The African Center for Community Development: An Anchor in Troubled Times (Part 1 of 2)
Esther Ama Ptak is the executive director of the African Center for Community Development, which recently opened its office in the UW South Madison Partnership Office.
by Jonathan Gramling
For a number of years, members of Madison’s African community had wanted to set up a social service non-profit to serve the “invisible” African immigrants who came to the United States. Often times, they had needs that weren’t being met by the existing human service system.
The African Center for Community Development was founded in 2014 to try to meet the needs of these immigrants.
“The last time I checked, perhaps last week, we have over 21 African countries represented across Dane County,” said Esther Ama Ptak, the executive director of the African Center. “We have a lot of people here. It used to be people coming through the university and afterwards, settling in the Madison area. But we have people who come through humanitarian actions like refugee resettlement and organizations. They come straight from the continent of Africa and resettle here. We also have people moving from other states like Florida and Minnesota. They come to Madison with their families to settle, find jobs and other things that will help them build a brighter future. A lot of people are from the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have some people from Somalia and Chad.”
It took a while for the African center to develop the capacity to serve the African community. While the founders recognized the need, getting funders to recognize the need was a different proposition. When COVID hit in 2020, the community called on the African Center — and gave it resources — to reach out to and provide services to the African community. And in 2022, the African Center began to work out of the UW South Madison Partnership Office, it’s first “permanent” home. And on August 1st, it celebrated the opening of its office at the Partnership.
“We’ve been working with African immigrants, refugees and low-income families in Madison,” Ptak said. “We’ve grown quite a bit over the past two years. We thank the city of Madison, in particular, for having us as a community partner, providing housing. We get funding from Public Health Madison and Dane County as well as foundations.”
The African Center has been providing services in a number of areas.
“We have housing support services where we help people navigate housing search, find rental assistance resources,” Ptak said. “Thanks to a grant, we were able to provide rental assistance for about 50 families. We were able to ensure housing stability.”
Often times, first-generation African youth are torn between their African and American identities. The African Center works to help the students develop a holistic identity.
“We have a youth program that is actually coming up August 23rd,,” Ptak said. “It’s being organized by our high school volunteers. I give all the credit to them. They have five high school volunteers who came to volunteer with us. The idea is to organize a cultural event, an Africa Fest for youth. It will bring the youth in the greater Madison area together to learn about Africa. There are going to be activities, indoor games, outdoor games and a back-to-school event as well. It’s just to create an avenue for the kids to learn more about their cultural history. Last year, we took high school students from East High School’s Africa Club and BSU to the State Capitol. We have these great sites that we think everyone has access to. But about 95 percent of the kids had never entered the building. We are thankful to Rep. Samba Baldeh, Rep. Shelia Stubbs and Rep. Francesca Hong for hosting the kids and sharing their experiences. It was great. We are hoping to do activities like that and see how we can provide wrap around support for the youth in particular in the community.”
And a third area that the African Center is working in is senior services.
“We also have our older adults program for seniors in the community, our elders,” Ptak said. “We provide a respectful and culturally appropriate space for seniors to share their experiences and provide educational resources. We recently had a fall prevention workshop. It was well attended.”
The African Center and its constituents have faced a new challenge since Donald Trump was elected president and took office in January of this year. Reflective of Trump’s attitude towards Africa was when he called them “s**thole countries.” African immigrants were in Trump’s crosshairs.
“We’ve has a lot of people whose status has been threatened over the past six months,” Ptak said. “It is sad and quite unfortunate. We view the visa restrictions and travel bans as an African ban because about 70 percent of the countries on the lists are African countries. We have citizens from these countries facing food shortages and travel bans. They are facing partial bans and restrictions. And so we sent out a survey to community members for them to express their concerns about the bans because we have people coming to visit their families and some emigrating here and facing these difficulties in addition to the challenges they may be having in their home country. The Madison and Dane County communities support families like that.”
Even though they followed all the rules and entered the U.S. legally, their status is threatened.
“Some fear that their legal status may be revoked,” Ptak emphasized. “especially in the Cameroonian community, the Cameroonians who have TPS, Temporary Protected Status. They have had their TPS status revoked. Those who had the status for some time now, they wouldn’t be able to renew. And those who are now going to request it, the program has been closed for them. They are left in limbo. We actually have an organization that reached out to us because of one of their clients is a Cameroonian. She’s been receiving case management and support from this organization. She works at one of our big grocery stores. One night, she came back and had her status revoked, which means that she doesn’t have a work permit. And so, she was asked to go home.”
And it’s not like the Cameroonians have any place to go to.
“In some parts of Cameroon, there are ongoing wars,” Ptak said. “And people with the TPS status, most of them, may have come from these difficult environments looking for refuge and protection in the U.S. And now we are sending people away to the dangerous situations they ran away from in the first place. They went through all of the legal processes. The U.S. immigration process is very onerous. And they went through that and were happy to get a Temporary Protected Status for them to be able to work while they go through the normal, regular process to get permanent residency to continue to stay in this country.”
In order to gauge the impact of Trump’s immigration policies on the Madison area’s African community, the African Center is conducting a community survey online at its website and will be conducting it in-person at Africa Fest.
“The survey was to first educate community members about the bans because we have a link that takes people to the news sites and sources that we are citing,” Ptak said. “It’s to also know what kind of support community members are looking for in the face of all of these challenges. The person taking the survey could be an African immigrant or someone who knows an African immigrant or works with them. It’s just to ask how people know African immigrants because we are present in this community, how the policies are affecting families and individuals and find out what kinds of resources people need from organizations like the African Center. We have organized Know Your Rights training, providing assistance for housing, food and other basic needs and providing information about local resources available to immigrants.”