July News: LinkedIn visit, LEAD series & graduates, Stories That Move Us
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Latest news
Workforce development programs
This month, we took a group of 22 LEAD participants to the NYC offices of LinkedIn for our quarterly field visit, which included a workshop on how to use LinkedIn for job search and networking, coaching by a LinkedIn employee, and a tour of their offices and introduction to the company and workplace culture.
“The workshop was very well structured, it covered a wide range of LinkedIn features and provided very useful tips to our participants for their job search. In addition, it was so valuable for our participants to be able to put into practice their learning immediately after the workshop together with a LinkedIn coach. We are grateful for the work and consideration the LinkedIn team has put into preparing this visit.”
– Gyuzel Zaripova, NWNY Program Associate
These past weeks, two additional cohorts of participants completed our LEAD workforce development program, putting at 67 the total number of immigrant women served through LEAD and LEAD for New Moms since January 2019. Our volunteers have been hard at work since the beginning of the year: In addition to facilitating job readiness workshops, they helped build and review over 70 resumes and offered more than 20 career counseling sessions to our participants.
Meanwhile, our Spring 2018 and Fall 2018 LEAD graduates have been incredibly successful at reaching their professional goals: Over two-thirds of our graduates actively seeking a job have accepted a job offer in their field of interest six months or less after graduation. And half of our Spring 2018 graduates seeking to enroll in school or a vocational training have already applied and secured admission.
Community building & storytelling
We welcomed over 120 guests this month for our annual storytelling showcase, Stories That Move Us, held at Usagi in Dumbo in honor of Immigrant Heritage Month.
We were honored with the attendance and opening remarks of Bitta Mostofi, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, and Veena Jayadeva, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Guardian Life, our Lead Sponsor for the event.
12 graduates of our storytelling program with The Moth shared stories about their experience moving thousands of miles away from home, overcoming obstacles, defeating homesickness and language barriers, or about other experiences from their everyday life.
Read more about the event on our blog, and discover some beautiful photographs here.
June also saw the holding of a special Cultural Trip for our community: During two Saturday afternoons, a group of 15 participants joined two New York female artists – Jackie Meier and Lisa Taliano – to learn about abstract paintings and to get inspired by the art show You Are Not Alone. Participants also enjoyed learning and practicing watercolor techniques!
Other news
Our Founder & CEO Arielle Kandel participated in a panel on immigrant entrepreneurs at impACTnyc’s first event at the Open Society Foundations, in partnership with Young Professionals in Foreign Policy – New York.
Check a feature about our LEAD workforce development program by our Program Associate Gyuzel Zaripova on the blog of one of our partner organizations, World Education Services.
Two of our storytellers, Anastassiya and Tianrui, shared a story about their experience of immigration in the US at World Refugee Day, an event hosted at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music with several NYC immigrant service providers and city agencies. Check some photos of the event here!
Our Blog Editor Vesna Jaksic Lowe wrote a beautiful essay in The New York Times about immigrating with her family from Croatia to Canada just before Yugoslavia erupted into war, and then from Canada to the United States: “There is no box for a Croat born in Serbia while it was Yugoslavia, who has a Canadian passport but lives in the United States. I don’t fit in — in a box or a country.”
Our Program Associate Gyuzel Zaripova represented New Women New Yorkers at the gala of the Centre for Social Innovation, our home since 2015!
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Featured blog post:
Stories That Move Us showcases real-life tales of immigrant women
““I am going to take you for a journey to a very remote area in Pakistan,” educator Safida said before describing the wildlife and landscape of the village she was born in. There, she got married at the young age of 11. Girls’ education wasn’t culturally accepted and she had access to schools intermittently.
But Safida eventually earned a master’s degree and became the first female school principal in Northern Pakistan. “I went through a lot, but here I am, talking with you about the importance of girls’ education,” Safida concluded, prompting an ovation from a crowd of over 100 people.”
