Culturally Responsive Practice with Immigrant Families - Sil Ganzó of ourBRIDGE for Kids
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Charlotte, NC is an “immigrant gateway” that has one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in the country. Over 30,000 students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools speak a language other than English at home. Immigrant students and their parents encounter all kinds of challenges at school, and immigrant youth often lag behind their peers in a variety of academic and social indicators.
To talk about the challenges immigrant families face, we invited Sil Ganzó of ourBRIDGE for Kids to talk about her work in providing services for immigrant and newcomer families to Charlotte, NC. On the episode, she discusses the importance of meeting families where they are, how to truly be community-centered and culturally-responsive, and ultimately how to help immigrant youth feel welcome in a place that can feel very unfamiliar - and at times uninviting - to them. Sil also shares great examples of how ourBRIDGE uses survey and focus group data to gather insights into the immigrant family experience, and how they used empirical data to show how youth and their families enrolled in their programs were able to develop an increased sense of cultural identity and pride. We also discuss the importance of ethical storytelling, building a team for evaluation, and share exciting news about the opening of the new Charlotte is Home Center.
Key Points
Charlotte is truly an immigrant gateway city. Over 30,000 students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools speak a language other than English at home. These students and their families face unique challenges when engaging with the school system.
A recent Urban Institute report shows the many challenges faced by immigrant families in Charlotte NC. The report also demonstrates that the immigrant experience in Charlotte is diverse: Roughly 4 and 10 immigrant adults with limited English proficiency speak a language *other* than Spanish in Charlotte, NC.
One of the best ways to serve immigrant communities is to hire from the community. Sil gives an example of how ourBRIDGE hired Burmese staff members to help coordinate services for Burmese families and who were invaluable not just for their language skills but in how they provided insight into how to provide culturally responsive communication strategies - including getting the culturally tailored food and drink for a meeting.
Storytelling is critical to sharing the impact of an organization’s work. But it must be done ethically, without using photos and stories of clients served by the organization in a manipulative or exploitative way.
ourBRIDGE developed a partnership with a university partner to conduct an annual evaluation, which included a logic model and data collection tools like surveys and focus groups to learn from parents, youth, and staff. The evaluation paid close attention to the culturally responsive ways to conduct data collection in immigrant settings, including conducting focus groups in the language of the parents (e.g. in Afghan for Afghan families).
Results from surveys showed that parents felt relieved they are to know their children are safe and that they have help and resources. In addition, survey data showed that youth and their families enrolled in their programs were able to develop an increased sense of cultural identity and pride.
ourBRIDGE is teaming up with Charlotte Community Health Clinic and Carolina Migrant Network to create the Charlotte is Home Center, an inclusive community center where neighbors from all over the world will find culturally responsive services without the challenges of language barriers, technology skills, and cultural understanding of the US systems.
Resources
Our Guest
Sil Ganzó is a proud Argentinian immigrant who moved to Charlotte, on her own, in 2003. In 2014, Sil recognized a gap in culturally responsive educational and socio-emotional resources for newly-arrived families so she founded ourBRIDGE, a healing-centered, non-faith-based organization that has, since then, supported the acculturation, education, and well-being of thousands of immigrants and refugees through out-of-school programs and wraparound services for families in over 15 languages.
Sil and ourBRIDGE have been widely recognized for their advocacy for the rights and well-being of immigrants and refugees. One of the honors of Sil's life was being Congresswoman Alma Adams’ guest at the State of the Union Address in Washington DC in 2017 and being the first Latina to receive the prestigious Dr. Nish Jamgotch Jr. Humanitarian Award in 2020, among many other awards and recognitions.
