Mainebiz Giving Guide

V O L . X X I X N O. X X I I G I V I N G G U I D E 2 0 2 3 – 2 0 2 4 6 GIVING GUIDE T he Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition is the organizing nucleus of a network of 97 member organizations and non-member partners who advocate for Maine immi- grants to improve conditions for resettlement. "MIRC is an example of collaborative advocacy; they talk to members and non-members and get things going," says Gloria Ines Aponte C., senior program officer at the Maine Community Foundation. Herself an immigrant from South America, Ines Aponte C. describes the coordination of services in Maine as disjointed. In response to a great need for organization, "MIRC shows up and effectively brings people together to attend to crises." Since the Wabanaki greeted European traders in the early 1600s, Maine has been populated by immigrants. In the 1800s, Canadians came to Maine for the industrial expansion, Irish to flee the potato famine. Nearly 4,000 immigrants came from China, Den- mark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Norway, Russia, Swe- den, and Syria in 1920, as told by the Maine Histori- cal Society in the Maine History Online website. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, immigrants came from South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and other countries. In 2013, most immigrants arrived from Africa, Asia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Catholic Charities documents that overall, refugees in Maine have come from over 30 countries, including most recently Soma- lia, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Burma, Iran and Iraq. In 2019, Maine met with a great surge of refugees. "Literally overnight, the Angola population burst into Maine. Within a week or two we had over 400 people arrive in the state," says Mufalo Chi- tam, executive director of the Maine Immigration Rights Coalition and a 2022 Mainebiz Woman to Watch. "When people arrived in Portland, there were no shelters, so they were housed in the Port- land Expo. e immigration system was unstruc- tured, unformalized on a federal level. ere was no one to tell the states how to handle the influx, triage needs, get kids into school, language assis- tance, jobs, etc. States and cities didn't share infor- mation then and [still] don't now." Ines Aponte C. also remembers the crisis in 2019, "No one was coordinating in a constructive way. MIRC stepped forward." An evolving response MIRC was founded in 2005 by the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project in response to a new wave of immigrants from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and other countries to support people whose circum- stances fell outside the status of refugee. Because of their non-refugee status, there was no single standalone organization that could advocate for needs, fundraise, and provide direct services such as eldercare and childcare, or low-income and employment programs while getting state adjusted. e coalition's purpose was to learn about each other and create collaborations, support programs and policies that promote immigrant inclusion and integration. "Immigrants need agencies that know culture, language, etc. MIRC has had to stand in the gap to create models of programming, provide shelters, create structure in an emergency situa- tion," says Chitam. C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 8 » MIRC is navigating the resettlement crisis and improving the lives of New Mainers. B y J C N e w m a n Collaborative advocacy F I L E P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F T H E M A I N E C O M M U N I T Y F O U N DAT I O N If you aren't of Wabanaki heritage, you are an immigrant to Maine. — Maine Historical Society Mufalo Chitam, executive director of the Maine Immigration Rights Coalition and a 2022 Mainebiz Woman to Watch, says Maine has seen a surge of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. Gloria Ines Aponte C., senior program officer at the Maine Community Foundation

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