Community Engagement
Bringing Spokane together to welcome immigrants and refugees
Manzanita House is all about collaboration. We deeply believe that serving immigrants and refugees requires a communal effort and, by building strong partnerships with other immigrant-serving organizations, ensures a wide reach.
Manzanita House provides educational resources, language learning opportunities, events, and advocacy opportunities for the general community. We also engage the community through volunteer opportunities, donation drives, internships, sports teams, and service projects - all working together to create a more welcoming Spokane.
Cultural Education and Implementation Program (CEIP)
Our (recently revamped!) Cultural Education and Implementation Program (CEIP) empowers local agencies to establish, through educational training and workshops:
improved intercultural communication
cultural humility
empathetic approaches when working with and for the immigrant and refugee communities.
We create and facilitate training and provide support for both providers and leaders, in order to help organizations serve specific immigrant communities better.
Manzanita House engaged in a preliminary assessment with members of immigrant communities and found qualitative data of the following findings:
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Members of immigrant communities experience high levels of stress and anxiety due to lack of culturally relevant practices when navigating social service agencies (Including medical services, non-profit supports, etc.)
Organizations are struggling with the retention of clients from diverse populations.
Staff at organizations are experiencing high levels of burnout due to the number of needs from clients from diverse populations, including not having the tools or supports needed to provide culturally relevant services or understand the needs of those they serve.
Members of immigrant communities are at times engaging in inappropriate use of services due to lack of cultural clarity when navigating systems.
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Based on these findings, Manzanita House has worked to develop a program that supports both members of the community and organizations to bridge the gaps and find cultural attunement with the goal of supporting organizations to serve specific immigrant communities better. While many organizations engage in DEI training and support, we know that they rarely engage in improvement processes that are specific to the cultural values and story behind a specific community that’s being served. The CEIP focuses on providing support and education for cultural attunement when working with a specific immigrant community, determined by the program participants.
Goals of CEIP:
To work with Agencies, Organizations, Individuals and Immigrants to provide clear cross-cultural awareness as a means of increasing clarity and efficacy of services in partnership with the guidance and leadership of immigrant communities.
To Guide clients into culturally responsive, informed, and relevant practice. We help equip service providers in Spokane to better serve Global Neighbors in our city with excellence.
To prepare and build capacity within various agencies in Spokane. to serve and assist families in their long-term transition to life in Spokane, WA
HEAR FROM CEIP PARTICIPANTS
“In 2023 I had the amazing opportunity to support Manzanita House with the Cultural Education and Implementation Program (CEIP) Pilot.”
-Pia Johnson Barreto
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It is beyond exciting to see an organization recognize the need to push for equitable systems in partnership with organizations and to move beyond their own ecosystem and reach. The CEIP offers a new opportunity for larger organizations to learn from their local immigrant and refugee communities, re-evaluate the efficacy of their services and sets our immigrant/refugee community leaders in the driver seat to teach and inform organizations while being properly compensated for their labor. I am so proud of the wonderful work Manzanita House is doing in reimagining education that centers the immigrant and refugee voice and truly believe every organization should have access to this amazing consultancy and training experience. The work around CEIP offers immense potential and opportunity to strengthen, support and co-create spaces and relationships between larger organizations and different immigrant/refugee communities as it challenges everyone to reimagine collective care.
“CHAS Health was honored to work with Manzanita House to pilot the CEIP program. “
-Shelby Lambdin,
CHAS Health
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Leveraging an external perspective to better understand areas for improvement within our organization was extremely valuable in helping us to craft our broader cultural and linguistic service strategies as an organization. This type of organizational evaluation is something that the healthcare system as a whole would greatly benefit from to help better understand ways to best serve the diverse population of patients that we serve.
“Our Northeast Community Center ZONE staff really appreciated being guided through reflections on how we show up for and interact with cultural populations seeking programs and support through our center.”
– jene ray, Executive Director, NE Community Center
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With real 'secret shopper' data about the participant experience, we could make meaningful process changes to better serve our community with humility and tenderness.
Lili Navarrete
lnavarrete@mhspokan.org,
(509) 309-8404
If this sounds like something your agency could benefit from, please contact our CEIP Program Manager.
Community Sports
and Wellness
We now offer a variety of FREE sports programs for adult and youth immigrants in Spokane, including:
Cricket for Afghan Youth
Women’s Youth Volleyball
Soccer for Youth
Interested in joining a team? Have questions?
Contact Irshad Ahmad Rahimi, Cultural Engagement Coordinator:
Email: irahimi@mhspokane.org
Phone: 509.471.4142
Community Language Clubs
Learn beginning conversational Spanish or Arabic while connecting with other community members.
Classes include conversation, culture, and cuisine - allowing ample opportunities to speak the target language with native-speaking conversation partners in a non-traditional, interactive setting.
For: adults and children 12y+ with an adult present
When: Tuesdays 6:30 - 8pm, Launching 9/8
Location: 318 S. Cedar St. (First Presbyterian Church)
Cost: $150 (adult) / $75 (child accompanied by a paying adult)
Reach out to Teresa Schock (tschock@mhspokane.org) or Becky Rempe (beckyr@spokanefpc.org) with any questions.