An Alliance to Help the Refugee Community of Chicago

Students, supporters, volunteers and refugee families gathered in West Rogers Park on a cold spring day to support the fundraising efforts of a mutual aid agency that has provided outreach and development services since 2002.

“Pan-African Association was established to assist refugees and immigrants of African descent with their resettlement needs, especially once the 90-day federal assistance from agencies like Refugee One run out,” said Malik Kemokai, volunteer coordinator and event organizer for Power to Empower. “We have since extended our services to refugees from Iraq and Burma through community-building and life-enriching programs. We have also worked together with the Bhutanese Community Association of Illinois on securing funding from the Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Refugee Resettlement, which they started receiving in 2010.”

For the volunteers and employees of the Pan-African Association, a mutual aid agency located at 6163 N. Broadway Ave., the challenges have inspired them to call on their community’s support through the Power to Empower event held Saturday, April 21, at Warren Park.

In 2011, PAA served the needs of over 1200 individual clients. The need is great but funding from federal agencies like HHS and state agencies like the Illinois Department of Human Services has not been enough to support the refugee community. PAA has relied heavily on its 110 volunteers to teach English as a Second Language, assist in work and computer vocational training, mentoring and citizenship and civic education programs, according to Kemokai.

Looking Through the Lens of War: A Review of Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still

By Donald Margulies
Directed by Austin Pendleton
Runs at the Steppenwolf Theatre from January 19 to May 13, 2012

The images and stories of war carry the weight of its horror, pain and aggression. We catch a glimpse of it and look away.  We read about it and have the luxury of turning the page. But for those who witness it through their lenses and document it with their pens, the tales of war are long, harrowing and come at a cost that runs deep.

Steppenwolf Theatre‘s production of Donald Margulies‘ Time Stands Still is a poignant examination of photojournalist Sarah Goodwin’s reintegration into society after covering the war in the Middle East. The broken right leg and scars on her face seem a minute detail compared to the gravity of the emotional turmoil sustained by being a witness to war. The relationship with her partner, freelance journalist James Dodd, is clearly strained and often falls into a comfortable routine. One can sense that they want and need different things in their lives: James’ call for family life and Sarah’s need to bear witness and show the atrocities of war. The revelation of Sarah’s intimate relationship with her fixer Tariq further complicates matters.

The Lost Boys of Sudan: A Story of Survival, Resettlement and the Ongoing Struggle to Promote Peace in South Sudan

The voices of South Sudan filled the halls of St. Paul’s Church by-the-Lake.

It was Sunday and a small group of refugees from South Sudan gathered at the Episcopal Church in Rogers Park, one of the most culturally and economically diverse neighborhoods on the far north side of Chicago. Most of the parishioners are male between the ages of 30 and 35. They have come to sing hymns and read the gospel of the week in Dinka, the dialect of South Sudan’s major ethnic group.

“The church has been our place of refuge since most of us arrived in Chicago in 2001,” said The Rev. Awan Abraham, 33, a deacon from South Sudan. “We use to have our community gatherings in the rectory on Thursday evenings, but the volunteers stopped coming in 2007. We have since transitioned to this more prayerful format.”

The Lost Boys of Sudan is a term given by aid workers in refugee camps to more than 20,000 young boys who were displaced during Sudan’s second civil war from 1983 to 2005. The children were caught in the middle of the conflict between the Islamic central Sudanese government led by Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army  led by rebel leader John Garang.

Avirama Golan: Wielding the Power of the Written Word

In her 30 years of journalistic experience, Avirama Golan has been an active witness to the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, armed rebellion in Albania to thousands in Tel Aviv protesting the high cost of living in Israel. She has faced the most challenging conditions with fearless persistence to report one thing: the real story.

“Never imagine you know something before you see it,” said Golan, a senior correspondent for Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper. “Trust your own eyes.”

Golan, 61, studied literature at Tel Aviv University and later completed her French literature studies in Paris, where she worked as a correspondent for a weekly magazine. Upon returning to Israel, she worked as correspondent and editor for Davar, which she described as a “socialist labor party newspaper.”

In 1991, she moved to Haaretz as a correspondent reporting on welfare and society issues, the Jewish Orthodox sector, issues of church and state in Israel and feminist issues. She describes Haaretz as an “independent, liberal newspaper concerned with human rights and economic democracy.”

Golan shared her experiences and lessons learned in the field with students from Professor Jacquelyn Spinner’s International Reporting class at Columbia College Chicago on Tuesday.

“Time, space and curiosity are essential to tell the story,” Golan said. “As journalists, we must have the knowledge to interpret and analyze what we see. We must be involved in society.”

She also talked about a project where Palestinian and Israeli female journalists had the opportunity to exchange ideas, share experiences and expertise and enhance their professional skills in a mixed environment. Golan learned that Palestinian news at present could be compared to the Israeli press in the 1950s because it is entirely controlled by the government. “A free press is our dream for the Palestinian state,” Golan said.

Kukulu Market: A Slice of Ethiopian Life in Chicago

Kukulu Market has been serving a wide array of spices, Ethiopian coffee and its famous injera to Chicago’s diverse Edgewater community since it opened its doors in 2003.

“Edgewater has the biggest Ethiopian community in Chicago,” said owner Assefa Retta, who moved to Chicago from Addis Ababa (Ethiopia’s capital) in 2000. “There are a couple of communities scattered as far north as Howard Street and as far west as Western Avenue.”

Throughout the 1970s to 1990s, Ethiopians suffered from the crippling effects of military conflict and full-scale war with Eritrea and Sudan. As a result, about 37,000 Ethiopians sought asylum in the United States as refugees.

According to the U.S. Census, 4,500 Ethiopians resided in Chicago in 2000.

Though integration into American society posed its own set of challenges, Ethiopian immigrants remained steadfast in their search for a better life with the support of community organizations like the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, religious congregations like the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and one-stop shops like Kukulu Market, which is Amharic (Ethiopia’s official language) for rooster’s crow.

Aside from well-stocked shelves that carry everything from berbere, teff, lentils, Yirgacheffe coffee, niter kibbeh to traditional coffee dresses, movies, music cds and books, Kukulu Market also carries a locally produced monthly magazine written in Amharic that gives homesick folk a rundown of recent events in Ethiopia.

“The magazine was started because of our nostalgia for life in Ethiopia,” said Retta. “Essentially, the title of the publication translates to ‘Remembrance’.”

And while the shop has loyal following among members of the local Ethiopian community, it has attracted other East African immigrants spread across Chicago (the Sudanese are big fans of injera) and food lovers from New York.

This humble shop at 6129 N. Broadway St. has proven that food can bring a community together and, occasionally, provide a cure for the homesick blues.

Q. and A. With Jina Moore: Giving Africa A Voice Through Her Words

Jina Moore is a freelance multimedia journalist whose work focuses on human rights, foreign affairs and Africa. Jina moved to Rwanda in 2008 and has since worked extensively in and around Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She recently moved back to Brooklyn to receive a reporting fellowship from New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Jina will be spending a year in Zambia and DRC investigating “vulture funds,” distressed debt-investors who purchase the delinquent debt of foreign countries.

Prior to working as a full-time journalist, she helped run the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University. She holds master’s degrees from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the School of International and Public Affairs.

Jina is the editor of Dart Society Reports, an online magazine covering trauma, conflict and human rights. She is also a regular print and multimedia correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. Her work has appeared on Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Mother Jones, The Walrus and on the National Public Radio’s World Vision Report.

Below is a Skype interview conducted with Jina Moore on Feb. 20.

Q:  How did you get into journalism and secure your first assignment in Africa? Why did you choose to report from Africa?

A: They are both kind of the same question for me. I got into journalism essentially because I wanted to be working from Africa. I was really interested in questions of conflict reconciliation. I worked a lot with Holocaust survivors and Holocaust education before I became a journalist, and so that was my pathway. I moved from one specific historical example of mass human atrocity. Journalism seemed the quickest way to get over there and talk to people. I might, in another life, have gone for a PhD in sociology or political science, but I was a bit impatient so I became a journalist.

Q:  I guess you are doing all of that as a journalist. Journalism has all of those disciplines rolled into one. Did you start off with any particular publication in Africa or did you just start as a freelancer?

A: I’ve always been a freelancer. But when I moved over there, I did already have a relationship with the Christian Science Monitor for whom I do most of my work. I had been an intern with them when I was studying journalism in graduate school. When I moved to Rwanda in 2008, I had a network of contacts there, and I had already talked to people and tried to get them interested in what I wanted to do.

Tickie’s Belizean Restaurant: A Taste of Central America in Rogers Park

Tickie’s Belizean Restaurant has been serving rice and beans, ginger beer and stew chicken in Rogers Park since 1997. It has become a distinct reminder of home for the thousands of Belizeans who have lived in Chicago since the 1940s.

“My wife Claudia and I picked this location. We actually did some research and found out that there is a huge community of Belizeans here,” said Hubert Young, 57, owner and chef. He has lived in Chicago since 1978.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are roughly 4,242 Belizeans in the metropolitan area. Aside from Rogers Park, Belizeans have settled in Evanston, Waukegan, Zion and the South Side of Chicago.

Belizean society is just as diverse as its cuisine. “The culture from Belize is a mixture. You have the Spanish, Garifuna (a mix of African, Arawak and Carib ancestry), the local Belizean; it really is like the United Nations,” said Hubert. “You have people from all walks of life. It’s that kind of a country.”

Belize is bordered by Mexico to the north, Guatemala to its south and west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. It is a Central American country that has strong ties to the Caribbean and Latin America; the mixture of influences is evident in the food.

“I come here often because the food tastes good and the flavors are familiar,” said Michael Allen, a transplanted Jamaican who has been a loyal customer for years despite the abundance of Jamaican restaurants in the area.

“You don’t have to be Belizean to feel welcome here. People from all walks of life come in to eat,” said Claudia. “We try to make everyone feel comfortable, feel at home. Hopefully, we give them a reason to come back.”

East Africa Bureau Map

This is the map for my news bureau out of Nairobi, Kenya.

South Sudan stops oil production over dispute with Sudan

Read my @Storify story: “South Sudan stops oil production over dispute with Sudan”  

East Africa Today

For the next few months, I will be covering the news from countries in East Africa. I’ve chosen to focus on stories developing in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. The challenge in the coming weeks is to report events as they unfold in a world from which we are so far removed yet whose humanity tugs at the very core of our being. As a citizen of the world and as an emerging journalist, it is my responsibility to learn about the plight of fellow human beings and bring to light their triumphs, their pain, their struggles. Through my writing, I hope to spark an interest and continued vigilance on the issues that plague the region of East Africa.

The most recent stories coming out of this area cover the effects of widespread drought and famine, poverty, political unrest caused by warring ethnic groups and government factions, violence against foreign nationals and locals by way of kidnapping, rape and murder, graft and corruption and updates on International Criminal Tribunal for Rwandaand International Criminal Court (Kenya).

I will be following Jeffrey Gettleman (@gettleman), East Africa bureau chief of The New York Times; Tom Rhodes (@africamedia_cpj), East Africa consultant for the Committee to Protect Journalists; David Smith (@SmithInAfrica), Africa correspondent for The Guardian; and Jina Moore (@itsjina), print and multimedia correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor.

See you down the road.