How one program educated its community

Addell Anderson, Program Director of the Michigan AmeriCorps Partnership in Detroit, MI works with many cultures in her city. This program has grown to include at least eight graduate and undergraduate programs at the University of Michigan that annually serve nearly 40 diverse nonprofit organizations, primarily based in Detroit. Twenty percent of the community served is Arab and Chaldean.

In the post 9/11 world, many people have assumptions, stereotypes, and misconceptions about what it means to be Arab and Chaldean. Anderson created this document to educate her staff and members, and increase their understanding of these cultures.

To create this document she:

• Gathered facts from her contacts in the Arab and Chaldean community. She also gathered statistics and other information from various sources at the Detroit Public Library and the National Arab American Museum
• Drew from her personal and professional experiences
• Consulted dictionaries and encyclopedias
• Asked Arab-American AmeriCorps members and several of her Arab and Chaldean American contacts to review the document for accuracy

Use this resource to see how this program educated its community about Arab and Chaldean cultures and learn more about these cultures yourself.