The Chicago Cultural Alliance is proud to announce that the following nine Core Members applied for and will be receiving funds and resources for this year's Talking About Dialogues' Program: American Indian Center of Chicago, Arab-American Action Network, Cambodian American Heritage Musem, Chinese-American Museum of Chicago, Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, Indo-American Heritage Museum, Irish American Heritage Center, Polish Museum of America, and the Swedish-American Museum.
Talking About Dialogues is a program designed to bring together Core Member communities to discuss significant contemporary issues, such as immigration, ethnic identity, climate change, and health care, from the varied perspectives and experiences of community members. Requisite training began on Monday, March 22nd with a day-long workshop on civic engagement. Representatives from each of the nine accepted Core Members gathered together at Casa Michoacan to learn about innovative ways to engage their respective communities, as well as identify ways to bridge topics raised by museum exhibits with issues relevant to their communities.
Members such as the Arab American Action Network cited challenges such as "trying to engage the largest section possible of the Arab community, which is separated from our organization's site [due] to recent demographic shifts that place the majority of this community" farther away from their actual geographic location. Future programming, including cross-cultural dialogues and public panel discussions, will help to deliver a diversity of perspectives that's more reflective of our multi-cultural society. |
