The African Center for Community Development: An Anchor in Troubled Times (Part 2 of 2)
Esther Ama Ptak is the executive director of the African Center for Community Development, which recently opend 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.
In early August of this year, the African Center celebrated the creation of its first “permanent” office space and programming area in the UW South Madison Partnerships Office courtesy of UW-Madison.
The additional capacity is coming at the right time as President Donald Trump has focused in on African countries with his anti-immigrant initiatives born partially out of ignorance.
“That narrative is so present even though Trump recently invited five African countries for an interview,” Ptak said. “From a lot of people’s perspectives —including mine — he invited countries that he knew needed a lot of support and help. The presidents had all planned to sing Trump’s praises because that is what he wanted to hear. It was funny that he asked the president of Liberia how he learned to speak such good English. He of all people should know that Liberia is a country that was an American colony and founded by Africans who were enslaved. They recently celebrated their 178th anniversary. He should have known.”
With this onslaught where some people have lost their legal status, the African Center is trying to gauge its impact on the African Community and what are the needs of the individuals and families.
“At Africa Fest, we talked to community members who came to the festival to either respond to the survey or share the resources that we have at the African Center and through our different partnerships that we have,” Ptak said. “We also want to share information about our Know Your Rights Immigration Workshop that we hold with three other community organizations at an African immigrant church.
We want to see if there is interest from other communities to organize these education workshops. We also want to know what the needs are of our community members and how we can mobilize to find resources to meet their needs.
Ptak emphasized that although the survey is targeting the African community, everyone iks encouraged to complete it.
“You don’t have to be an African immigrant to complete the survey,” Ptak said. “Everyone can fill out the survey so that we know who knows African immigrants and who are African immigrants because we are present in the community and we work with people. But someone to say, ‘Oh, I know this Gambian. I know this Kenyan. I know this Somali person I am working with.’
The African Center will be accepting completed surveys at its office or people can complete ikt online.
“Hopefully at the end of the year, we hope to publish the results of our survey. By then, we are hoping to do a second or a third workshop. And based on the feedback of the workshops and the responses to the survey, we will know what the needs are and find out what are the resources w\w can get from the city of Madison, Dane County and others to support the immigrant families because the community is expanding.”
The recently arrived African community is probably larger than people realize, in part because they try to not attract attention, especially in today’s political climate.
“You wouldn’t know people are immigrants just by interacting with them unless someone specifies, ‘Oh, I came in as a refugee,’” Ptak said. “We also have a lot of mixed immigration status families in the community. We don’t stress what people’s status is when we provide service unless it is needed or the resources are tailored to a particular group.”
The African Center is working hard to help the African community to become more unified. While they have the continent of Africa in common, there is great diversity amongst the people who call Madison home.
“Sometimes the African community members, we have some people who are established and families who are newly arriving or came in a few years ago,” Ptak said. “People are working and it’s hard to integrate into the community. So however we can help by creating conducive environments for families and co-workers, by supporting organizations like the African Center or the African Association and participating in events, we all come together to network and know our neighbors.”
At this point in time, the needs that the African Center is trying to meet far outstrips its capacity to meet them.
“We need all the funding we can get,” Ptak said. “We accept donations on our website. People can mail donations to The African Center for Community Development, 2238 S. Park Street, Madison, WI 53713. Or they can reach out to me at ama@africancentermadison.org. And I will be happy to talk with anyone who would like to get involved.”
There are many recently-arrived African’s whose legal status has been placed in limbo through no fault of their own. The African Center for Community Development hopes that the community will rise up and join them in supporting these vulnerable members of the greater Madison area.