Strengthening the agency of local and globally displaced communities to change our systems and culture.

From dialogue with ethnically specific and intercultural groups on the future of their communities, to organizing with small immigrant and refugee organizations to create synergy in our work, to thinking broadly about greater desegregation and cross-cultural community in Portland and Oregon, Portland Meet Portland is working to bring community together, face to face, to discuss and address issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Our Village of Resilience   

This project will tell the stories of how ­­­residents of one low-income, richly diverse neighborhood have weathered the pandemic. These residents have survived, sometimes thriving or flourishing, with many strategies sprouting from the hard soil of the pandemic. This project is a continuation of New Columbia’s Stories from Our Village in 2013 and 2015 and the more recent Lived Citizenship project.

Youth and young adults from the neighborhood will interview the residents, in person when that is prudent and possible, but otherwise on Zoom or Face Time, about their experiences. The interviewers will be youth and young adults from the community. They will be trained and guided by oral historian, Kay Reid.

A readers’ theatre based on the interviews and scripted by the project director and the youth, will be presented in two Portland venues, and a booklet be made available to other communities and neighborhoods. A ten-minute video by professional filmmakers will also be marketed and made widely available.