Orientation and Training / Montagnard / Asian Community Disparities Research Network
Orientation and Training provide volunteers, scholars, researchers, academics, service learning and community engagement students, and others with a comprehensive introduction to the community, cultural humility and communication skills before they actively engage with our community. Through the Community Advisory Council (CAC) and the Research Network and its partners, MDA offers a training curriculum suitable for nonspecialists and specialists. Topics covered include community facts, social justice, anti-racism, cultural competency, reflection and etiquette.
Organizing and Advocacy training is especially focused on capacity building for refugee and immigrant community members and organizations but is open to all.
Research, Service Learning and Community Engaged Scholarship cover academic and professionally based outreach efforts that bridge gaps between community and institutions such as colleges, universities, healthcare services and others which respond to or are actively involved in data gathering towards policy change.
ORIENTATION
Step 1: Learn about the community Orientation is open to all. It consists of foundational facts, history, knowledge and background information about the Montagnard community, its relation to other communities, dominant societies and cultures. We talk about the multiple identities that the community as a whole faces as well as intergenerational challenges.
At the end of training, a learner will be able to understand and explain Montagnard experiences based on their history in Southeast Asia as minoritized tribal peoples and in the U.S. as AAPI (Asian American / Pacific Islander), as allies to U.S. military forces in Vietnam and "model minority" stereotypes in North Carolina. The learner will be able to frame the current status of the community through the social determinants of health (SDOH).
Schedules
Fees
Total Contact Hours
CEU available
BASIC Training
Step 2: Applied social justice After Orientation, we introduce fairness and equitable community involvement as a practice embracing social justice, anti-racism, cultural competency, reflection and etiquette. Especially in the U.S. South used to Black-white binary politics, we talk about the community which defies stereotypes: indigenous, multilingual, multiethnic and a minority within a minority as most Americans understand AAPI people.
At the end of training, a learner will be able to carefully observe, orient, decide and act in new, difficult and possibly stressful conditions, increase their cultural and personal self-awareness about the ways they derive meaning, increase their awareness about how others make meaning, manage emotions in the face of ambiguity, and learn to adapt behavior in the face of ambiguity and unfamiliar cultural encounters. Specific examples and scenarios will be drawn from Montagnard experiences.
Schedules
Fees
Total Contact Hours
CEU available
ORGANIZING & ADVOCACY
Advanced: Skills development for activists An introduction to community organizing, base building and advocacy help those who wish to understand the difference between general volunteerism and community activism tied to civic engagement and participatory democracy.
At the end of training, a learner will be able to explain the goals and purposes of community-based activism and describe the local political process. They will work with MDA staff or others to gain hands on experience, knowledge and confidence through the demonstration of their skills.
Schedules
Fees
Total Contact Hours
CEU available
RESEARCH, SERVICE LEARNING, AND COMMUNITY ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP
Advanced: Skills development for professionals and students Most learning institutions offer specific guidelines and intensive training about how community work will be conducted. MDA, as a community based organization, offers to professionals and students its own set of guidelines and best practices for obtaining results which are fair, equitable and consistent with the highest ethical standards. Research includes CBPR and PAR practice.
At the end of training, a learner will be able to identity and explain at least five prominent challenges faced by the community as experienced by the community, the differences that separate Service Learning (or Community Service), Community-Engaged Scholarship, and Research approaches like CBPR, their limits and advantages from the community perspective, and how to design community-based projects that meet community approval. The learner will be able to explain how the lack of data and research on this community contributes to its marginalization.
Schedules
Fees
Total Contact Hours
CEU available