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Council Partners Address House of Representatives
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On Saturday, the Council's House of Representatives were introduced to two key
partners of the Council, Mr. Joshua Hoyt, the Executive Director of the Illinois
Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), and Mr. Michael Gecan, who
oversees the United Power for Action and Justice (UPAJ) branches in Illinois.
Abdul Malik Mujahid, the Chairman of the Council, began his introduction of the
two leaders by discussing the importance of knowing and working with neighbors
who are supportive of Muslim concerns. Both Mr. Hoyt and Mr. Gecan repeatedly
stressed the importance for the Muslim community to build and maintain
coalitions with other ethnic and immigrant groups who share the same values of
justice for all residents of America.
Mr. Hoyt began by discussing his
10-year experience of working alongside the Council leadership, both while he
was working at UPAJ, and in his current capacity as Executive Director of ICIRR.
He gave a brief introduction of ICIRR, its membership - of which the Council and
several of the Council's members are a dues-paying part - and the work it's been
undertaking on behalf of immigrants and refugees. Mr. Hoyt stressed the
importance of creating coalitions among Muslim, Latino, Asian and other
immigrants, in order for all these groups to affect change while working toward
social justice. Believing in the maxim that different people can work together
once they find their common values, he called for the Muslim leadership to join
ICIRR and all their partners, in the upcoming Immigrant Justice Convention
scheduled for November.
Mr. Gecan, of the Industrial Areas Foundation,
oversees UPAJ, DuPage United, Lake County United and other branches in Illinois.
He began by discussing UPAJ's longstanding relationship with the Council and
Chicago's Muslim community - a relationship which had given birth to the Gilead
Program, through which the Council has been able to provide health care for
4,000 Muslim families in the Chicago area, who were otherwise uninsured. Mr.
Gecan described UPAJ as an instrument that reinforces existing organizations by
bringing together different institutions, to use their common values in working
together for a more socially just society. Mr. Gecan also discussed United
Power's housing initiatives for low-income families in New York that they hope
to bring to Illinois.
Council Chairman Mujahid reminded the House of
Representatives that it was UPAJ which organized the unprecedented meeting,
"Chicagoans and Islam," during which nearly 4,000 Chicagoans participated in
meeting their Muslim neighbors in the months after the September 11 attacks. He
also discussed the possibility of Chicago's Muslim physicians joining United
Power's health care efforts.
Learn more about
ICIRR
Learn more about Industrial Areas
Foundation
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