About Us
Background
With its long history of welcoming immigrants, Minnesota is considered a haven for African immigrants and refugees. Drawn to the state by family ties, a vibrant immigrant community, job and educational opportunities, and a growing number of social service programs, the number and percentage of African immigrants and refugees continue to grow. Secondary migration, also known as state-to-state migration, only adds to the rising numbers.
According to a Minneapolis Foundation report, 13 percent of Minnesota’s foreign-born residents in the 2000 Census were from Africa—a higher percentage than any other state in the U.S.
By all accounts, African immigrants and refugees contribute to their newfound communities in significant ways. They help to strengthen Minnesota’s economy by providing labor, creating businesses, and expanding the state’s tax base. And yes, they are leaders, scholars, and professionals in almost every field. Even the state’s arts and culinary tradition reflect some of their unique cultural influences.
Challenges
As African immigrants and refugees aspire to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to integrate into mainstream communities, they encounter many hurdles.
Many research reports attribute the problems to language barrier, social and cultural fluency, education, technical training, jobs, discrimination, and a lower level of access to social service, educational, and employment resources.
Worse, these difficulties are sometimes complicated by some of the negative images and stereotypes about African immigrants and refugees in the media. While it appears to take on a more subtle form, biased media coverage of minority groups persists. The unfair portrayal of minorities in the media certainly perpetuates stereotypes and, by extension, significantly influences public perception and attitudes.
Although their contributions are noted at some levels, rarely do their assets and perspectives define the dominant narratives about them.
Together, these challenges undermine the aspirations of African immigrants and refugees, and tend to deprive the host communities of their assets.
AIS Leadership
There is certainly a need to partner with and empower African immigrants and refugees overcome barriers that inhibit the fulfillment of their aspirations, to highlight their contributions, and to help address the negative misrepresentations about them.
It is also extremely critical to narrow the disparity between the needs of African immigrants and refugees and their access to resources and opportunities.
While many non-profit organizations have sought to address some of these realities with traditional programs and services—with varying degrees of success—it seems there is no strategy or framework for many such groups to consistently employ creative culturally competent outreach and organizing efforts—combined with the tools of technology-- to bridge the ever growing gap between needs and access to resources and opportunities.
AIS was established to fill these voids and to break new grounds.
History of AIS
Founded in 2005, AIS is currently a volunteer-driven initiative of about 35 volunteers contributing an average of five hours per month.
Our Core Values
As an organization, AIS is guided by six core values. Combined with our vision and mission, these principles represent our culture and underscore our priorities.
- Diversity - Build an inclusive community and foster cross-cultural bonds
- Honesty & Integrity - To engender trust, we strive for high ethical standards
- Excellence - Set and achieve outstanding results and the highest quality outcomes
- Shared Leadership - When we partner with those we serve, we serve them better
- Partnership - When we work together as partners, we can overcome all odds
- Uniqueness - We fill voids and bridge gaps, and break new grounds
