[AMA-e-News] Asian Media Access, E-Newsletter, 3/17

[Johnny Chio]

Greetings from Asian Media Access:

For information on community events, please also visit Asian Media Accessı
(AMA) Website at www.amamedia.org and click the link ³Community Events
Calendar² (http://www2.amamedia.org/calendar/month.php).

==================================================================
Local Community Events:

1. IRS Economic Stimulus Payments Information
2. Get Ready Seminars for Emergency Preparedness
3. MN Youth Work Coalition Networking Event
4. Affordable Rental Housing Training
5. Next Event in the Korea Seminar Series
6. The Impact of the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis on Low-Income Communities
7. Conference Tackles Immigrant Issues
8. American Red Cross ­ The Heroes Breakfast
9. Health Disparities Forum

==================================================================


1. IRS Economic Stimulus Payments Information

Starting in May, economic stimulus payments of up to $600 for individuals
($1,200 for married couples) will be issued by the IRS based on 2007 tax
returns. Parents also get $300 for each eligible child.  People must file a
2007 tax return. That's it. But here's where the IRS needs help. Millions of
people are eligible but may not know it. These are certain retirees,
disabled vets and low-wage workers who normally don't file a tax return.
This year, they must file to receive the payments. People can help not just
the IRS but perhaps themselves, friends or family.  Help spread the word.
People who have at least $3,000 from wages or certain benefits from Social
Security, Railroad Retirement and Veterans Affairs may be eligible. They
need to file a return. Please, visit www.irs.gov for details, flyers, forms
and answers to frequently asked questions.
____________________________________________________________________________

2. Get Ready Seminars for Emergency Preparedness

Over 2.5 million people live in the eight-county metro area served by the
Twin Cities Area Chapter of the American Red Cross.  Most of these residents
are simply NOT prepared for an emergency.  Many donıt know how to prepare.
The Red Cross is out to fix that.  The Twin Cities Red Cross wants
Minnesotans to resolve to Get Ready and Get Involved in 2008.  There are
three easy steps to accomplish this goal:  Get a Plan, Get a Kit and Get
Involved.  Get a Plan means having an evacuation planŠ Knowing how to
evacuate your home safely and having a route to get out of the Twin Cities
area are both important in an emergency.  Get a Kit refers to a disaster
supply kit.  If you were stranded in your car or had to hunker down in your
home for a few days, would you have enough supplies to sustain you and your
family?  Get Involved is accomplished by volunteering, taking a Red Cross
health and safety class or donating money, blood or your time.  The Red
Cross wants to turn everyone in the Twin Cities diverse communities into
lifesavers by offering Get Ready Seminars.  Invite your community, your
family, friends, neighbors and customers to invest 4 hours of their time and
receive tools and training that will help them to be prepared for any kind
of emergency. The Red Cross will come to your site and present a Get Ready
Seminar in Somali, Spanish, Hmong or English.  Theyıll provide 4 hours of
training on topics such as family disaster planning, fire safety, chemical
safety, severe weather safety, home safety, and more.  Keeping your
community safe is one of the most important things you can do.  Sponsoring a
Red Cross Get Ready Seminar is one of the best ways you can do this.  For
more information about sponsoring a Red Ready Seminar please contact Viviana
Sotro at 612-872-3224 or e-mail her at vsotro@redcrosstc.org.
____________________________________________________________________________

3. MN Youth Work Coalition Networking Event

Mingle with youth workers interested in discussing and sharing their
experiences in youth work.  Connect with field veterans, volunteers, direct
service providers, specialists and more. Share and discuss your goals with a
unique panel of youth workers who have demonstrated that there is not just
one path in youth work. This event will consist of networking activities to
help build your resource and support pool. This event is only as good as the
people who attend it- Let' s Network! It' s never required to register for a
MNYC but it is greatly appreciated; please visit www.youthworkinstitute.org.

Date & Time: March 21, 2008, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Location: Dunning Recreation Ctr. St. Paul
Cost: Free- light lunch provided

MN Youth Work Coalition (MNYC) provides the space to connect and reflect on
your profession and the larger field of youth work, within a vibrant
community of youth workers.
____________________________________________________________________________

4. Affordable Rental Housing Training

The Department of Human Services Resettlement Programs Office invites you to
attend the next Affordable Rental Housing: Easy Access to Hard-to-Find
Units' training presented by HousingLink.

Are you working with new refugees in Minnesota?  Do you want to know how to
find apartments where rent is based on a tenant's income?  Do any of your
clients need to find rental units for a large family?  Are you wondering how
to help your clients become responsible renters?  Do you want to learn more
about the Refugee Worker Helpline (612-302-8525)?

Date & Time: Monday, March 24, 2008, 1:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Location: Minnesota Department of Human Services, 444 Lafayette Road N.,
Saint Paul MN 55155 (Lab L1240)

Learn hands-on how to use HousingLink's online resources to:
- Find affordable rental vacancies, from efficiency apartments to 6 bedrooms
units.
-  Use their searchable online directory to create a calling list of
properties that charge tenants 30% of their monthly income for rent.
-  Locate information to educate tenants about affordable housing, and
prepare them for renting.

Space is limited, so please RSVP to Song Lee at slee@housinglink.org or by
calling 612-520-9234.  (Please include your name, organization name, mailing
address, phone number and email address.)
____________________________________________________________________________

5. Next Event in the Korea Seminar Series

Korea Seminar Series: FILM SCREENING  - Family Project: House of a Father
Director will be present

Date & Time: Monday, March 24, 2008, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: Auditorium, Bell Museum of Natural
<http://onestop.umn.edu/Maps/BellMus>  History
10 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Cost: Free and open to the public

Beginning with her own personal story, director Yun K. Jo considers current
hierarchies and dynamics in the Korean family. After spending much of his
professional and social life away from the family, her father, a pensioner,
realizes that his close relatives have become strangers. The director's
mother, a little embarrassed and disapproving of the camera's presence,
confesses to her daughter th having repressed her own ambitions and desires
for the sake of the family and expresses her bitterness about having been
treated with indifference by her husband, mother-in-law and children. For
the children, now adults, communications are also difficult ­ between
themselves and with their parents. An ethnographic portrait of an ordinary
Korean family at a moment of great social change, when the extended family
system is being deconstructed.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Yun Jo studied sociology at Seoul National University,
Korea, and obtained her MFA degree in Film/Video/New Media from the Art
Institute of Chicago, USA. Her great interests are the subjects of family
and gender. Her first student film was a video documentary about childcare,
followed by A Lullaby (1998) and Lost Tree (1999). Yun has also worked on
video installation pieces, such as An Experiment on Gender and Gesture
(2001), which was shown in many galleries both in Seoul and Chicago. Her
video documentary Family Project: House of a Father (2002), which she
directed, shot and edited, has been screened at many Film Festivals and was
awarded the Grand Prize at the Women's Film Festival in Seoul. Now she is
pursuing her PhD and teaching undergraduate film classes in Film and Media
Studies at the University of Florida.
____________________________________________________________________________

6. The Impact of the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis on Low-Income Communities

The Impact of the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis on Low-Income Communities

With: Mike Vraa, Managing Attorney, Homeline and Greg Finzell, Executive
Director, Rondo Community Land Trust

Date & Time: Thursday, March 27, 8 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Location: Dunning Recreation Center, 1221 Marshall Avenue, St. Paul
RSVP: lgilbertson@communitysharesmn.org, 651-647-0440 x 201

Join Community Shares (http://www.communitysharesmn.org) of Minnesota for
the first in a series of community forums they are launching in their 30th
anniversary year.  Drawing on the expertise of their nonprofit member
organizations, the series is designed to inform and engage the broader
community on pressing community issues.  This event is free and open to the
public. 
____________________________________________________________________________

7. Conference Tackles Immigrant Issues

Internationally renowned scholars and performance artists at a conference
March 28-29 at St. Cloud State University will explore creative ways to each
and create dialogue about issues affecting immigrant and refugee
populations.

The Northern Plains Performance Studies Conference on Immigrant Issues and
the Geopolitics of
Home<http://www.stcloudstate.edu/cmst/students/ImmigrantExperienceandtheGeop
oliticsofHome.asp> will offer interactive workshops and staged presentations
that depict the challenges and successes of learning to live and work in a
new culture.  Conference presenters will talk about and dramatize their
personal experiences of discovering how to navigate the institutions of a
different country while retaining the identity and traditions of their
culture of origin.  The teaching tools and theories they offer may be
applied to discussions of complex social and cultural issues in classrooms
and other settings.

Keynote performers and presenters include faculty, students, scholars and
artists who have done extensive work with immigrant populations in the
United States and Africa.  Performances will dramatize how immigrants have
dealt with expressions of prejudice or bias that include harassment and
other forms of emotional abuse.

- Buffet luncheon with performed stories from students in a performance
studies class based on research of their own immigrant heritage.

Registration for the conference is $15, which includes continental
breakfasts both days and a buffet luncheon on Friday.  However, all other
events are free and open to the public.  Contact Tami Spry at
tlspry@stcloudstate.edu or 320-308-5253 to register.
____________________________________________________________________________

8. American Red Cross ­ The Heroes Breakfast

St. Paul resident See Lee will be recognized as the Twin Cities Chapter of
the American Red Crossıs ³Good Samaritan Ready Hero² for her courage in
saving a pregnant woman from drowning.  In the summer of 2006, Lee had just
begun to learn how to swim. Susan, a friend of Leeıs who was pregnant at the
time, was having trouble in the water and was close to drowning. Lee ³was
looking around for someone to help, but there was no one² who could help her
friend, said Chau Vue, who nominated Lee for the award.  Lee risked her own
life to try to save her friend. When in the water, Lee could not feel her
body moving and was afraid that they would both die, but both women made it
out of the water safely. Leeıs bravery during the struggle to save herself
and her friend was outstanding.  In response to her heroism, Lee will be
honored alongside heroes in seven other categories of ³Ready² awards during
the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Red Crossıs first annual Heroes
Breakfast on Tuesday, April 22 at the Depot in Downtown Minneapolis.  The
Heroes Breakfast will give the Red Cross the opportunity to honor local
citizens who have embodied the lifesaving mission of the Red Cross through
their actions.  The event, which will host over 500 guests, is also the
premier fundraiser for the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Registration to attend the Heroes Breakfast can be obtained by contacting
Gretchen Ambrosier at 612-604-3292 or gambrosier@redcrosstc.org.  More
information about the Heroes Breakfast can be found at
www.redcrosstc.org/donate_heroes.cfm.
____________________________________________________________________________

9. Health Disparities Forum

Mobilizing Communities of Color to Promote Health Living and Eating

Date & Time: April 24, 2008, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Location: Coffman Theater, East Bank, University of Minnesota
Free and open to the public, but participants must register ahead of time.

Main Speaker: Antronette K. Yancey, MD, MPH, Professor in the Department of
Health Services and Co-Director of the Center to Eliminate Health
Disparities at the UCLA, School of Public Health.  Dr. Yancey's primary
research interests are in chronic disease prevention and adolescent health
promotion among communities of color.  She returned to academia full-time in
2001 after five years in public health practice, first as Director of Public
Health for the city of Richmond, VA, and, until recently, as Director of
Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, at the Los Angeles County
Department of Health Services.  Dr. Yancey has authored more than 75
scientific publications, including briefs, book chapters, health promotion
videos, and among those, more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Registration: Register Online

Program Objectives: Describe ways to engage communities and health
professionals in issues related to healthy living and eating in communities
of color.  Describe cutting edge strategies to promote healthy living and
eating in communities of color.  Describe practical tools that can be used
by community-based organizations to promote healthy living and eating in
communities of color.

Other Speakers: Kathleen Thiede Call, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of
Health Policy and
Management, and Co-Chair, Health Disparities Work Group, School of Public
Health, University of Minnesota.  John R. Finnegan, Jr. PhD, Dean, School of
Public Health, University of
Minnesota.  Rhonda Jones-Webb, DrPH, Associate Professor, Division of
Epidemiology and
Community Health, and Co-Chair, Health Disparities Work Group, School of
Public
Health, University of Minnesota.  Debra Olson, DNP, MPH, RN, Associate Dean
for Public Health Practice Education, School of Public Health, University of
Minnesota

Sponsored by: University of Minnesota School of Public Health: Dean'™s
Office, Health Disparities Work Group, Midwest Center for Life-Long-Learning
in Public Health.  For public health professionals, students and faculty,
physicians, nurses, health educators, counselors and others from the campus
and practice community committed to reducing health disparities.
____________________________________________________________________________


That's all for this edition of AMA e-newsletter.  From all of us at Asian
Media Access, we thank you for your subscription.  To unsubscribe, send an
email to stevelu@amamedia.org with the subject line "Unsubscribe".