I want to share my experience through the glass I saw it when I met Henry Cisneros last night. His fellows called me yesterday morning to see if Sr. Cisneros could meet with some Latino parents after his UoA event. I invited them to an after school program awareness event we were having at the Jones Center with mostly latino parents. He arrived at 7:45 pm and for over an hour shared with our parents about the importance of learning English in order to have better jobs and a better quality of life, but he also recognized that every parent in that room had a true desire to learn English. His message was more to the affect that he wanted to know how his organization could help make this happen. He also told them to always carry their culture in their hearts and to teach it to their children. He spoke about the great opportunities our children will have for being bilingual. We agreed on how we have never met any immigrant that didnt want to learn english. He was asking people in Español to give ideas on how the community can improve the services to learn English. The parents had some great ideas and Henry listened with interest and compasion as his Fellows took notes. Later he spoke individually with families and took pictures with them. He was a breath of hope and identified with our Latino parents by telling his own immigrant story. Our Latino parents really connected with him. So In my humble opinion lets welcome all the help we can get but also help new organizations arriving to the area to understand the dynamics and proactive work that has already been taking place so they can make the connection that our new Arkansans are making our community stronger and adding some great spices to the mix. In my experience the Cisneros team has had an open door policy and are welcoming anybody that wants to come and share with them ideas or give them advice and every time I see them they are asking me how can they help. I suggest we talk to them and not about them. Again this is just my humble opinion because I have spoken to all of the Cisneros fellows and I can see the love they already have developed for the community as a whole. And they are not doing a lot of talking, but sure are doing s lot of listening and most important of all a lot of doing for others. Together is better, Juntos es Mejor.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 04:33:07 +0000
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