Building America’s Villages

Creating Villages in America’s Neighborhoods

It takes a village to raise a child

African proverb

• Enclaves of immigrants within larger neighborhoods…

• No structured means of interactions…

• Loss of meaningful interactions…

• Loss of richness of immigrant culture

• No awareness of deep structure American culture...

Building America’s Villages

• Provides a structure for community building between immigrant Americans and American-born Americans..

• Learn English as a second language

• Create an inclusive neighborhood culture

• Based on a model developed for 25 years at University of Houston

Pilot Project

• Between College of the Mainland and the University of Houston

• Using the Toolkit for Culture & Communication

Neighborhood-based ESL classes

• Provide – ESL

– Civics

– Cross Cultural Communication

• These classes are unique in that both immigrant Americans and American-born Americans participate in them…

ESL & Civics

• Only Immigrant Americans participate

Cross Cultural Communication (The Toolkit)

• Both immigrant Americans and American-born Americans participate

Cross Cultural Communication

• First immigrant Americans study the lesson with additional ESL materials to facilitate learning the content

• Then they and American-born Americans study the same lesson together - leading to a sense of community and connectedness.

Building America’s Villages Contact information

• Email: cma@culturebump.com

• Phone: 713 987-1678

• P. O. Box 752801

• Houston, Texas 77275