August is National Black Business Month, which recognizes the numerous contributions that Black inventors and creatives have made to American life, while also acknowledging the ongoing marginalization, racism, and sometimes outright violence Black people face when establishing themselves. Overcoming the barriers to Black entrepreneurship is no small challenge, which is why we encourage everybody to support their local Black-owned businesses, both in August and throughout the year. Some staff favorites include Black Coffee Northwest, Renew Physical Therapy, Wa Na Wari, That Brown Girl Cooks!, Thriftology, and Enat Ethiopian Restaurant.
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Dear Literacy Source Community,
The theme for our summer classes at Literacy Source is community, and as we move into the second summer of a global pandemic, we are embracing powerful ways to build and maintain connection. In ESOL 2/3, students are learning about what makes a healthy community, including supporting others. Meanwhile, students in ESOL 4/5 are exploring ways to advocate for themselves and their communities. Our English for Community Connections class is looking at how podcasts can be used to distribute reliable information to specific communities, and the GED class is using poetry to highlight the fact that when we work together to understand something, we all learn.
These themes – helping others, advocating for positive change, and learning together – are values that we strive to implement throughout our organization. In this spirit, we continue to address higher pay, pay equity, and better benefits for our staff. As we move into our new fiscal year, we are pleased to share that we have taken an important first step by combining staff sick days and vacation days into PTO, enabling staff to take more time off when they are well. In addition, we will be closing between Christmas and New Year’s.
This is just the first of many measures under discussion by our staff, leadership, and board to strengthen community through improved pay and benefits. We are also analyzing ways to enhance pay equity, beginning with transparency. With many of our classes full to overflowing and inflation showing no signs of abating, we recognize the importance of reducing the financial strain on our staff and honoring their contribution to Literacy Source. In turn, your generous contributions to our upcoming Back to School campaign will enable us to better facilitate our support of students, staff, and programs.
In community,
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Cat Howell
Co-ED, Educational Director
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Shira Rosen
Co-ED, Managing Director
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Interview: Literacy Source Student Rahima Namo |
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Rahima Namo is a student in our ESOL 4/5 class who has been studying at Literacy Source since April. She shared a powerful story about advocating on behalf of the residential community of Yesler Terrace, Seattle's first publicly subsidized housing community.
Read on to hear from Rahima!
Last quarter in the ESOL 4/5 class, you wrote about successfully advocating for parking in your community. Can you tell me what happened?
What happened is I live in Yesler Terrace, very close to downtown Seattle, and we do have street parking for the public. So residents have a permit, and non-residents have a two-hour parking limit. Three or four years ago, they changed the zoning and put in 2-hour parking for everybody. So residents had to get up every two hours and move the car around. So some of us – myself and my friend, her name’s Kristin, and also one of our neighbors, we started to advocate for our community. We’re getting towed, we’re getting tickets. People might have two cars in a household, they’re getting two tickets on the same day. I decided we need help, and I asked her, “What can we do?” And she said, “Oh, you can go to the City Hall and talk about the situation.”
I told them our problem and they put it back on one side of the street, but the other side still has a 2-hour [limit], we still get a ticket. Until today we still have a problem. We are having another problem also. So in this period, in the last two or three months, they’re putting a loading and unloading zone. It used to be for one car in every block – every street, every corner, one loading zone. But it’s now more than two cars they highlighted with red and yellow. This is a new problem and we’re going to talk to the City of Seattle: Why are you doing this to the residents?
And this neighborhood of Seattle, there’s a lot of diversity and refugees, and they don’t even know where to report the problem. They’re working outside of the city. They drop the children in the school, they go to work, and they pick up the children. Because our car is our life, we’re working with the car because we’re not professionally working in downtown, we work outside the city, we’re going to West Seattle, to Northgate, to Lake City. So how come the residents don’t have a right? Amazon and Google have more rights. So this is what I’m going to advocate for my community when I get a chance.
How much is a parking ticket?
The parking ticket is $47. From 2021 to now, I have $1,500 in parking tickets. I request to pay month to month, so I’m paying $25 every month. I do that, but what about the people who don’t even know? The ticket is sending them to collections. It’s challenging for the residents, especially if you are a secondary citizen, if you’re a refugee. Not everybody knows their rights. Not everybody knows if I have a problem I have to do this. So when they get the ticket, when they get the car towed, it’s very hard for us to know where to go to speak about the ticket.
How did you know where to go?
I only ask my friend, my neighbor – she’s American, and she used to work in City Hall and she’s still volunteering in the community. And all the time when we go to meetings with the neighborhood, we come and talk to her: “Okay, what can we do?” Not everybody comes and asks questions like this. It’s very hard for people who are immigrants, from anywhere.
When you went to speak to City Council, what was that like for you?
I feel much better – at least I explain my situation and how I feel, how the residents feel. How the people feel in the neighborhood. Anywhere you’re renting or wherever you live, that’s what you call your home. For example, some people are working night shift and they come home and can’t find parking, or they have to get up in the morning and move it or they find a ticket on their car.
Why do you think that it’s important for immigrants to advocate for themselves?
Because if they don’t advocate for themselves the problem is still going on – until they lose their car, until they lose their home. Even if they lose their car, some people are taxi drivers for a living, and some people are also working as a caregiver, and they use the transportation with a client. So if they lose their car they lose their job. And also they have to drop their children at school and go to work and come back home. The public transportation is not everywhere you go. It goes inside certain areas. You have to walk seven blocks, more than 10, 20 minutes. And most of the residents make their living with their car. I don’t know if only this area is having this problem, or every neighborhood is having this problem, but it looks to me the city doesn’t pay attention to residents in this area. Okay, how are these residents going to live? What percentage need their car? Why? And then they come out and highlight all these curbs. From one corner to one corner, they need one loading zone, but they take two loading zones, more than two cars each. So, what do we do? It’s like saying: you’re not important for this place, and go. The vision I can see behind this is, okay, they can give up their car or they give up their home. That’s what it looks like to me.
What do immigrants need to be able to advocate for themselves?
They need somebody who will speak for them, and who reads and writes very well and has good communication. They need somebody like that. So I am working on behalf of the residents also. I’m in the situation myself.
Have you learned anything from this experience, or from the class, about advocacy that you think is important?
Yes, I learned a lot from the class. And I learned also when I talked to City Hall. So okay, if we talk, and we express our problem, we get a change. If we don’t speak nobody is going to hear us, and nobody is going to help.
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Student, Staff and Program Recognitions |
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Student Recognition: Literacy Source student Badra Hirsi from Somalia was pictured in the Seattle Times on July 4, when she joined nearly 300 others to become U.S. citizens. Literacy Source students from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iraq, Mexico, and Morocco were also naturalized.
Staff Publications: Our recently departed ESOL Instructional Advisor Lisa Chanthavisay-Greenfield, as well as Cynthia Putnam, a lead instructor in our conversation classes, have both published teaching tips in the WAESOL Educator's Summer 2022 issue! Lisa outlined the benefits of Flippity.net, which allows users to create activities in Google Sheets, while Cynthia explained how to use the prompt, "What Do You See?" to engage students with pictures.
Staff & Program Recognition: We are very pleased to share that an interview with RTW South Instructor Carissa Hastings appeared on p. 7 of the Seattle Public Library Foundation's 2021 Annual Report on Donor Impact. The article highlighted our partnership with the library to lead Conversation Circles, and stated that "more than 200 people participated in Conversation Circles last year, representing 40 countries and at least 28 languages."
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Meet Our New Board Member! |
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Our board members are essential component of the Literacy Source team, ensuring we are operating in alignment with our mission and values. |
Paolo Sy
Attorney and Sr. Business Program Manager, Microsoft
Paolo is a member of Microsoft’s Office of the General Counsel. He serves as an attorney manager for Microsoft’s Pro Bono team and runs several core programs for Microsoft’s Legal Department. He has lived in Seattle all his adult life – where he went to the University of Washington for his undergraduate degree, and Seattle University for law school. Paolo’s involvement in non-profit and volunteering began with Literacy Source and he is proud to come full circle to serve as a Board Member for the organization. He enjoys cooking, DJ-ing, and having impromptu dance parties with his wife and children.
What excites you most about joining Literacy Source? I’ve always had a close affinity to the organization’s mission, as I’ve grown up educating my parents how to improve their English and computer skills, and helping them study for their naturalization test. I’m excited to join the board because of this mission, and the foundational impact it has had on me at the start of my professional career.
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Literacy Source is happy to announce a new project we are working on, in collaboration with Harborview Medical Center. Literacy Source has developed a pilot class to help EVS (Environmental Services) employees better serve their patients. As part of the curriculum, employees will be working on conversation skills needed to engage with patients, practicing the protocols and vocabulary around PPE and other hospital routines. In the future, we are hoping to expand the class to serve more shifts, and further enhancing employees abilities to engage with patients and coworkers. |
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Literacy Source Logo Contest |
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We'd like you to help us design a new logo! Create an updated design that represents our mission and vision of supporting adult learners, and submit it to our contest by August 22, 2022 at 8:00 am for your chance to win a $500 prize!
Find more contest details
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Literacy Source is seeking to fill several full-time and part-time roles, including an AmeriCorps service position, an ESOL Instructional Advisor position, and a position developing and implementing a new employee-focused curriculum with our community partners.
Adult Education Community Programs Developer
Work part-time with employers and other community partners to develop a curriculum and teach adult basic skills to non-native English speakers.
AmeriCorps ESOL/Citizenship Program Assistant
Work full-time to increase learning opportunities for economically disadvantaged immigrant and refugee adults.
ESOL Instructional Advisor
Work part-time or full-time to teach ESOL or citizenship classes to low-income adults.
More information and job descriptions on our website.
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Literacy Source is on the traditional lands of the Duwamish people, and we pay our respect to elders both past and present. To support the revival of Duwamish culture and the vitality of the Duwamish Tribe, please consider signing this petition to federally recognize them, or consider making a donation to Real Rent Duwamish.
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