Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/10/2018
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Location
International Rescue Committee
Categories No Categories
Friends:
Our May 10 meeting will start at 6:00 pm with a presentation by Boise Police Officer Dustin Robinson on family strife and violence. Please let me know if you have a need for an interpreter and be sure to tell me the language you need.
We will then have our business meeting to consider how to do the best job we can to get legal help where it is needed. Here are some notes Susan Ikeagwu made from our last meeting:
Justice Jones: Stated he has incorporated Equal Justice Committee of Idaho as a non profit organization and he is in the process of securing the non profit status. Also, he’s planning on pursuing the grant opportunity Zoe forwarded..
In response to feedback at the meeting, Justice Jones further made a call for 6-9 volunteers to form an “Administrative Committee” that will meet more frequently to strategize and implement the program
Susan: Gave a presentation proposing (1) the program goal to provide a Coordinated Legal Education, Advocacy, and Referral (CLEAR), (2) to beneficiaries – including refugees, immigrants, and low income population in general, (3) provide orientation/training to volunteers and partners so that they can effectively engage and deliver service to beneficiaries, (4) Community Reps are also in the volunteer/partner group to participate, advice, and connect service to the diverse beneficiaries in their sphere of influence, (5) Beneficiaries should be given opportunity to transition to the volunteer/partner role or pay-it-forward capacity.. Lastly, plan to create a follow-up implementation process flow that will reflect proposal and suggestions gathered at the meeting,
Marwan: Suggested (1) Service areas should be clearly defined based on needs and interested volunteers – including police, attorneys, diverse community reps, etc. should be identified and assigned to the different service areas before involving the proposed beneficiaries or service delivery, (2) Assign volunteers into the different groups or committees based on their expertise, (3) Our target group should be extended to include the larger community because they equally need our service,
Ashley : Suggested we can use “listserve” as one of the tools to deliver our services. It is an application where people can “email” a particular email and the email goes to everyone on the list. She thinks this would be very beneficial to those “behind the scenes” and perhaps invite the higher up community members to have instant assistance from a group of people.
Mike Alvarado handed in a note card posing the following questions:
What is the problem statement?
What is the strategy or need for community capacity building?
What is the role definition for peer monitoring?
What about publishing peer-generated best practices?
What are the two-way benefits? For example, a more capable person can enable their public defender to be more effective.
Who benefits from more well supported immigrants and refugees?
Another note card (and I can’t remember who submitted it) said:
Long term, it would be awesome to have an interpreter pipeline for women to become interpreters. An issue I see is domestic violence victims not trusting male interpreters or male interpreters being impatient with victims.
Nek’ka Migel said she would welcome an attorney coming to a meeting of single Moms she works with to discuss family law issues. My recollection is that she and Ashley Marelius discussed the idea favorably. I think it is a fine idea and we need to do it.
Molly O’Leary suggested following the format of the Citizens’ Law Academy–training up community leaders in a variety of legal subject areas and then having them provide training on the same subjects to their various communities.
Lessie Brown offered to be a member of the administrative committee I spoke about at the meeting, which made me very happy. We need a few more volunteers.
I look forward to seeing you on the 10th. Remember it is at the International Rescue Committee, 7287 West Franklin in Boise.
Best wishes, Jim