Cultural competency with immigrant/refugee children and families requires more than just learning about their culture. It also includes an understanding of the process of migration, the reasons families migrate, and the process of adaptation and related family or marital stressors. Organizations should incorporate cultural competence into every level of their structure, which includes resources offered to these communities. First section explores cultural concepts with the Funds of Knowledge approach. Creating partnerships with local libraries (for example the Multnomah County Library) can play an important role in supporting immigrant families. Many libraries offer citizenship courses, English-learning courses, and other language-based resources. Art is also a valuable means of expression for children who may be traumatized by war, their homeland experiences, during their journeys, or upon their arrival onto the Unites States. Many of these children have lost their voice and feel isolated in this new environment, so we need to create resources catered for them and create a safe environment for these children to be themselves.

Funds of Knowledge are collections of knowledge-based in cultural practices that are a part of families’ inner culture, work experience, or their daily routine. It is the knowledge and expertise that children and their family members have because of their roles in their families, communities, and culture. This allows organizations to better connect with the children’s home cultures and ultimately act as a bridge when needed. It also creates a deeper connection to learning materials and activities for the children.

Some practical ways to conduct activities based on Funds of Knowledge:

• Have the children create photo essays of a typical day or weekend with their family life;

• Create a collage of hobbies/pastimes;

• Interview the children/children’s families;

• Invite guest speakers from various linguistic communities to share traditions, celebrations, or slices of daily life;

• Host an event where children and families can contribute food and/or music; and

• Advertise events from your cultural community that children/families might enjoy.

Their mission is to “Putting more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children”. This website is a great resource for future diverse materials/books.

They also offer additional resources for parents, educators, and librarians.

https://diversebooks.org/resources/resources-for-parents-and-educators/

Invite children and families to prepare a presentation or respond to a writing prompt about:

• • • a family story, folktale, or local legend;

    • a favorite saying, poem, or song from their native language;

    • a recipe;

    • a family or holiday tradition.

Three Art Activities to Help Children Express Themselves:

1. What Do My Colors Say?

Have children fill a sheet of paper with color, lines, and shapes for two minutes. Then ask questions like these: Which color is angry, which shape feels invisible or not seen? Which shape or color is tired or worried? What shapes or lines feel anxious? What name would you give your art? Why? You can ask how their images are like them, and how they are different.

2. Mapping My Favorite Place:

Have children draw a map to their favorite real or imagined place, creating roads, paths, mountains, and hills, and showing the route to get there. They can use colors, lines, shapes, and symbols. Ask questions like these: In this place, who are the people you trust? What are the sounds, sights, smells, and colors? What feels calming or exciting about this place? Could you choose to go there in your mind when you’re feeling anxious, upset, worried, or angry?

3. Colors of My Heart:

Give each child a blank sheet of paper, and set out markers or colored pencils to share. Students will then draw a large silhouette of a heart, enough to fill their entire paper. After drawing the heart, students can choose three or four colors that represent the emotions and sensations they are experiencing. Using these colors, students will fill in the space of their hearts with textures, lines, or patterns of their choice. If students feel comfortable, they may share the colors of their hearts with a partner or peer group.

Knowledge is Power:

Adapted from: http://www.youth.ie/sites/youth.ie/files/NYCI-Global-Rights-Resource.pdf

Type: Group discussion

Purpose: This activity gives the group an interactive way of discovering some of the facts about refugees and migrants whilst also dispelling some of the myths. It is hoped that this new knowledge and awareness will represent a positive development for individuals in the group.

Cards ---> Download

Group size: Any size

Time: 20 mins

Resources needed: Copies of the myths/facts sheet

Description of the activity:

- Mix up the cards with different myths and facts and hand them out to the group.

- Invite participants to read for themselves their cards and then think about whether it is a myth or a fact.

- Inform the participants that each myth card has a corresponding fact card and challenge them to find the person with the card connected to their own through one-to-one or small group discussions. Invite them to move around the room.

- When all are done or enough time has passed, ask participants to read out their myths and facts. There may be a need to correct some mismatches but overall, it is important to be clear about which statements are myths and which are facts.

Reflection: Open a discussion about where the myths come from and what impact they have on the way we treat people.

Pictures Challenge:

Type: Energizer/Ice-breaker

Purpose: All of us have some stereotypes about some places/populations in the world. This exercise has the aim of reflect about them and challenge them.

Group size: Any size

Time: 10 mins

Resources needed: Laptop and projector or printouts of pictures of cities or places.

Description of the activity: The activity is quite simple: the facilitator shows the pictures and asks the participants to guess what country is it.

However, the pictures shown shall not be easy to guess: famous skylines and monuments shall be avoided, while unusual landscapes shall be preferred. An advice might also be to choose countries that are not really well known, in order for participants to understand that stereotypes are not limited to specific countries and people, but rather to wider areas.

Reflection: The game can be used to introduce a discussion about stereotypes and how they influence our opinion about places and people.

Where do I come from and where am I now?:

Type: Simulation game

Purpose: This exercise helps understand the journeys the different members have made to their current hometowns and allows the group members to share information on their backgrounds.

Group size: Ideally between 4 and 15, in case of bigger groups might be good to consider creating two groups.

Time: 50 to 60 minutes (duration varies according to the size of the group and the amount of information shared)

Resources needed: World map and map of the country you are in, pins, thick thread, colored papers, markers/pens

Description of the activity: Group members are asked to write down all continents in capital letters, one A4 sheet per continent, and to try to place the papers with the continents’ names on the floor in order according to their position on the world map.

Home country

Each participant is asked to stand on top of the continent from which they come. Participants take turns to name their home country and possibly the city/town/village they used to live in. They also state what they think is wonderful about their home country and/or city/town/village.

At this point, the facilitator shows the world map. Participants locate their own continents and countries and see which other countries are located on the same continent.

Own journey

Each group member takes pins and thread and recreates their own migratory route on the world map to the country they are in and to the city/town/village in which they are currently residing. Participants may point several venues/stops through which their route has run.

Reflection: Besides being able to share some information about their personal story, participants will reflect on the different journeys. At the end of the exercise, the facilitator is encouraged to start a discussion about what the different participants felt during their journeys and what they liked/disliked about some of the stages of the journey. If the context allows, the facilitators might also ask whether someone wants to share some difficulties they have faced during the journey and/or about some pleasant things they discovered.

Comments and useful tips: Writing up on a blackboard the key features of each and everyone’s journey, so that there is a visual aid to keep recalling the information.

Outsiders:

Type: Energizer

Purpose: An interactive exercise exploring the effects of exclusive grouping on an individual, exploring how we react to experiences of rejection and looking at what it feels like to belong to a group.

Group size: Any size

Time: 10 minutes

Resources needed: No resources needed

Description of the activity:

• Ask a volunteer to leave the room. The remainder of the group divide themselves into groups according to some agreed criterion, e.g. hairstyle, eye colour, type of clothing, height or accent.

• The outsider is called in and guesses which group they belong to. They must state why they believe that group is their group. If the reason is wrong they may not join, even when they picked the correct group.

• Continue with a new volunteer, giving as many participants as possible an opportunity to go outside, subject to time.

Reflection:

• How do we behave when we do belong to a group?

• Is it easy to reject outsiders? Is it enjoyable?

• Do we empathize with the outsider or do we enjoy the power?

The Multnomah County Library is a community partner that has several programs that would benefit the at-risk children at Catholic Charities of Oregon.

The Multnomah County Library offers programs online to learn English. This link provides a list of local classes and tutors for English language learners and books and materials for learning English available at the library. In addition, they provide access to free library subscriptions to language learning programs such as USA Learns, Pumarosa, Mango Languages – English as a second language (ESL) 100-lesson course, and Cell-Ed. They have also curated several free online sources that support English language learning.

Talk Time for adults/parents:

The Multnomah County Library has created a safe learning environment for English language learners to practice speaking online with other language learners called "Talk Time". A program like this whether online or in-person would support children as they develop their English language skills. Contact information is provided on this website where Catholic Charities can explore the possibility.

Program Ideas:

Parent Support Groups

Support groups can help concerned immigrant parents understand they are not alone in experiencing conflicts with their children. Program leaders/volunteers who respect the families’ ethnic identity can heighten parental compassion for the peer pressure challenges their children face. By emphasizing youth's strengths, program leaders can help parents see their children in a new light.

Youth-Parent Dialog Program

Dialog programs can help teens appreciate the value of some culturally traditional approaches and help parents understand that their children are trying to find solutions acceptable in both of their worlds. Program staff becomes “culture brokers”, helping both the youth and parents understand each other better.