Out of Africa
Recent immigrants offered added help

By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent, 2/3/2002

LOWELL - When Rosemary Ngigi needed help with a job
search last fall, the Kenyan immigrant turned to the
African Assistance Center. Within days, the center
arranged an interview for Ngigi in a job that
interested her. Soon after, she was hired.

Ngigi, an HIV case manager at the Lowell Community
Health Center, is one of many members of Greater
Lowell's growing African immigrant and refugee
community who have sought the services of the center
during the past year for help on everything from
landing employment and job training to obtaining
medical treatment, finding day care, and communicating
with city government.

Much of that help has been dispensed since November,
when the center, which began about a year ago as a
part-time operation in a local church, opened its own
office in downtown Lowell with a full-time staff of
three African immigrants.

The emergence of the center reflects the growth of the
region's African immigrant and refugee population.
According to community leaders, an influx of people
from African nations to this area began in 1989,
though small numbers had arrived before that. Today,
they estimate that in Lowell alone the African
community totals at least 6,000 people.

Many new arrivals are from Kenya. But there are also
smaller numbers from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana,
Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Guinea, the Ivory Coast,
Mali, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, and South Africa.

Refugees from war-torn countries are only a small part
of the incoming population. Most are immigrants drawn
to this country for economic and educational reasons.

The center is designed to be a bridge between the
newly arrived immigrant and refugee community and a
host culture that can often seem bewildering and
unfriendly, said center director Cecelia N. Okafor, a
Nigerian-American. The center serves new arrivals not
only from Lowell but surrounding communities.

''We don't want them to be afraid in the community,''
she said. ''We want them to be as free as they can be
treated, as equal as everyone else so they can be able
to get what everybody is getting. We all pay taxes.
... So I think they need to be represented and they
need their voice to be heard in the community and to
be respected.''

''We are trying for the community to recognize the
African presence in Lowell,'' said Kwaku Duah, an
immigrant from Ghana who is the center's office
manager.

Okafor said another mission of the center is to build
a sense of community among the many African population
groups, who until now have not had much opportunity to
coalesce.

Last June, the center helped organize the city's first
African festival, and there are plans for another one
this year. The center is also collaborating with
Middlesex Community College to develop an after-school
program for immigrant children as well as adults in
traditional African arts and crafts. The program,
which is also open to nonimmigrants, will be offered
at the college's Lowell campus on Saturday mornings
this spring, then Tuesday and Thursday mornings during
the summer.

''Recently arrived African parents feel that there is
very little that is teaching their children about
their African heritage,'' said Kent H. Mitchell, dean
of international arts at the college. ''So the idea is
to do that in various ways and to do it in a hands-on
way, which is teaching the arts and crafts but also
talking about precisely where these things come
from.''

For Ngigi and other newly arrived Africans, the center
can be the difference in finding a job or a needed
service.

''It's very helpful,'' said Ngigi, a Lowell resident
who emigrated from Kenya about three years ago. ''When
you go to a foreign country, you have questions but
you don't know who to ask. It's as if you are staring
in the darkness. But when you have somebody of whom
you can ask questions, you feel good because you have
the information.''

Lowell City Manager John Cox said the center is a
valuable resource for the city.

''If we need to get to the African community in the
city, it's a great tool for us to do that,'' he said,
noting, for example, that the city's health department
has worked with the center to provide information to
African immigrant families.

''Any time you have a group that solely exists to help
an immigrant community, that's helpful to the greater
community,'' Cox said.

Okafor and other African community leaders came up
with the idea for the center in 2000. Aided by
advisers from outside the African community, the
founders opened the center early last year in
rent-free space in the Eliot Presbyterian Church.
Okafor, then a student at the University of
Massachusetts at Lowell, served as director and the
sole staff member of the center, which was then open
two days a week.

Last April, the center relocated to the Community
Teamwork building in space provided rent-free by the
antipoverty agency. With the help of Community
Teamwork, the center last June received a $50,000
grant from the Parker Foundation. That allowed Okafor,
who graduated from UMass-Lowell last June, to begin
working full time at the center in July.

Last September, the center picked up a $100,000
federal grant. That enabled it to hire two additional
staff in October - project director Briget Ngampa, who
is from Cameroon, and Duah. The grant also allowed the
center to move to its current office on Central
Street, where it has more space and equipment.

In addition to responding to the day-to-day requests
for help from immigrants and refugees, the center
speaks to employers and agencies in the community to
inform them about the African population and make them
aware of the center.

Okafor said that even with a three-person staff, the
center is not able to meet all the needs of the
immigrant community. She is hoping to land additional
grant money to hire more staff, particularly to do
outreach. The three staff members do some outreach on
the weekends, mostly by visiting churches. But she
said there is a need for one or two people who can go
out in the community on weekdays, such as to
workplaces and schools.

Okafor said the center has been well-received among
the African immigrant populations.

''There's nothing like having somebody from your own
community helping you,'' she said. ''They know that at
least you can pay more attention, you can put yourself
in their shoes and understand where they're coming
from.''


This story ran on page W9 of the Boston Globe on
2/3/2002.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings!
http://greetings.yahoo.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:

        http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html

AAM Website:  http://www.danenet.wicip.org/aam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------