Welcome to a new year with the Needham Area Immigration Justice Task Force (NAIJTF). We are grateful to have had leadership from Gerry Rovner over these past many years. He is resigning as Task Force Chair but has promised to stay involved!!

We have restructured leadership and will be relying upon a seven-person Steering Committee replacing the Chairperson’s position. This new structure will provide us with opportunities to engage in a variety of projects and we hope that you will join us. The Steering Committee (comprising Cheryl Aglio-Girelli, Valerie Kistler, Bill Okerman, Will Rico, Rinaz Mala, Karen Price and Karen Walker) has identified the following topics for this year’s focus: Welcoming Needham, Workers’ Rights, Support to Metrowest Worker Center -Casa, Increasing Membership, and Increasing Member Engagement.

Some of what we’ve done over the past year:

This past year NAIJTF has focused on Suitcase Stories to heighten awareness and further the understanding of pressing issues related to immigration/refugees. On March 18, thanks to a grant from the Massachusetts and Needham Cultural Councils, we offered a workshop entitled Suitcase Stories Unpacked. During the workshop, twenty-five people from our community gathered to “unpack” their stories, sharing and building awareness through personal experiences about reflecting diversity within our community.

Our second program which was co-sponsored with the Needham Community Council, took place on June 20 at Wellesley College. The event was coordinated with participation by Cheryl Hamilton, the founder of Suitcase Stories and Executive Director of Stellar Story Company. Attendance was great, as were the stories provided by Needham residents Massiel Gallardo, Natalia Ruban, and Faluke Ajayi. These Needham story tellers were joined Saket Agarwal, Lindsay Boudreau, and Andy Davis, experienced narrators from around the New England region. Steering Committee member Rinaz Mala hosted the event, receiving rave reviews for this and for all the other work she is doing within the Needham community.

Photo from left to right: Rinaz, Andy, Natalia, Lindsay, Foluke, Saket, Massiel, and Cheryl. For a short slide show of the June 20, 2024 event, we invite you to visit the League of Women Voters of Needham: https://lwv-needham.org/suitcase-stories-2/

Some of what we’re planning for the upcoming year:

On September 19, we are co-sponsors of Needham Housing Coalition’s program to be held at the Center at the Heights and on Zoom: Confronting the History of Housing Discrimination. Visit our website (https://www.immigrationneedham.org) to view the poster for September 19.

Please visit our table at the Harvest Fair on September 29, or … volunteer for a shift!

Our continued support to Casa will involve volunteer opportunities in much-needed areas: driving immigrant families to a variety of appointments; working to help with winter shortages of food for food pantries, fundraising for legal services for unaccompanied children, etc. Future newsletters are likely to include more opportunities to serve as additional support needs arise. For general information regarding Casa, visit https://www.mwc-casa.org/about1.html

We invite you to join us at our first Fall 2024 meeting on Monday, September 9 at 7:15 PM at the Congregational Church of Needham, 1154 Great Plain Avenue. Please use the Linden Street door at the top of the ramp. For this first meeting, Bill Okerman, the point person for the Task Force’s Wage Theft Initiative, will speak with us about wage theft in Massachusetts. Bill has been involved with this topic for more than 20 years. He will explain what is happening currently, why the wage theft protection laws the Commonwealth has enacted are so poorly enforced, and how wage theft impacts immigrant workers.

Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have at Info@immigrationneedham.org.