bellah
Number of posts : 1605
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Registration date : 2008-04-03
 | | Subject: Community Center Core Of Liberians Success Story In Michigan Fri May 09, 2008 2:52 am | |
| Community Center Core Of Liberians Success Story In Michigan
05/06/08 - Sidiki Trawally, strawally@FronpageAfrica.com | |
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| LAM President Kandakai Sherman |
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Strategically located along the Great Lakes waterway, Detroit which is the largest city and former capital of Michigan embodies a small Liberian community, which boasts of a community center as its guiding light.
Detroit has grown steadily over the years, so as the Liberian community. The 11,500sg ft. Michigan Hall, the first of its kind in any Liberian quarter in the US is also considered as the core of the community’s success story, residents told FPA.
Liberian residents in city attribute their unity in diversity also to the Michigan Hall. According to them, the Hall stands as the beacon of hope, because it provides centrality of their union. “We are a village. We hold together as one people and this center has been able to bring us together,” said the youthful President of the Liberian Association of Michigan (LAM), Kandakai Sherman.
In an interview during a visit to the city recently, Kandakai told FPA that the Liberian community in Detroit is serving as the model of unity among Liberians in the Diaspora. “Here, we still try to keep that village mentality through this center. If we don’t have that centrality, our young people will be easily strayed.”
According to documents, Liberians in the community paid $50,000 in cash to secure the purchase of the center. Kandakai said the funds were realized from membership dues and added that close to over $160,000 have been spent to improve the center. “This has been done from ingenuity. We did not receive any grants. They money comes from the membership dues and programs we initiate as a community.”
He said LAM was able to secure some loans from the banking institution to do some of the major capital intensive works. Overall, most of the work being done on the center, including electricity come from members of the community who volunteer their time to ensure the center is improved to the state they would be proud of.
Kandakai said the first phase of the project was to secure the perimeters of the building, to ensure they provide the basic renovation and the second phase is to have programs that are operational to attend to the youth, most of who are disconnected from the Liberian society. “We are looking into introducing them in a way that while they are American citizens, they should know also about their root.”
The LAM has added a cable television, internet Access, and phone service (local access only) to its growing list of amenities that are offered at the Liberian Hall. The TV service will inform, educate, and entertain; the Internet service will facilitate the use of the computer lab and after school programs, as well as provide job search and application support; while the phone service will make the association more accessible to its members and the larger society.
In addition, the phone service will provide teleconference capability for satellite cities (Lansing, Grand Rapids, etc)
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| Liberians attending the ULAA Board meeting at the Hall |
Another section has tons of text books waiting to be shippped to Liberia. Kandakai said the books were donated by philanthropists. “We provide an office for our African brothers. They too will have access to the center and together, we are going to build an African union in this city.”
He said an after school program is being launched at the community center “where in our kids will come and get involved in positive activities. We just want the best for them, because we know how stressful and competitive it is in this country. The community is focused on the young folks. We have to take care of them.”
ULAA Board Chairman James Larsah praised the LAM. "This community stands as the lone symbol of success and achievement. They are graduating from depending only on membership dues to generating revenues from the hall to support the community programs and projects," said Larsah amidst applaude from ULAA Board members who attended a major meeting at the center last Saturday.
No Liberian youth in jail
Kandakai disclosed that the community’s village strategy saves young Liberians from going to jail. “I don’t know of any of our young adult in prison at this time, unless I am not aware. We are very grateful that we all work as a village to ensure that our kids are doing the right thing. When we see something going wrong, we move quickly to handle it before it goes out of hand.”
For the most part, he credited the Michigan Hall as an advantage. “This is where we all meet and the manner in which we interact will spill over to our kids. One of the problems we have in other Liberian communities is that we don’t have that centrality of assembly and as a result everyone is left individually. It is easy under such condition for a collective to address an issue than an individual.”
Community unity in diversity, the Michigan Strategy:
"The purpose of community unity is to promote unity in diversity by encouraging understanding between people who are different from one another. This is what we do here and we have been very successful doing it through this center,” said Kandakai.
The young outspoken leader said the intention of his community unity drive is not only to advocate, but to educate people. He noted that lack of information and communication can lead people to speak and behave in ways that are damaging to others, that are contrary to the spirit of their own values, and that reflect badly on the community and its people.
“Here in Detroit, we encourage meaningful dialogue, lessen division, clear away misunderstanding, counter act stereotyping, and open hearts. We are Liberians and not what tribe is this person and that person,” Kandakai said, feeling very relax about the all-embracing progress his community is enjoying so far. “It is very easy sometimes for us to judge people by what we have heard about them, but we have been successful in discouraging such vices here.”
Saying “We are taking care of our people”, Kandakai told FPA that his administration’s respect for basic human dignity and peaceful resolution of conflicts among Liberians is core factor that continues to serve them well. “Like I said, we strive to make sure our people here are working together. I won’t say we are 100% perfect, but we are doing better.”
Kandakai said his administration has been successful in uniting the community based on trust. “We tent to first start from the position of distrust. We have turned the table on that. We put in place a team of officers who have exhibited that we are indeed transparent; that we are indeed accountable. That warms up our community people to continue to give their continuous supports.”
He said his team introduces programs that attract “our membership. We have two major annual programs. We have the African Heritage program which coincides with the black history month and our own Independent Day program. These are our most successful programs and we use them to sell our vision to the community about the center and other projects. They are our bread winner.”
In the words of Steve Jobs, Kandakai said “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you. This center will lead us to the promised land, because we are working day and night to make sure we achieved our goals.”
Message to other Liberian community leaders:
“My suggestion will be for us to start building trust among ourselves. We should start by selling ourselves in a transparent way. As leaders, we can’t make it without trust and transparency. I know this has dodged a lot of our leaders. We are no exception, because it took us a while to transition from the phase of mistrust to a phase of trust. Transparency and accountability is the hallmark. Anything that is entrusted to you must be accounted for. In our case, every event we have, we have a financial report that is presented to our membership. They know that whatever they spent is being accounted for.”
Big Conference underway in Detroit
From the success of the ULAA Board meeting held in Detroit recently, there are calls for LAM to revive a major economic conference on Liberia, which failed to kickoff in 2007 due to undisclosed reasons.
The purpose of the conference will be to have Liberian and Americans form an economic partnership that will primarily focus on the area of creating awareness of the common bond between Liberians and African Americans; economic and social development issues; priorities for reconstruction and development; and humanitarian assistance.
This Forum is meant to provide African Americans the platform to explore business and investment opportunities in the new Liberia. Additionally, it will afford African Americans the opportunity to reestablish social, cultural and economic ties with the Liberian people by being a pivotal part of the reconstruction efforts in Liberia. Many look to seeing the conference become a reality this Fall.
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DSP
Number of posts : 940
Points : 1946
Registration date : 2008-04-02
| | Subject: Re: Community Center Core Of Liberians Success Story In Michigan Fri May 09, 2008 8:49 am | |
| Michigan is one of those few places in the US where the Liberian community actually works well together without a whole lot of drama and long talking business, even with issues I've notice they pretty much let go and enjoy being amongst each other. | |
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