George Wright's blog

 
The start of the World Cup last Friday had the folks in Utica thinking, "Why travel to South Africa when the whole world lives right here in Upstate?"  This past weekend, the Redeemer Church of Utica organized the first annual Redeemer Cup (and a nice website to go along with it) - a two-day soccer tournament that brought together Utica's different ethnic and national groups in a competitive forum.  
 

This is a very quick post to congratulate Alex Pial - former Lost Boy of Sudan refugee, and Board Member of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont (AALV) - and his wife Victoria on the birth of triplets.  The AALV is an ORR-funded ethnic community based organization (ECBO).  The three babies were born April 11th in Burlington, Vermont.

 
I've written much about the importance and value of ethnic community based organizations (ECBOs) bridging refugee communities to the wide variety of social service providers refugees must access to provide for their basic needs.  This value is underscored when mainstream social service providers initiate contractual agreements with ECBOs.  
 

The Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices has released a grant request for proposals at grants.gov for public education programs concerning the anti-discrimination policies of the