Immigrants And Immigration In Post-9/11 America
May 31, 2006 • 12:30-1:30 PM
PRAMILA JAYAPAL is the founder and Executive Director of Hate Free Zone Washington, an immigrant and civil rights organization based in Seattle, Washington. Since its inception in 2001, HFZ has won numerous awards for its courageous and effective advocacy on behalf of all people, particularly immigrants targeted since 9-11. An activist and writer, Pramila has been actively involved in international and domestic social justice issues for over 15 years, working across Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as domestically with immigrant and refugee communities in Washington state. She speaks frequently locally and nationally on immigrant and civil rights, gender, and international issues. In January 2004, Pramila was named one of the top ten Puget Sound regional leaders by the Seattle Times Editorial Board. In September 2004, Seattle Magazine named her one of the 25 most powerful people in Seattle for her leadership on civil rights and immigrant rights issues. She has also received a leadership award from Congressman Jim McDermott and the national Unitarian Universalists’ Holmes-Weatherly award. Free
Wheelchair Basketball
Every Thursday from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm starting 4/6 and all of the following dates: 5/18, 5/25, 6/1, 6/8.
Seaview Gym
Contact Dee Olson at the SSD office at 640-1318
Sponsored by the Wheelchair Basketball Club
For immediate release
May 12, 2006 Contact: Michele Graves (425) 640-1513
EDMONDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT EARNS
HUMANITARIAN AWARD, FUNDS WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL
Lynnwood, WA–Edmonds Community College student Mitzellah Ah-Fook, 25, of Bothell was one of five college students across the nation awarded the 2006 Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award for outstanding public service. Campus Compact, a national organization which promotes civic engagement in higher education, selects recipients of the award based on their record of service and demonstration of an innovative approach to addressing a community need.
Ah-Fook will receive the award at Campus Compact¹s 20th Anniversary Gala on October 16 in Chicago, Illinois. The honor comes with $1,500 for the service program of her choice. Ah-Fook will use the award to purchase a specially-designed wheelchair for the basketball club she founded at Edmonds Community College “The Rolling Tritons.”
Ah-Fook is an AmeriCorps programmer at Edmonds CC, secretary of the college’s Students of Service Club and an advisory board member for Washington Campus Compact. She recently completed her Associate of Arts degree.
“Students such as Mitzellah represent the difference that Campus Compact and its member colleges and universities can make in individual lives,” said Edmonds Community College President Jack Oharah. “Service has enriched Mitzellah’s learning experiences and she, in turn, has dedicated much of her time and effort towards extending that opportunity to students of all abilities.”
While attending Edmonds Community College and taking anthropology and diversity studies classes with a service-learning component such as American Religious Diversity, Human Origins and Research Writing, Ah-Fook has participated in a number of volunteer projects. She has helped:
• organize the American Indian Student Association’s powwow.
• repair and paint a homeless shelter for the Interfaith Association of Northwest Washington.
• restore habitat along a local stream.
• survey juvenile Dungeness crab in the Puget Sound.
• collect books and media for Eco Encore, which gives proceeds to environmental groups.
She has also helped build the college’s growing service-learning program by organizing more than a dozen service projects for students with community partners and assisting the college to create a new ecologically-oriented service-learning program, the Learn-n-serve Environmental Anthropology Field school (LEAF), and in joining the American Association of Community College’s Project Reach, to extend service-learning opportunities to students with disabilities.
Building awareness of the accessibility of sports for physically disabled individuals has been one of her service-learning priorities. The issue is close to her heart because it affects her husband, Gerard Ah-Fook, who began using a wheelchair seven years ago. In a boating accident, a propeller cut the main leg arteries in Gerard’s legs resulting in loss of mobility in one leg and an above the knee amputation of the other. As a person who enjoys athletics, he’s struggled to find ways he can participate. Edmonds Community College’s wheelchair basketball team provides an opportunity.
Service-learning is a growing part of college life. Last year, across the state, more than 4,000 volunteers served at 21 higher education campuses including Edmonds Community College. The college is recruiting 100 students to fill Students in Service roles next year.
“The number of college students participating in service today is at an
unprecedented level, but more compelling than the growth in civic engagement
is discovering how students are applying the tenet.” said Elizabeth
Hollander, executive director of Campus Compact. “The Swearer Awards
recognize some of the nation’s most successful engagement practices and
provide inspiration to the field.”
The other recipients of the Shearer award are: Steven Cartwright, University of Notre Dame (IN), Haamid “Happy” Johnson, Georgetown University (DC), Sonia Schwartz, Tulane University (LA) and Timothy Kummer, Marquette University (WI).
The award honors the life and work of Howard R. Swearer, the 15th president of Brown University and one of the founders of Campus Compact. It is made possible by a grant from Ariel Capital Management, LLC
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Information about the award recipients is available at http://www.compact.org/ccawards/swearer/.
Please help spread the word.
The Learn-n-serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School features a $1,000 AmeriCorps scholarship, 15 credits in Human Ecology (Anthr 101-103), and a summer of fun in the sun.
Interested students must apply online at the link below.
http://www.edcc.edu/americorps/leaf
Applications received by May 19th are given priority. Successful applicants will receive entry codes and registration instructions.
Service learning activities for the LEAF School include maintaining an ethnobotanical garden at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, salmon habitat restoration and monitoring, surveys of marine life in the Puget Sound, tours of museums and organic farms, oral history interviews of farmers and landowners, and overnight programs in human ecology on Whidbey Island and in North Cascades National Park.
Meaningful learning experiences are available for students of all abilities.
To request flyers or schedule a class presentation please contact Joyce LeCompte-Mastenbrook, joyce.mastenbrook@edcc.edu, 425-640-1968. For more information visit the link below.
http://www.edcc.edu/americorps
LEAF School is made possible through funding from Washington Campus Compact, American Association of Community Colleges, Corporation for National and Community Service, and Edmonds CC Office of Student Life. It features partnerships with United Indians of All Tribes, Stilly Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force, Tulalip Tribes, Stillaguamish Tribe, Snohomish County Surface Water Management and Marine Resources Committee, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Puget Sound Action Team, Eco Encore, Maxwelton Salmon Adventure, North Cascades National Park, City of Edmonds, Beach Watchers, and Washington State University Extension.
Please help spread the word.
The Learn-n-serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School features a $1,000 AmeriCorps scholarship, 15 credits in Human Ecology (Anthr 101-103), and a summer of fun in the sun.
Interested students must apply online at the link below.
http://www.edcc.edu/americorps/leaf
Applications received by May 19th are given priority. Successful applicants will receive entry codes and registration instructions.
Service learning activities for the LEAF School include maintaining an ethnobotanical garden at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, salmon habitat restoration and monitoring, surveys of marine life in the Puget Sound, tours of museums and organic farms, oral history interviews of farmers and landowners, and overnight programs in human ecology on Whidbey Island and in North Cascades National Park.
Meaningful learning experiences are available for students of all abilities.
To request flyers or schedule a class presentation please contact Joyce LeCompte-Mastenbrook, joyce.mastenbrook@edcc.edu, 425-640-1968. For more information visit the link below.
http://www.edcc.edu/americorps
LEAF School is made possible through funding from Washington Campus Compact, American Association of Community Colleges, Corporation for National and Community Service, and Edmonds CC Office of Student Life. It features partnerships with United Indians of All Tribes, Stilly Snohomish Fisheries Enhancement Task Force, Tulalip Tribes, Stillaguamish Tribe, Snohomish County Surface Water Management and Marine Resources Committee, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Puget Sound Action Team, Eco Encore, Maxwelton Salmon Adventure, North Cascades National Park, City of Edmonds, Beach Watchers, and Washington State University Extension.