Uniting America's Summer Leadership Academy is 1 week away! Apply now!

There are still spots left so fill out the application and join ICIRR and our members for a life changing summer!!

On June 15th, 2012, President Obama announced that his administration will be working to a process where undocumented youth can apply for deferred action and stop their deportations and possibly receive a work permit. This summer, you will have the opportunity to get the most up-to-date information on what this memo means!

Do you want be part of the team to organize the 1st workshop following Obama's announcement?

Do you want to know how you can bring this information back to your friends, classmates, and teachers in your school?

Apply today and be part of the team that will organize the 1st workshop and help thousands of undocumented youth in the state of Illinois!

During the 5 weeks, you will be part of an amazing team of great leaders in the immigrant community. You will learn about immigrant civic engagement, voter registration and voter turnout, you will learn to write a press statement, an editorial, create public service announcements to inform our communities about this new announcement and all matters that affect our immigrant communities! In fact, our 1st day, we will talk to students from the United Kingdom about their work!

If you have questions, please e-mail Cindy Agustin at cagustin@icirr.org or give me a call at 773.351.9097.

It's time for YOU to become a LEADER in YOUR COMMUNITY! APPLY AT WWW.ICIRR.ORG/SUMMERLEADERSHIP

Africa: UNHCR Promotes Innovation and Self Sufficiency At Annual NGO Meet

Geneva — A top UNHCR official opened annual consultations with non-governmental organizations (NGO) on Tuesday by seeking their assistance in developing innovative ways to help refugees and in empowering more of the displaced through self-sufficiency.

Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees T. Alexander Aleinikoff, addressing more than 430 participants from 86 countries at the start of the three-day meeting in Geneva, said UNHCR was looking at how the agency and its partners could "become 21st Century organizations" and benefit from best practices around the world.

"Many of us work in ways we have worked for many years, where things that have worked in the past continue to work in the present. But, meanwhile, the world has moved on," he said, adding that UNHCR was looking at how it could benefit from improvements in areas such as mobile phone technology, solar power and lighting, fuel-efficient stoves, shelter, livelihoods and micro-credit.

"All of these are areas in which innovative practices would be welcome and where we can learn from organizations and changes going on around the world," Aleinikoff said, before revealing that the agency would soon launch an "innovation initiative" that would "attempt to pull these examples together" and feature innovative ideas developed in the field.

For more on this article, click here!

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Source: allAfrica

FATE Presents: Eniyan

Show your support to the Fehinty African Theatre Ensemble (FATE)

by attending their upcoming play Eniyan!!!

When: August 17-19, September 14-16

Friday - Saturday 8PM, Sunday 4PM

Buy tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com 

or at the door, $20 (Dinner and Play)

Where: Inyaze African Restaurant 

4623 N. Broadway, Chicago IL 60640

(773)-417-9997

Alie Kabba on CANTV!

UAO Executive Director Alie Kabba discusses the meaning of President Obama's new policy for the protection of DREAM-Act eligible youth with Maria Salazar of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

To view more videos of the UAO in action, please click here! 

The Sahara Desert's Forgotten Refugees

Johnson Varny is back after four months away, spent somewhere in the no man's land between Mali and Algeria. He'd been caught by the police here, who loaded him and 80 others onto the back of a truck, carting them back to Tin Sawatin.

 They spent two days and 700 miserable kilometers (400 miles) traveling southwest through nothing but sand and rocks. When they reached their destination -- a small collection of tin huts -- the police simply unloaded their human cargo and left them to fend for themselves. "They treated us like animals," says Varny, 32. 

Surrounded by nothing but sand and rocks, Tamanrasset, with its population of 100,000, has been a way station for emigrants from sub-Saharan Africa for two decades. At first a few dozen people passed through the city each year, and then suddenly it was hundreds, and now tens of thousands. Are they refugees, migrant workers, and immigrants? Definitions are fluid here.

 They stay for weeks or months, often even years. But then they move on, because ultimately, they all have the same goal: Europe, the continent that draws them north like iron filings pulled toward a magnet. Estimates say only around 15 to 20 percent actually arrive there. For the full article, click here.

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Source: Spiegel Online International 

Protracted refugee situations in Liberia and Angola to finally end

This weekend, two of the most protracted refugee situations in Africa will finally come to an end. On Saturday, cessation clauses will enter into force for refugees from Liberia and Angola on the basis that these countries have both enjoyed many years of peace and stability after bitter civil wars. 

"This means people who fled the two countries and remain abroad will no longer be regarded as refugees by UNHCR and host governments," UNHCR spokesman, Adrian Edwards, told journalists in Geneva on Friday. "We are working with the governments of origin and of asylum to find solutions for those refugees who wish either to return home or to remain in their host countries due to strong ties there.

 Voluntary returns will continue to be assisted while possibilities for local integration and/or an alternative legal status are also being discussed," he added. For the full article, click here.

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Source: UNHCR

Congolese Independence Day Celebration

When: Saturday June 30th, 2012 

Where: Soccer Field @ Foster & Marine Drive 

Time: 2pm Sharp! 

What: Congolese Independence Day Celebration