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Services "puzzle" comes together for Omaha's newcomers
Maggie Kalkowski, Kitcki Carroll, Jeff Vandenberg, and Jeanette Evans at LFS offices.
Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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As recently as a year or two ago, Omaha's refugee, immigrant, and asylee service community resembled a puzzle whose pieces were "scattered, missing, and broken."
Today, "the puzzle pieces are being found, they are being pieced together, and the final picture is becoming clearer. Omaha is truly evolving into the community collaborative model so critical to the success of the integration, acculturation, and self-sufficiency efforts of our newest neighbors."
That is the assessment of Kitcki Carroll, director of Community Services for the Omaha-based Lutheran Family Services (LFS) of Nebraska. The agency's many programs include Lutheran Refugee Services, a Church World Service resettlement affiliate.
Indeed, LFS is a leader in promoting and building collaboration across Omaha's refugee and immigrant service community, and is insisting that the city's refugee and immigrant communities are at the table and bringing their voices.
Nebraska's immigrant population is among the fastest growing in the United States, changing the demographics of the state significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. The state's historically white, African American, and American Indian populations are being joined by rapidly growing numbers of newcomers from around the world.
Hispanic and Asian populations have grown by 38 and 30 percent, respectively, since 2000, with Africans constituting the third fastest growing group. The newcomers' numbers include Sudanese, Somali, Somali Bantu, Karen Burmese, and other resettled refugees.
In Omaha, the state's largest city, schools, businesses, and service providers are seeking to cope with new languages, cultures, and needs. Out of this challenge was born a major new initiative.
Several local philanthropic funders became frustrated with service providers' apparent lack of coordination in submitting grant proposals. One of them, Alegent Community Benefit Trust (ACBT), stepped forward last summer and awarded LFS a 12-month grant to map Omaha's services to immigrants, refugees, and asylees, including current capacity and resources, and to identify service duplications and gaps.
To carry out this initiative, LFS hired Jeanette Evans, an experienced adult educator. She quickly became the city's expert on available services. "The project has grown to be much more than a mapping effort," Carroll said. "It is already linking agencies and individuals and moving them closer towards collaborations and partnerships."
For example, when Evans uncovered a critical shortage of qualified medical interpreters, LFS launched a pilot project with the College of Saint Mary's Center for Transcultural Learning to provide specialized training.
The ACBT Mapping Report will be published this month. What's more, LFS has just received a second year of funding from ACBT to ensure that this initiative's momentum and energy continue.
Another door to enhanced interagency collaboration opened – literally – in February when LFS relocated its community services staff to a spacious office suite. LFS promptly opened its new community, conference, media training, and computer rooms to other refugee and immigrant related groups to use without charge.
Concurrently, the United Way of Midlands named LFS the lead agency on a major community impact initiative, development of the International Center of the Heartland (ICH). Co-located with LFS community services, the center's mission is to offer on-site services plus referral to other services for refugees and immigrants. It also provides educational opportunities to area service providers and businesses on issues relating to immigrants, refugees, and asylees.
"The ultimate goal is to be the 'one-stop shop' that Omaha looks to for services, education, and awareness regarding our newest neighbors," ICH Director Maggie Kalkowski said.
"Since March 1, this place has been ‘happening,'" Lutheran Refugee Services Program Manager Jeff Vandenberg said. "Every time we turn around, somebody else wants to partner with us."
The ample new space also allowed LFS to host one of 10 CWS Interethnic Dialogues on Immigration being held across the United States this year. The May 24 dialogue drew 80 participants, who identified and coalesced around their priorities including immigration reform, education, domestic violence, and health care.
Carroll commented, "LFS isn't seeking to take over all of Omaha's refugee and immigrant related services. But as a $13 million a year agency, LFS is in a position to leverage its name recognition and resources to do things grassroots groups can't do on their own. I expect all agencies will benefit from greater exposure and strengthen their outcomes."
LFS also has taken leadership in revitalizing several city-wide working groups, including the Refugee Task Force, which consistently draws more than 50 participants from a broad cross-section of agencies providing services to or being impacted by immigrants and refugees. These include public schools, refugee community associations, businesses, health and legal services providers, and more. Between monthly meetings, committees and subcommittees work on health, housing, education, and employment issues.
 Omaha Sudanese community leaders Malakal Goak, Peter Biel, and Dr. David Chand. Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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The Refugee Community Leadership Network (RCLN), originally a forum for Sudanese refugee associations, opened up to others six months ago. Leaders include Malakal Goak, an LFS community liaison and executive director of Caring People Sudan, and Saw ("Rocky") Khu, an LRS caseworker and translator who heads the Karen Society of Nebraska, a Karen Burmese advocacy agency.
Goak commented, "With LFS support, we have regained coordination and respect. LFS provides us a space to meet every other Friday, and helps us with networking strategies, goal setting, technical training, navigating city politics, and resource development."
For his part, Carroll, son of a Native American mother and African American father, said, "Refugees will never know my experience as a Native American. And I will never know the refugee experience. It's for them to run their own affairs. LFS isn't refugee owned-and-operated, but we have some very strong resources to offer. Our role is establishing the groundwork for refugees' and other immigrants' true self-sufficiency."
By Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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