Charlotte Latino Pathways
Program Update by Laura Ciudad
Latino Pathways is currently working with the Latin American Coalition, one of our partners, identifying the resources available within the organization that support career pathways for Latinos. Part of this process has been conducting the "Taller de Trabajo," a weekly workshop that teaches strategies to look for a job. The participants are in the majority unemployed adults in their early 30s. After surveying the participants of this workshop we have learned that most have a great need to learn basic computer skills and effective resume writing.
Learnings from the NCLR Peer Exchange
Laura Ciudad Dahlberg, Gilda Rubio-Festa, and Colin Austin attended a National Council of La Raza (NCLR) peer exchange in June 18-19, 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. Strategies and models were presented from affiliates who are implementing employment, training, and job readiness programs in the health care industry. Laura summarized the key learnings she took away from the training:
- Sector initiatives are oriented to both employees and employers; initiatives should be developed in steps.
- The first step should be to develop the main concepts, expectations and commitments for the initiative.
- Partners need to feel ownership of the program and collaborative work.
- Case management should be a central piece of the program. The community-based organization (CBO) should be the partner in charge of case management. For this to be effective, the training provider and the CBO need to have a strong relationship and communication at all times.
- A Memorandum of Understanding, a document which clearly defines the roles, benefits, and responsibilities of the partners, should be developed and signed by the partners.
- Getting commitment from employers from the beginning should be a priority.
Greensboro Latino Pathways
Program Update by Edison Cano
LATINO PATHWAYS PROGRAM HAS LAUNCHED TRAINING FOR PROSPECTIVE
AND NEW LATINO ENTREPRENEURS.
“THE BASICS OF STARTING AND SUCCESSFULLY OPERATING YOUR OWN BUSINESS.” is the name of the new initiative that Latino Pathways in Greensboro has been working in the last couple of months with the Small Business Centers at Guilford and Randolph counties.
After detecting specific needs for a great number of Latinos in this area, the Latino Pathways program with the support of the SBC directors from the Guilford and Randolph counties, is working on getting the Latino community involved in the process of starting their own businesses.
These series of three-hour independent classes in Spanish dealing with topics like: Personal Budgeting, Managing Your Checkbook, Do I Have What it takes? , Can I Live Off my Idea? and others, are the first step in order to help Latinos to become their own bosses and turn their dreams into a successful business.
All these classes are done through hands-on training examples and are based on the NC-REAL program (Rural entrepreneurship through action learning program in North Carolina.)
In the meantime, the interest of the Latino community in the HRD workshops and C.N.A training is growing fast. A second C.N.A class was graduated last week and the third class will start by the end of this month. More than 80 participants have received training in HRD and 48 are persuading in getting a GED diploma. Since March 2006, the program has registered and referred more than 318 participants to many different trainings and job opportunities.
Establishing a long and lasting relationship with employers has been one of our priorities during this time. Many connections with employers and organizations have been made around the area, spreading the name of the program to many cities like Winston-Salem, Burlington, and Asheboro.
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