Friday, December 20, 2013

Laomerica 40: Proposing new voices


Over at the Twin Cities Daily Planet this week I have an article regarding a recent project a foundation declined. In a nutshell, it would have been an original community-learning project working with historically underrepresented voices in the Lao American refugee community.

I had "sought to focus on those from smaller populations such as the Khmu, Tai Dam, Iu Mien, Lahu, and Lua." Between 2014 to 2015, this community-learning project would have developed almost 30 new voices in three key zones where Lao refugees have no meaningful regular access to sustained, culturally appropriate literary training and access programs.

For those of you in other states, the outline of this proposal may be helpful for you as you consider how you might want to develop a program to meet the artistic needs of your community whether it is for Lao refugees or other emerging populations such as the Karen, Montagnards, Kurds, or others.

I cover most of the territory I wanted to cover in the piece over at the Twin Cities Daily Planet but let me know if you have any other questions!

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