Happy New Year!

It's 2008 and we have big plans for this year. These are the big events we will be having this year:

• Strengthening Georgia: Policies that Support Refugees’ Path to Becoming New Americans -- January 30, 2008, Decatur, Georgia. The forum will include a survey of refugees in Georgia; government & business leaders’ perspectives on integrating refugee newcomers to Georgia; ground breaking policy efforts in other states to ensure the successful integration of newcomers; and refugee, policy maker and academic perspectives on emerging issues such as public education for Limited English Proficient students and the potential impact of an English Only rule for Georgia. Contact Satyam Barakoti at info@riwn.org for more information.

• National Conference for Refugee and Immigrant Women -- to be held in Fall 2008. It's our biggest event of the year and we're aiming for an attendence of 350 women from across the US. We're working on the date and place, and will post about it as soon as those are secured.

• National Health Promoter Leadership Training of Trainers -- again, dates yet to be determined, but in all likelihood in the first half of the year. Click here to go to our website and read about the National Health Promoter Leadership Training of Trainers we conducted in 2007.

In the Atlanta area, we will be training a new cohort of local health promoters to educate new refugees about healthy living in their new community, and continue working with our microenterprise clients to start, expand, or strengthen their own businesses.

We strive to keep RWN relevent to the lives of refugee and immigrant women as they are lived now in the US. If you have any suggestions or comments, please do contact us at http://www.riwn.org/contact_rwn or leave comment on the blog.

Happy New Year!