Off to Work We Go
There’s a new sheriff in town. By sheriff I mean center for training immigrant leaders and by town I mean Omaha. There’s a nice article, as always, from Cindy Gonzalez on the newly redesigned Omaha World-Herald website. The Heartland Workers Center was announced last weekend at a luncheon in Omaha. It will be housed in the Latino Center of the Midlands and focus on increasing civic and political participation in immigrant communities. There was also a three-day leadership training session that has borne immediate fruits. One woman plans to set up a legal assistance center for immigrants in Columbus, Nebraska.
One of the first projects for the Workers Center is working with day laborers that gather in a south Omaha parking lot. The goal is to offer them computer and English classes while they wait for work. I think this is one of the most valuable, and simultaneously difficult, things to do. Hang up a sign that says “Computer Classes Here”, and you’ll get people interested in taking computer classes. But oftentimes the people who could probably benefit the most from some instruction/education may be convinced that they don’t have the time/energy/capacity or even the desire to take such classes. It’s probably the toughest job there is and wrought with numerous failures, but because your impact could be so much greater success is that much sweeter.
