I BELONG, AND MY VOICE COUNTS “I BELONG is a volunteer group dedicated to serving communities in the Greater Philadelphia area. We believe that raising the voices of immigrants and facilitating immigrant integration can make a better and more welcoming city.”
Cultural event “One City, Many Cultures” June 22nd, 2019
ENGLISH
by Silvia Roldan / IB
I Belong was launched in 2017 by a group of participants from the Immigrant Leadership Institute (ILI) a program started by the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. ILI is a program that “prepares foreign born residents of Greater Philadelphia with the skills, knowledge, and tools necessary to engage in the civic life of our city and region...”. The training that our cohort received, helped us to strengthen our skills and put them into practice by organizing our first event “Citizenship Orientation” at the South Philadelphia Library in March of 2018. After the event, our team welcomed some new members and set out to plan a new event with the support of The Philadelphia Foundation entitled, “On the Table Philly: A Conversation about Immigrants and Community”. 2019 was a wonderful year for us. In February we partnered with Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) to hold the event “Philly, Emotionally Strong”, through 8 focus groups, we gathered data about addiction, mental and emotional health issues in the local areas, and proposed solutions about how to better serve people with these issues in our communities. In June of 2019, we had another event called “ONE CITY, MANY CULTURES” in which we signed up more than 100 participants to enjoy our workshops. The participants practiced calligraphy, different dances, new languages, cooked traditional food and more. Our purpose was to create connections between immigrants and non-immigrants while boosting understanding of different cultures and traditions.
