There are so many reasons to vote YES on your mail in ballots that are due May 8th, and one of these is the AMAZING job MCPS is doing to support refugee children. 

We want you to know what an INCREDIBLE job Missoula County Public Schools is doing for refugee kiddos. Seriously amazing.

Did you know that “School Impact Grants” from the Feds for refugee kids require a quota that we haven’t yet hit and are 2 years RETROACTIVE?! So there is definitely a need for this levy on many levels, but including to continue to serve refugee kiddos.

Did you know that, despite the current growth in our county of ALL types of students, this levy doesn’t increase MCPS budget, only continues to fund it at current levels.

This is the LEAST we can do, and we HAVE to do it! Please join us in voting YES YES for these school levies.

For more info visit: https://www.mcpsmt.org/domain/3231 

On top of this, we want you to know that in the interim of the School Impact Grant being available, Soft Landing has put our (limited!) money where our mouth is and we are honored to be a part of a great group of folks-  The United Way and Community Medical Center- that have come together to support MCPS in translating documents so that families can get vital information about their kiddos education and school lives.  We are so grateful to MCPS and these incredible partners.

The Out of Syria Lecture with Brendan Work was an important and informative lecture and we are so grateful to all those who attended! For those who weren’t able to attend or just want to see the lecture again, MCAT generously filmed and will screen the Out of Syria on the MCAT channel 189 on:

• May 25th at 9:00 pm 
• May 26th at 9:30 pm 

The out of Syria Lecture will also be available for viewing on Video on Demand on the MCAT website at www.mcat.org closer to the air date. 

Thanks again so much to Brendan and the Syrian families in Missoula that made this lecture so special!

Join us for another night at Masala for the next United We Eat Supper Club! 

The Soft Landing Missoula Supper Club aims to introduce the incredible culinary talent of Missoula’s newest neighbors and international residents, whose rich and flavorful cooking traditions provide a cultural bridge and enrich our shared community.

This month the culinary talents of Sahar Alzaidi will be showcased. Sahar’s unique and flavorful dishes are inspired by the Baghdad region of Iraq. Baghdad has always been a rich melting pot of culture and the cuisine dates back over 10,000 years. The Alzaidi family is excited to share a piece of  Iraqi culture and cuisine through this month’s supper club. 

Payment will be collected after the meal, but when you pay you will have the option to: Eat: $40 for a delicious family style Iraqi dinner, where a portion of the cost covers ingredients and staff time, and the rest goes to the guest chef. Give: $60 gets you the same delicious dinner, but with an additional $20 going directly to the guest chef. Love: $80 gives an additional $40 directly to the guest chef to collectively make this an unforgettable evening! All levels are welcome and appreciated!

Where: Masala – 206 W. Main St., Missoula

When: Sunday May 13th.  Doors open at 5:30pm and food will be served at 6:00pm

Cost: Eat: $40/person Give: $60/person Love: $80/person

How: Call Masala at (406) 926-6444 to make a reservation

Please direct any further questions to megan@softlandingmissoula.org

Join us for our 5th Lecture in our Soft Landing Missoula Presents Series to explore historic and present day Syria, through the eyes of refugee families in Missoula who have lived it. 

The talk will be presented by Brendan Work, Arabic teacher for the three public Missoula high schools since 2012, previously having learned the language and used it as a reporter and editor in the West Bank. Additionally he has volunteered in southern Lebanon, taken students to Morocco, and works with Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Missoula. He was educated at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Montana. 

Where: UC Theater on the UM Campus

When: April 17th at 6p

Free and open to the public. 

Sponsored by these lovely UM folks:

University of Montana Global Engagement Office, UM College of Humanities and Sciences, and The Franke Global Leaders Initiative. 

Missoula Gives is Missoula’s annual day of giving where you can donate to all your favorite non-profits! Missoula Gives starts at 5pm on May 3rd and goes until 10pm on May 4th. 

This year, SLM is partnering up with Gecko Designs to share information about our organization for the May 4th First Friday (5pm-8pm)! We will be sharing the space with the Missoula International School, and Animal Wonders. We are so excited for this evening of fun and giving! You might want to make sure you are around close to 5:45 for something a little special!

We hope to raise $3,000 this year to go toward creating programing, social engagement activities, and culinary entrepreneurship opportunities for refugee families in Missoula.

You can donate online anytime at our Missoula Gives page!

OR

Donate in person:

May 3rd 5pm-8pm: Kick off party at Plonk! 

• Free GFC drink with donation!
• Donate and be entered to win a large bottle of wine!

May 4th 5pm-8pm: First Friday at Gecko Designs!

Despite our small population, and you might say BECAUSE of it, many extraordinary and world changing people have been from Montana.  Who could forget Jeanette Rankin, Gary Cooper,  Dana Carvey, and of course, Evel Knievel all hail from this great state.  But recently, I got to hear a story about one of the most important and game changing Montanans of all- Senator and Ambassador Mike Mansfield.  I had the honor of attending the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner a few weekends ago (thanks Klaus!), and the guest speaker was Vice President Joe Biden.  A force all of his own (see the pic of what happened after I profusely thanked him for standing up for refugees- ahhh, did this really happen?!?!), he gave an amazing and heartfelt speech.  The thing that struck me the most, and what I feel resonates so much with what we stand for at Soft Landing Missoula, was the story he told about the important and life-changing advice he received from Leader Mansfield.  I can’t say it as well as he did so here is a transcript of the story in his own words from his Yale Commencement speech in 2015…

“After only four months in the United States Senate, as a 30-year-old kid, I was walking through the Senate floor to go to a meeting with Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.  And I witnessed another newly elected senator, the extremely conservative Jesse Helms, excoriating Ted Kennedy and Bob Dole for promoting the precursor of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  But I had to see the Leader, so I kept walking.

When I walked into Mansfield’s office, I must have looked as angry as I was.  He was in his late ‘70s, lived to be 100.  And he looked at me, he said, what’s bothering you, Joe?

I said, that guy, Helms, he has no social redeeming value.  He doesn’t care — I really mean it — I was angry.  He doesn’t care about people in need.  He has a disregard for the disabled.

Majority Leader Mansfield then proceeded to tell me that three years earlier, Jesse and Dot Helms, sitting in their living room in early December before Christmas, reading an ad in the Raleigh Observer, the picture of a young man, 14-years-old with braces on his legs up to both hips, saying, all I want is someone to love me and adopt me.  He looked at me and he said, and they adopted him, Joe.

I felt like a fool.  He then went on to say, Joe, it’s always appropriate to question another man’s judgment, but never appropriate to question his motives because you simply don’t know his motives.

It happened early in my career fortunately.  From that moment on, I tried to look past the caricatures of my colleagues and try to see the whole person.”

Yes. This.  We have sooooo much to stand up for these days and of course, STAND UP.  QUESTION. Fight with all you can for what you believe in.  But lets all heed this advice from a statesman from Montana and also LISTEN.  Talk to people who you may not agree with. Listen to people’s stories. Ask them about their lives. See the “whole person”.  Refrain from calling names and placing people in boxes just because that is easiest.  If we are going to rebuild this invaluable and humanitarian program that is refugee resettlement, if we are going to be effective at bridging the great divide in our country, we have to stop assuming motives. We have to stop being “enemies” and go back to being neighbors who are willing to sit down with each other at the same table to talk about differences and arrive at similarities. It is going to be from support from both sides of the aisle, as it previously was for decades, that resettlement thrives again and that America is allowed to renew our ability and honor to provide refugee to the vulnerable and persecuted.  Thank you Vice President Biden and Senator Mansfield for reminding us how truly important this is.

A big thank you to the Gallatin Refugee Connection (GRC) for the information on the Rohingya Refugee Crisis. GRC is a group out of Bozeman who work to create a welcoming environment for refugees. Check out more about them here: www.facebook.com/gallatinrefugeeconnections/

Lifelong Learning: The Rohingya Refugee Crisis

You’ve probably heard about the Rohingya, currently facing persecution in their homeland in Myanmar. Following violent attacks in their home villages in the Myanmar state of Rakhine, half a million Rohingya have fled over the border into Bangladesh, where they have established makeshift refugee camps. Conditions in the camps are poor, and the government of Bangladesh is struggling to accommodate the influx of people and to develop a policy towards the situation.
 
The Rohingya are ethnically Bengali and also Muslim, making them a minority in majority-Buddhist Myanmar. Most Rohingya lack papers, and are now a stateless people, which complicates their status as refugees and their prospects for resettlement elsewhere. Many do not want to return to Myanmar for fear of further persecution, and an effort to negotiate the return of many in the refugee camps fell through in January of 2018 amid concerns about security within Myanmar if they were to return.
 
Myanmar has a long history of human rights violations against minorities, including the Karen and Chin, many of whom are Christian, Muslim, or animist. Karen and Chin villages have also been attacked and many have fled to Thailand, but the Rohingya currently face the highest levels of violence. Bangladesh and the UN have both referred to the anti-Rohingya violence as a “genocide.” Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is facing serious criticism over her unwillingness to take a stance on behalf of the Rohingya.  
 
For further in-depth reading on the Rohingya, we recommend the following:
 
Myanmar: Who Are the Rohingya?
Why are the more than one million Rohingya in Myanmar considered the ‘world’s most persecuted minority’?

From NPR News: A Collection of Stories About the Rohingya

How Hatred of Rohingya Was Inflamed by Myanmar’s Democratic Transition
The Rohingya refugee crisis arose from a ‘perfect storm’ of ethnic and religious discrimination and Myanmar’s ongoing transition from decades of military rule, says journalist Francis Wade.