Tag: African Refugees

  • Annual Fundraiser RAJA Celebrates Diversity and Hope

    Annual Fundraiser RAJA Celebrates Diversity and Hope

    “City of Diversity and Hope” is what Said Abiyow, president of the Somail Bantu Association, calls this annual fundraiser. The festival is more widely known as RAJA!, a word which means “hope” in Somali. Their goal for the RAJA! festival is to raise funds for the many services and education programs they provide through their…

  • Voices: Identifying Barriers to Health Faced by City Heights Immigrants

    Overcoming Barriers to Health is a collaboration between The AjA Project and UCSD’s Center for Community Health. The young women that participated ranged from 12 to 17 years old and were first- and second-generation East African refugees and immigrants. Through photography, participants collectively identified health issues and then used their images to create a dialogue…

  • From Ethiopia to Gates: One Man’s Story of Survival and Fatherhood

    By Matthew Bowler Michael Million is a proud father. He raised his two kids alone. Not one, but both of his kids are Bill and Melinda Gates Scholarship winners. That means they can go to any college where they are accepted, and they won’t have to pay a dime. For most of us, having two…

  • Tweet City Heights: Deciding How to Spend Surplus, Where to Plant Trees

    By Megan Burks Catching Up On Curfew Sweeps This week, we shared a report from Speak City Heights partner voiceofsandiego.org about the questionable growth of curfew sweeps in low-income neighborhoods. In areas such as southeast San Diego and City Heights, police have tripled curfew arrests without analyzing whether they deter juvenile crime or unnecessarily introduce…