The Bennington County Multicultural Community Center

Bennington County Multicultural Community Program, January 26, 2025

On January 26 our branch held a community event to spotlight the work of the Bennington County Multicultural Community Center, the Bennington branch office of the national refugee resettlement agency, the Ethiopian Community Development Center ECDC). Jack Rossiter-Munley, the director of the agency, sent us a summary of the organization’s work and plans for the future.

See [insert WordPress link) for a summary of the agency’s work and plans.

Here is the link to the CAT-TV recording of the event: 

AAUW/Bennington County Multicultural Community Center Event // 1-26-25

If you are able to contribute to this project and support the local work, here is a donation link: https://bit.ly/BenningtonRefugeeDonations

 

The Bennington County Multicultural Community Center

By Jack Rossiter-Munley

The Bennington County Multicultural Community Center, a branch office of the national refugee resettlement agency ECDC, works to help people from around the world arriving through the refugee resettlement process start new lives in the United States. The center also undertakes community projects that support not only recently arrived refugees, but which also create a more caring, connected and resilient community for all Bennington County residents.

Local Refugee Community

The local refugee community consists of 99 people from five different countries – Afghanistan,the Congo, Venezuela, Iraq, and Nigeria – who speak, in total, almost two dozen languages. Resettlement has been ongoing in Southern Vermont for the last three years. Refugees are working or have worked at more than two dozen local businesses and nonprofits.

Federal Actions and Local Consequences

As of January 20, 2025, refugee arrivals to the United States were stopped by executive order. On January 24, 2025 another executive action pulled all funding from recently arrived refugees. That includes money that is meant to support those who have recently arrived with their most basic needs such as securing housing and purchasing food. For the 20 people who recently arrived in Bennington, this action represents $33,000 in funding. Beyond this direct money, the administrative funding for the grant was pulled placing intense financial pressure on the multicultural center and directly impacted our staffing.

Beyond the financial pressures, there is a human cost to these federal actions. See the statement below that Zarghoona Jalalzoy delivered at the January 27th Bennington Select Board Meeting in which she describes the hardships of these federal actions. In the Bennington community, there are those who arrived the week before arrivals were halted who were supposed to be joined by family members traveling to the United States in early February. It is not clear when those family members may travel. There are also those in our local refugee community who have been waiting years to be joined by family members and those painful separations have now been indefinitely prolonged.

Community Projects

The Bennington County Multicultural Community Center has created a number of community projects that responded to needs that arose in the local refugee community but which mirrored needs often expressed by Bennington residents. These are programs that the center is eager to significantly expand in 2025:

  • Community Gardens. Shared gardening space where informal learning, and intergenerational and intercultural exchange could take place. These gardens produced an abundance of produce that was shared with the refugee community as well as distributed to the volunteer cooks and bakers who support the Bennington Community Café and the Sunday Suppers at Second Congregational Church. This program also lead to the revitalization of the garden space at St. Peter’s Episcopal church.
  • Language Explorers. This program provides a space where English speakers can work directly with those learning English as well as giving those learning English a chance to share their native languages with volunteers. This program has also provided an opportunity for young children in refugee families who are learning English to continue practicing their native languages.
  • Murals and Public Art. Murals were painted on the exterior of our building. These murals were collaboratively designed by members of the Afghan ArtLords and the local refugee community and were painted during community painting days that included people form throughout the Bennington community as well as the Vermont Arts Exchange.
  • Global Women Entrepreneurs. Thanks to a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation’s Women’s Fund this program was created by ECDC, and brought together the Vermont Department of Labor, Southwest Tech, the Bennington Community Market, and other local businesses to support certifications and trainings for refugee women in Bennington with limited English, limited education, and limited prior work experience but with significant skills.

Attached is a statement that Zarghoona Jalalzoy delivered at the Monday January 27th Bennington Select Board Meeting that describes the hardships of these federal actions.

Zarghoona Select Board Speech 1.27.25