakers. Guilford students serve in a variety of ways: Permaculture garden, Lunch Buddies, Teacher's assistants, Art activities

Academic Work   courses  |  service-learning  |  CBR and policy research   |  departments and institutes

• Guilford College's Justice and Policy Studies Department offers two majors: (1) Community and Justice Studies and (2) Criminal Justice.  Community and Justice focuses on policies and strategies of community organizing and working with public service organizations.  Criminal Justice focuses on policies, history and problems of the American criminal justice system, and working within the justice system to enact change.  Both of these majors emphasize problem-solving, civic activism, civic engagement, strategies for changing organizations and encouraging students to participate in experiential learning and internships.  Both majors are intended for students who wish to community organize and working within public services.  Through various courses offered students are encouraged to engage within the Greensboro community.  Examples of courses within Justice and Policy Studies offered:
•       Literacy Seminar- in this course students are trained as literacy tutors and spend four hours per week tutoring in community literacy programs.   Students are also pushed to examine larger issues of literacy, education, and related issues within America.
• Community Problem Solving- In this course students are introduced to the processes of building community, as well as garnering critical thinking abilities and community problem-solving skills that involve identifying the problem, coordinating individuals into groups, and aiding groups to come up with a feasible and functional plan to enact change. Different types of community organizing are explored, as well as an emphasis placed upon the differences of helping and serving.  Students taking Community Problem Solving must work with a community organization, to learn more about the importance of community organizing and through service learning, will participate.  

• Language Courses prepare Guilford students in language training that will be useful for translation purposes or other cross-cultural community interaction.
• Languages offered include : Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, French
• Education Studies majors are required to do field work in terms of partnering with various organizations and schools to work with children from various backgrounds and cultures.  Classes offered include:
•  Field Study in Cross-Cultural Education in United States is a course that focuses on working and teaching children from diverse cultures within the United States, rather than studying abroad. The broad purpose of this course is to provide education studies majors with the opportunity to immerse themselves, as much as possible, in an unfamiliar culture; to experience what it means to be “other” than the dominant culture; and to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to successfully teach children from many cultures.
• Independent Studies and Internships allow students to actually work in depth with the school systems and the children through service learning to determine their needs, the area where education for diverse groups of children is lacking, and the various issues that effect these children. 
• **Internships are offered throughout various majors to allow students to explore and engage in multiculturalism and pluralism.
• Psychology Majors have the option to take a course, "Multiculturalism and Psychology." This course examines various areas in which multiculturalism has been applied, such as education, mental health and counseling and inter-group relations. Students investigate cultural differences in development, examine cultural and personal identity and explore ways of improving relations among cultures.  Psychology majors are expected to to avoid simple explanations for societal behavior but rather, recognize the role of multiple causation in the determination of human behavior to begin to enact change within society to allow all the opportunity to good mental health.
• Peace and Conflict Studies is an interdisciplinary major that studies the nature of conflict and violence, the possibilities of social change, and the means for resolving and transforming conflict nonviolently.  It encourages a relationship between personal and social change, structured modes of conflict resolution and creative nonviolent activism, careful analysis of structural violence and exploration for foundations for peaceable living and action.  An example of courses offered:
• Human Rights provides an overview of the formulation and spread of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the course's main goals is to develop a critical understanding of the concept of human rights by paying attention to how power operates, and avoiding conflating the need to ensure the well-being of all human and other (in the case of certain other world-views) beings with the human rights movement in its dominant form.          
• Sociology and Anthropology majors study society and culture.  Sociology and anthropology help provide specific knowledge and theoretical frameworks as bases for understanding our relationships with society, culture and each other and for comprehending and guiding socio-cultural change.  Sociology and Anthropology majors and deeply encouraged to intern at multicultural organizations and study abroad to enhance cross cultural and multicultural understanding and education.  Courses offered include:
• Cultural Anthropology is an introduction to the study of culture and society in comparative perspective. Multiculturalism and pluralism are concepts that are stressed and embraced.  Concepts of privilege in regards to race, class, and gender are examined for students to gain a critical awareness of the differences between cultures and how various societies places these differences as categories to separate and oppress "others."
• Economic Anthropology explores the most central anthropological issues of human nature, choice, values, morality, peoples’ economic lives, issues of poverty and development that shape the world and how various cultures are affected by these factors. This course provides a solid basis for applying anthropological knowledge to real-world situations.
• Latino Migration Patterns explores the historical roots and the current economic and political forces, both local and global, that stimulate contemporary out-migration between selected Latin American countries and the U.S. while also discussing how immigrants negotiate their social roles and create “transnational communities” through their border crossings.

Education & Training   forums  |  workshops  |  reflection activities

• Soy Un Lider Conference-created and coordinated by students (2007), Soy Un Lider, "I am Leader" is a one day conference to promote and encourage Latino high schoolers to move onto higher institutions of education.  We hosted a variety of workshops that dealt with the college application process, providing information for documented and undocumented students (and what to do if you are undocumented), affordability and financial aid options, a college fair with over 7 local colleges speaking to students and providing brocheres and pamphlets, and empowering them to become leaders.  We also provided college tours and a lunch that took place within the Guilford Campus cafeteria so that Soy Un Lider students could interact with other participating schools, as well as Guilford College students and teachers.  This conference works to make college not just a dream for Latinos, but a reality. On average, approximately 170 students attend the conference each year.
• Multicultural MLK celebration- On Martin Luther King Day, also renowned as being a day of service, all of the children from our committed service sites, as well as Bonner Scholars, Guilford students, and members from the Greensboro community at Guilford participate and watch an array of various multicultural performances to celebrate one another in the richness of our diversity.
• Anti-Racism Workshop- The anti-racism workshop is a three day workshop that begins to uncover and deconstruct the concept and notion of race, demonstrating how it has been socially constructed and continues to work as a tool to oppress and disadvantage people who are non-white, while empowering and advancing whites.  This workshop works as a platform to motivate students to recognize how they have and are contributing to the system of white supremacy and provoke them to continue to work to become anti-racist, as well as encouraging their peers and others to participate by enacting dialogue.  (Currently halted due to budget cuts)
• Glenhaven Tutor Training: Due to the sensitive nature of working with refugee children, all tutors are required to complete a Multicultural training before tutoring at Glenhaven.  The training is geared towards educating tutors about the impact that it means to be a refugee, the living situations and hostile conditions in which these children have come from, the historical context from which they have become refugees, as well as prepping tutors for the do's and don'ts of working with children and strategies for being the most effective tutors.  Because these children do not speak english as their first language,   Multiculturalism and pluralism are at the root of the training to remind tutors to be nurturing and compassionate towards the children's struggles and help them to celebrate their unique and diverse cultures.
• AFSC Immigration Toolkit - The American Friends Service Committee Area Office of the Carolinas has collaborated with the North Carolina Council of Churches to compile a faith-based resource toolbox for the North Carolina on immigration issues. This collection is packed with current, relevant and reliable information concerning the legal, economic, and social aspects of immigration as well as ideas for worship and tips on how to get involved. http://www.welcometheimmigrant.org/toolbox or you can order a hardcopy edition for pickup at the AFSC’s Greensboro office (6307 W. Market St. Greensboro, NC 27409; 336-854-0633).  $5-$10 dollar suggested donation for hard copies, checks made out to NC Council of Churches.

Campus and Organizational Capacity-Building   training  |  fundraising  |  resource development

•   Community Garden (Newcomer's School):
• Access to College (Soy un Lider Conference)

Research, Policy Analysis, Deliberative Democracy   evaluations  |  policy research  | issue forums  |  advocacy

• Next Generation North Carolina Task Force- The overall goal of the Next Generation North Carolina Task Force is to provide research, resources and programs to member campuses as they work to increase retention and graduation rates of undergraduates typically underrepresented on North Carolina campuses. http://org.elon.edu/nccc/nextGen/index.html 
• The Center for New North Carolinians works to help build bridges amongst immigrant populations and existing communities throughout the state of North Carolina through programs by providing Outreach and Educational Programming, Research and Evaluation, Information Services,  Technical Support, and Immigrant and Refugee Leadership Development. http://cnnc.uncg.edu/
• The Montagnard Human Rights Organization is a non-profit organization located in Raleigh, NC that works to provide support, resources and programs to benefit the welfare of the Montagnyard people living in the United States and the Central highlands of Vietnam, as well as working for the advancement of their rights. http://www.mhro.org/mhro.html
• Through the Department of Human Health and Services of NC, there is a distinct division of social services provided solely for refugees and immigrants, recognizing the size of the immigrant and refugee population and the need to have services specifically for them.  There are an array of organizations offered within the Department of Human Health and Services that offer a variety or programs, resources and support to improve and better the quality of life for the refugee and immigration population.  http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/dss/refugee/nc_refugee_service_providers.htm
• In recent months, the 287g or ICE program has emerged as a major issue in Guilford county. Guilford students have partnered with other groups to stop the implementation of this program. Two forums were held to ask questions of the county sheriff and the Greensboro police chief. The 287g program is seen by opponents as racist, divisive and it doesn't work. Supporters of  287 G see it as an effective tool for Homeland Security and to help curb illegal immigration. Please follow the link below for information on the community's efforts to stop 287g in Guilford County, as well as a fact sheet form the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE).

http://www.belovedcommunitycenter.org/newsview/621a2783175c11ba06f336c4b8a2a303

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/section287_g.htm 

• Dream Act 2009- In March 2009, the DREAM ACT was reintroduced to Congress. This legislation will consider undocumented young people to be eligible for a conditional path to citizenship in exchange for a mandatory two years in higher education or military service.

         http://dreamact.info/

• The quest for cohesive education for undocumented immigrants - http://www.race-talk.org/?p=3846

• Contacts   staff  |  faculty  |  students  |  community partners (local, regional, national)

• James Shields, Director of Community Learning
• phone: 336-316-2447, jshields@guilford.edu
• Elizabeth Balof-Bird, Bonner Scholars Coordinator
• 336-316-2452, balofbirdte@guilford.edu
• African Services Coalition Student Project Coordinator, Gilian M'Maitsi
• 336-337-3587
• Glenhaven Multicultural Afterschool Tutorial Center Coordinator, Stephanie Baldwin 336-312-8209 
• Glenhaven Multicultural After School Tutorial Student Project Coordinator, Marshall Jeffries
• 336-504-9013
• Glenwood Library ESOL With Adult Immigrants Student Project Coordinator, Saron Smith-Hardin
• 203-376-3657
• Latino IMPACT Student Project Coordinators, Yazmin Garcia Rico and Isael Sotelo Morales
• 336-260-9703, 256-527-3477
• Newcomers School Project Coordinator/ Americorps Vista, Amanda Szabo 
• 336-316-2456
• THE BELOVED COMMUNITY CENTER — Fostering & Modeling a Spirit of "Beloved Community"

  Mailing: P.O. Box 875, Greensboro, NC 27402 — Office: 417 Arlington St., Greenssboro, NC 27406

  Homeless Hopsitality House: 437 Arlington St., Greensboro, NC 27406

  (336) 230-0001 — (336) 230-2428 fax — info@belovedcommunitycenter.org