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Changing Faces Action Team Announces the Creation of

Applications will be taken until January 31, 2012 for organizations wishing to be inaugural members of the Quad City Alliance for Immigrants & Refugees (QCAIR). Membership is targeted to ethnic community-based organizations (ECBOs) and non-profit agencies, churches, school districts, community colleges, governments or other groups providing services to immigrants and refugees in the Quad Cities.

The Refugee & Immigrant Center & Information Clearinghouse Action Team, formed out of the Changing Faces: Refugees & Immigrants in Rock Island study circles, announced the creation of QCAIR at the Action Teams report dinner held for all study circle and action team participants on Dec. 1 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center.

The mission of QCAIR is to build a community among the Quad Cities’ refugees, immigrants and citizens. The organizations and individuals involved with QCAIR will structure an information clearinghouse for refugees and immigrants and those disparate agencies and church groups providing services. QCAIR will also identify overlaps and gaps in services. Eventually, QCAIR may operate as a direct service provider and operate a physical campus where the refugee and immigrant community can thrive. The following Changing Faces Action Teams will continue as grassroots entities under the umbrella of QCAIR: Information Clearinghouse; Cultural Celebration; Housing Advocacy; Positive Interaction with Police; Education/ESL; and Jobs/Employment. Any individuals in the Quad Cities community can be involved with the action teams.

The structure of QCAIR is modeled after Neighborhood Partners of Rock Island, a 15-year-old consortium of associations, governments and agencies that intersect at a neighborhood level. “We heard from a number of study circles and the Pilot Group from the Changing Faces process that they would like to form an organization empowering refugee and immigrant groups similar to how Neighborhood Partners brings together neighborhood associations and related agencies to work for positive solutions,” said Ed Hanna, Neighborhood Partners President and convener for the Changing Faces Pilot Group, Oversight Group and Information Clearinghouse Action Team. “The Refugee & Immigrant Center and Information Clearinghouse Action Team worked the entire fall on drafting by-laws for this new organization and identifying a potential fiscal sponsor agency so that they can apply for funding and hire a part-time director,” he added.

Constituent organizations must meet the following requirements:

1. Meet regularly;
2. Have a board consisting of at least five persons;
3. Possess ratified by-laws; and
4. Have a mission statement consistent with the purpose of QCAIR.

Applications for organizational membership and individual at-large membership can be picked up at the Rock Island Planning & Redevelopment Division, 1528 3^rd Avenue, Rock Island. You can also have applications emailed to you by calling (309)732-2900. Although applications for the inaugural round are due January 31, QCAIR will be conducting semi-annual membership meetings to add new organizations. A limited number of individual at-large appointments will be made by the QCAIR executive committee.

Neighborhood Partners has mentors available to assist ethnic community based organizations with their board creation and by-laws. To receive a list, contact the Planning & Redevelopment Division as indicated above. There will also be a seminar with an area attorney discussing board responsibilities and legalities on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 6 p.m. at the King Center, 630 9^th Street. More details regarding that event will be promoted as the date nears.

The first meeting of Quad City Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees is slated for Feb. 23, 2012