Maine Association of New Americans, “MANA”, is an immigrant-led organization that promotes social & personal empowerment of immigrants in Maine through:
Raising awareness of individual and collective trauma and how they affect our lives:
MANA coordinates multilingual outreach and educational programming for immigrants and their families to facilitate further resilience-building, including ways to manage trauma. Immigrants coming to Maine have often experienced adversity either in their places of origin or in the process of immigrating, and sometimes to this day. However, we do not see this as proof of being “broken” or “traumatized.” We instead highlight the strength one requires in order to survive these experiences. This is facilitated by providing linguistically and culturally tailored workshops and programs under the banner of Resilient New Americans.
Raising awareness of how these experiences can affect their lives today is important in ensuring that each and every person can thrive, both personally and professionally no matter what they might have or have not experienced. The educational programs create spaces to understand how collective trauma affects individuals differently, how to recognize it, and how to live with it effectively. Presenting alternate ways to approach these experiences allows individuals to leverage the resiliency they have already cultivated to enrich their futures.
Expanding people’s resilience building strategies by exploring various resources:
MANA collaborates with a network of organizations and municipalities across Maine to ensure immigrants and their families have access to resources that support building resilience. Local governments, organizations, and professionals offer services but are often disconnected from the communities they can serve. MANA connects people with these organizations as resources and educates local services on how to help. A desire to support people in a way that is culturally and linguistically tailored has driven MANA to partner with local professionals on exploring cross-cultural and cross-linguistic issues, allowing all of us to explore the best possible way to serve individuals in collaboration. Building bridges between existing local resources and various communities ensures that the resiliency-building resources are utilized appropriately and efficiently.
Connecting people with their peers across cultures:
MANA Mingle unites leaders across communities to establish channels for peer support. Cultural leaders, clergy, and industry liaisons are some of the figures who work to share personal and professional skills or opportunities, promote collaboration between cultural groups, and cultivate resilience-building strategies. Our sister organization, Peer to Peer Exchange for Legal Professionals was founded in 2017 to bring together U.S.–trained and foreign–trained legal professionals for professional networking and peer support.
Cinnamon Girl donates $1-A-Bun Today, Thursday May 5 to all New Mainers/Americans! Please stop by!
