Representatives from the six organizations to receive the grant. (Photo by ACRS)
At last year’s community meeting for the Youth and Families Initiative, local organizations called for more culturally relevant job readiness training for refugees and immigrant youth. Last week, after a competitive application process, six out of 17 community agencies were selected to receive grants for a new program to train immigrant and refugee youth in preparation for the workplace.
Mayor Mike McGinn announces the six grant recipients. (Photo by ACRS)
Mayor Mike McGinn announced the recipients, which include the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, El Centro de la Raza, Refugee’s Women’s Alliance, Horn of Africa, Vietnamese Friendship Association, and Open Doors for Multicultural Families. The program will target immigrant and refugee youth from 15 to 20 years of age and their family members who speak the non-English languages most common in Seattle Public Schools (Amharic, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Oromiffa, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese). The youth training will cover submitting job applications and resumes, interview skills, and exploration of career options. The youth and family training will include topics like financial literacy, income taxes, public benefits, and secondary education options. Parents will receive instruction and gain knowledge about the U.S. education system in order to support, encourage, and advocate for their children. (end)
This action must be put in context of supposedly having lean and mean times necessitating many cuts. Plus this adds another incentive for increasingly unsustainable numbers of immigrants coming here. This city has made a mockery of the word “sustainable.”