Click here to register your kids to participate in sport activities organized by Eritreans in Seattle!!

 

Sunday Nov 26 -  The United Eritrean Parents association in Seattle held its biweekly meeting today at the Eritrean community center in Seattle. Despite the heavy snow fall in the Seattle area, many Eritreans have attended the meeting. 

 

The meeting started with a presentation given by Mr. Abraha Zeray, covering the need for parents to participate in school activities, parent meetings and PTA (Parent teacher Association). Mr. Abraha highlighted the benefits of such participation in PTA as well as the ability to monitor the progress of students using available online resources. In addition, he noted that kids require dedicated attention from their parents in making sure home work is understood and completed on time. Mr. Abraha also highlighted the need to improve parent/child communication by developing a common language. In this regard, participants asked a question on how Tigrinia language tutorial programs can be introduced in the schools. Mr. Abraha and other participants noted that teaching Tigrinia should be the prime responsibility of our communities and can not be left up to external entities to help.  

 

Other topics discussed include the following:

 

  1. The need to work with Eritrean professionals (in and out of state) to organize seminars and workshops in order to:
    1. Understand the challenges related to parent - child relationship
    2. Understand parents role and available tools in monitoring their kids
    3. Educate parents to promote tolerance and separate politics from social issues  
  2. Advocate for enhanced relationship between the communities and school administration
  3. The need to raise awareness by participating in Crime Prevention Seminars
  4. How to find ways to help young Eritreans who are being deported to Ethiopia after their arrest. Attend home land security meetings to raise this issue. Allegedly Ethiopia is being paid $10K per deported Eritrean…
  5. How to work with the existing Eritrean communities in Seattle to use them as platforms for further activities
  6. Develop a mechanism to reach more Eritreans so that meetings can be attended satsifactorily

 The participants agreed to take a concrete action, as part of the short term plan, to organize sports activities to enable Eritrean kids to get together and promote the activities. An interim  sports committee has been formed to coordinate the activities. The committee members are: Yonas Okbe, Amanuel Mehanzel, Ermias Amine and Mehari Tesfaldet. The committee is looking for Eritrean women to volunteer for this work. All Eritrean parents are also urged to register their kids.

 

NEXT MAJOR EVENTS IN SEATTLE:

  1. Dec 2nd 9:30 to 3:00PM, Workshop on how to prepare for college, organized by NUEYS
  2. Dec 9 (3:00 PM), Next biweekly meeting at the Eritrean Community (Mahbere Com)