Family Empowerment Program
ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL)
In collaboration with Metropolitan Family Services, the AAAN provides two levels of ESL classes for over 75 women per year on the southwest side of Chicago and the Southwest Suburbs, respectively.
CITIZENSHIP/CIVICS EDUCATION
In partnership with CAAAELII, instructors provide personalized tutoring to help students prepare for the U.S. Citizenship Exam, and workshops and Parenting Skills classes to support Arab and Muslim immigrants in learning about and understanding life in the U.S. In the last five years, 98% of AAAN students have passed their Citizenship Exams on the first try. We also assist in the filling out of basic immigration forms, and refer clients to lawyers and advocates for immigration counseling.
CASE MANAGEMENT
Translation, interpretation, childcare, transportation, and other services provided to help 450 families in the community navigate basic safety-net and other social services, as well as a vast referral network providing legal assistance, housing advocacy, counseling, social work, and support to domestic violence survivors.
PUBLIC AID BENEFITS OUTREACH AND INTERPRETATION
In partnership with ICIRR and the Illinois Department of Human Services, trained case managers educate and provide translation and interpretation services to community residents accessing public benefits. The staff for this program also provide much-needed advocacy for their clients, who often face linguistic, religious, and cultural barriers in accessing government institutions.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROGRAM
Linguistic, religious, and cultural barriers have limited the capacity of organizations in the broader domestic violence community to provide effective services to Arab and Muslim survivors of domestic violence. The goal of AAAN’s domestic violence program is to provide prevention and intervention services to individuals and families in the Arab and Muslim communities of the greater Chicagoland area. It is our vision to reduce the problem of violence against men, women and children in our community. We are currently focusing on community outreach, education, and direct services to survivors of domestic violence. As our funding and capacity increases, we envision a more comprehensive program that would service Arab and Muslim men who abuse. The main components of the current program are:
Community Outreach/Education: AAAN organizes forums and workshops in Arab and Muslim communities to raise awareness about family violence, build community support, and inform community members that there are services and other resources available to survivors of abuse. We aim to create a public discourse in the Arab and Muslim community, which states that violence in the family is not a private matter, and that strong collaboration is needed to reduce this problem in our families and our community.
Cultural Awareness Trainings for Mainstream Institutions and Service Providers: AAAN has sponsored cultural awareness workshops provided by Arab and Muslim domestic violence professionals on the dynamics of domestic violence in the Arab and Muslim community. These workshops also facilitate our collaboration with service providers in the greater Chicagoland area whose Arabic-speaking or Muslim clients are in need of culturally sensitive counseling, advocacy, and case-management services.
Direct Service: Our Arabic-speaking domestic violence staff members are trained advocates and counselors and have worked with survivors of domestic violence for several years. They provide services such as court, housing, and public-aid advocacy; case management; counseling; transportation assistance; translation and interpretation; and referrals.
Arab American Youth Program
AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM
Throughout the regular school year, the AAAN operates an After-School Program, funded by a Chicago Department of Children and Youth Services Community Development Block Grant, which comprises of staff, interns, and volunteers providing homework assistance, tutoring, and mentoring for elementary and high school students. The program allows over 50 Arab, Black, and Latino students enhance basic skills and improve academic scores and grades. It also provides a positive environment for the youth, and a place where they meet powerful role models, experience strong encouragement, and enjoy a myriad of activities, such as arts and crafts and structured recreation. AAAN staff build relationships with parents, teachers, school administrators, social workers, and other youth programs in the city to provide a comprehensive youth development initiative. High school students also receive assistance in filling out college and financial aid applications, and are counseled with regard to higher education and career opportunities.
SUMMER YOUTH CAMP
The summer camp is designed to offer educational projects and activities, and structured recreational activities. It also develops and enhances leadership and social skills by engaging students in community projects and youth-led discussions, workshops, and activities. Throughout the summer, the campers have weekly field trip adventures, discuss a range of issues in their groups, engage in many youth-led projects, compete in sports competitions, and have a chance to expand their imagination with stimulating arts and crafts, music, and theater activities. The camp runs for seven weeks, and is available for students aged 6-13. High school students also receive job and leadership development training as paid camp counselors.
AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS
With the support of the city of Chicago’s After School Matters program, this year the AAAN is launching a new, pilot program where two adult educators provide instruction in creative writing, poetry, hip-hop, and leadership development to 20 Arab high school students. This summer project will culminate in a public performance and possibly expand into a full-fledged program later in the year.
Arab Arts Council
The Arab Arts Council was established in 1998 to promote Arab culture and Arab American artists in the Chicago area. The Council organizes a wide range of cultural activities, including poetry and theater readings, art shows, and musical performances. Outreach activities in schools and libraries include visits by prominent Arab authors, poets, storytellers, and calligraphy experts.
The council has developed educational modules for presentations to schools, churches, mosques, synagogues, corporations, and other community organizations. These presentations discuss issues such as the Arab World, Arab Americans, Islam, Women in Islam, and many others, to help dispel myths and provide education to non-Arab and non-Muslim communities about the rich and varied culture, history, and heritage of the Arab peoples.
Cultural programming is heaviest during Arab Heritage Month, and the Council works with the Arab Advisory Council of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations to organize dozens of events in November every year, and has helped institutionalize the annual Contemporary Arab Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the Art Institute of Chicago.
For the past four years, the council has joined in partnership with the Field Museum’s Cultural Connections project, which brings together ethnic museums and cultural centers to offer a unique opportunity to explore Chicago’s communities and uncover connections among people from different cultural heritages, and provide cultural and educational programming to public school teachers, parents, and youth.
Last year, the AAAN organized with Cultural Connections, and Puerto Rican and Cambodian organizations, to produce two episodes of “Mixin’ It Up,” a spoken word poetry and hip-hop event performed by youth from the aforementioned communities. This project has led to the After School Matters program of spoken word, creative writing, and poetry workshops discussed above. We also organized a fashion show with members of the Swahili Institute of Chicago.
In addition, the arts council joins with the Chicago Cultural Center in a program entitled “Multi-Cultural Voices and Perspectives,” which promotes collaborative programming with other ethnic minorities as well as singular highlights of each culture.
Community Organizing and Advocacy
Our mission is to build power among a broad membership, one that provides leadership and direction for the organization’s activities. We believe that the key to our success is building leadership among our community and staff. Our organizing program is structured to build the skills needed to empower our community to initiate positive change in their lives.
ARAB WOMEN’S COMMITEE
Our committee is a bilingual grouping of over 50 adult women in southwest Chicago and the southwest suburbs that are focused on their own personal development, and the political and economic development of their communities. Members advocate and organize to gain access to institutions that have traditionally lacked culturally- and linguistically-sensitive services, and to gain rights for all immigrants by organizing and advocating for a just national immigration policy.
Members of the committee have participated in a series of workshop trainings around Human Rights titled “Immigrant Rights as Human Rights” and “ Documenting Human Rights Abuses as a way to build Community Power.” As a result of these trainings, members have launched their first community-based research project. The project gave the committee the opportunity to create bilingual research tools, which they are currently using to collect stories of human rights abuses in the Arab and Muslim community. The findings of this research will be published in 2006.
YA-JAMA’A—Youth Organizing
Our youth organizing initiative is designed to empower Arab youth to: 1) Identify the issues that have the most impact on their lives; 2) Find the resources needed to enhance their knowledge on these issues and educate themselves; and 3) Organize to have impact on these issues, or if needed, to affect change so that these issues will be resolved.
YA-JAMA’A is a newly formed youth organizing program founded by 14 Arab-American youth who participated in last summer’s Arab American Organizing Institute. As part of the institute, the youth completed 4 weeks of training in community organizing. The issues that the youth brought to the workshops included jobs for youth, racial profiling, media justice, and war.
In September of 2005, YA-JAMA’A held its first fundraiser in Bridgeview, IL, and earned enough money to both attend the anti-war protest in Washington and plan a 2006 trip to Dearborn, MI, to visit the new National Arab American Museum. In October of 2005, members of YA-JAMA’A traveled to Wisconsin to attend a regional conference of youth organizers sponsored by the National Community Justice Network for Youth. At the conference, the AAAN’s youth gave a presentation about the experiences of Arab youth in Chicagoland’s neighborhoods and schools.
This summer, another intensive political education and organizing program will initiate in the southwest suburbs, to study the impact of racial and national profiling by school staff and administrators, local law enforcement, and other mainstream institutions on Chicago and suburban Arab youth.
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
The AAAN seeks to challenge government policies that violate the civil, political and human rights of the Arab American and Arab immigrant community. We have worked to offer an immediate response to detentions, deportations, and other attacks on immigrants that result from Homeland Security policies, to disseminate information to the general public about attacks against immigrants in the context of the “War on Terrorism,” and to mobilize supporters in active opposition of policies that suppresses civil and political rights of immigrants.
The AAAN represents the Arab community in Chicago’s newly formed Movimiento de 10 Marzo (The March 10th Movement), the coalition that organized two massive rallies in Chicago, of over a million people combined, to protest the draconian Sensenbrenner Bill and demand equal rights for immigrant workers, immediate legalization for undocumented immigrants, family reunification, and an end to the criminalization of immigrants in general.
Also, the AAAN is collaborating with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Chicago and the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center (MIHRC) to launch a legal, political, and media campaign challenging the national and religious profiling experienced by thousands of Arab and Muslim permanent residents experiencing massive delays in their applications for naturalization and citizenship.
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS LOCAL COALITIONS
Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois:
The AAAN is one of five core immigrant community organizations working with CAAAELII to implement an organizing initiative that would increase the organizing and advocacy capacity for the entire coalition. These five organizations represent members of the Cambodian, Mexican, El Salvadoran, Korean, and Arab communities, and participate in organizing and political education trainings together—to develop coordinated campaigns of action for immigrant rights locally and nationally. The program, CIVITAS, has taken a leading role in the March 10th Movement and in the campaign against deportations.
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights:
The AAAN works with ICIRR in the March 10th Movement around comprehensive immigration reform; to press the state for increased funding for immigrant services, such as English Language, Outreach and Interpretation, and Civics programs; and to support other beneficial immigrant rights legislation on the policy organizing level.
MEDIA AND PUBLIC EDUCATION
The AAAN is committed to speaking out and challenging biased reporting, media stereotypes, and the criminalization of Arabs and Muslims. Staff and board have made numerous presentations at schools, universities, churches, community centers, and corporations about the issues affecting Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. and abroad; and helped the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) develop a Speakers’ Bureau of experts on these issues from throughout the Chicagoland area to also provide workshops and make presentations. And, we provide training to agencies on the provision of culturally appropriate human services to our community.
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
The AAAN has built relationships with community organizations throughout the world, helped host youth delegations from Belgium, Palestine, and South Africa, and sponsored lectures and cultural performances from Palestine as well, including the 2004 performance by Marcel Khalife and the Al Mayadine Ensemble. In the last two years, we have sent a representative to the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, and Caracas, Venezuela, respectively.
The National Network for Arab-American Communities (NNAAC)
The AAAN is one of the founding members, and sits on the national steering committee, of the NNAAC, the first network that brings together Arab-American community organizations to work towards the empowerment of Arab Americans around the country.
The NNAAC is a national network of independent Arab-American community-based organizations. The Network's primary mission is the development of grassroots institutions that can meet the needs of and represent the concerns of Arab Americans at the local level and collectively raise these concerns on the national stage. It is a source of capacity building assistance, a forum for knowledge sharing and collaboration on joint human service programs, and a platform for speaking out on issues of concern to Arab-American communities. Partner organizations in the Network are rooted in their grassroots constituencies and have an inclusive approach to serving their clientele or membership with a range of service programs, outreach or advocacy.
The chief activities of the network will be:
➢ Capacity-building support for Arab-American service providers.
➢ Joint programs addressing immigrant integration, public health, education and other social services.
➢ Support for local advocacy efforts and joint campaigns around access to social services, civil rights/civil liberties, immigration policy, and civic engagement—organized from the perspective of grassroots providers.
➢ Channeling our local efforts in support of national advocacy coalitions.
Through its commitment to financially strong and effectively managed community institutions, the Network strives to mobilize locally to support a national agenda for empowering the Arab-American community. It is administered out of ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, in Dearborn, Michigan. For four years, ACCESS has managed the Arab American Resources Corps, an initiative that brings together 14 Arab American community groups for a national AmeriCorps program and other training activities aimed at building capacity in our organizations and communities and addressing the need for increased resources, technical assistance, and networks of communication among Arab American community groups. Dozens of AmeriCorps volunteers have been hired under this project, and the AAAN is pleased to have four of them working for us this year.
The network is also a leading voice in the national immigrant rights work, with an advocacy initiative that is incorporating the Arab voice and issues into the comprehensive immigration reform organizing and policy analysis. NNAAC launched a major Philanthropy Initiative this year as well, to study the patterns of Arab giving and develop mechanisms to support the concept and manifestation of philanthropy in our community. One network organization will be supported in establishing a capital campaign this year.
AAAN Programs
