September 27, 2007
The Mt. Hood Town Hall
and Rural Development Initiatives are organizing a free,
Spanish-language community building workshop in Parkdale, called
Cultivando Comunidad, (Cultivating Community), to be held Nov. 9
and 10 at the Mt Hood Town Hall.
The rise in diversity in
the United States is not isolated to urban centers like New
York, Los Angeles or Miami, but is apparent even in the shadow
of Mount Hood in Parkdale, whose elementary school principal Kim
Vogel states that 65 percent of her student body is Latino.
The reality in Parkdale
can been seen clearly in data compiled by the Oregon Department
of Education’s 2005-06 Report Card: From 1980 to 2005 the number
of Hispanic students has increased 64.3 percent, while the
number of white students has decreased by 6.0 percent. At the
current growth rate, Hispanic students will make up 28 percent
of the total student enrollment in Oregon schools by 2020.
Avalon Totten-Denton,
vice-chair of the Mt Hood Town Hall board of directors, said the
group is pleased to provide the space for this training because
she feels it is “vital to our future to cultivate leaders in our
community.”
The class will have
between 20-30 participants whose primary language is Spanish and
aims to link emerging and existing Latino leaders to each other
and to collective and community resources. In addition, RDI is
facilitating a leadership training in Hood River in English in
the fall and will bridge these two classes to promote
collaboration among cultures.
The first day of the
training will be for select Latino high school students and will
be delivered bilingually. That evening there will be an
intergenerational social gathering and training where
presentations created that day by the high school students will
be delivered. The Saturday session will also be
intergenerational and include the students, their family and
other community members.
The program is centered
around asset-based community development, where facilitators and
participants value and use as a starting block what each
individual brings to the community and what resources already
exists in the community.
For more information or
an application for you or someone you know, contact Denton at
(541) 354-1604; or in Spanish, contact Sara Curiel at (503)
545-2918.
