Community Leaders Program class of 2010 – Community Project Presentation

ACLF focuses on cultivating emerging Asian Pacific Islander leaders (API) to strengthen our diverse community. The Community Leaders Program (CLP) honors and educates participants about the significant contributions of API and other minorities in the Northwest and United States, which can be overlooked in some leadership programs. It’s an intensive curriculum that provides training and mentorship to adults with an interest in and potential to step into leadership roles.

How does the CLP develop leaders in the API community?
ACLF provides training and support to help individuals grow as effective leaders, be it as staff, board members, or volunteers. Each class is composed of roughly 15 people who meet in bi-weekly sessions over six months.The CLP:

• Provides opportunities to meet and be inspired by generations of API leaders who made a positive impact in the API community.
• Teaches leadership skills such as public speaking, communication, community development, coalition building and media and integrates equity and social justice that are the foundation of strong communities.
• Provides a group project that benefits a local API organization for participants to apply their leadership skills.
• Provides networking opportunities for participants to meet community leaders and develop mentor-mentee relationships.

What’s the CLP’s objectives?

• Foster ethical, compassionate and self-reflective API leaders who promote greater social, economic and political justice.
• Build strong interpersonal relationships that promote communication, support and accountability to each other and to the API community.
• Strengthen inter-group collaboration through knowledge and understanding of diverse perspectives in the API community.
• Cultivate leaders who value and practice coalition-building across all communities in order to benefit the community at large.
• Build connections between the CLP class and the greater API community.

How are the CLP participants chosen?

Our class participants are chosen on a basis of their demonstrated commitment to community issues, desire to learn, and readiness to contribute to the group. They come from the private, nonprofit, and public sectors and are a mix of first-generation immigrants and second-generation APIs and beyond.