The Japanese American Citizens League and its partners Kizuna, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR), and the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) announced Dec. 9 that they have opened application and registration for the 2014 Bridging Communities Los Angeles program.
Bridging Communities is a program for high school students that provides the opportunity for interfaith and cross-cultural dialogue, community service, and individual growth. For next year, it will consist of two one-day educational retreats on March 15 and 22, including a trip to the Manzanar National Historic Site.
After these retreats, the participants will take back what they have learned to their communities through youth-led projects and workshops.
The program, a collaboration between a number of Japanese American and Muslim American organizations, emerged from a desire to create a learning space for Japanese American and Muslim American youth that educated students about the history of their communities and cultivated a strong sense of identity. The program emerged from a desire by several community members to proactively approach the need for meaningful cross-cultural relationships.
Bridging Communities is funded by the Japanese American Confinement Site Grant from the U.S. National Park Service, a grant that contributes to the preservation and interpretation of former World War II confinement sites throughout the U.S.
The application is open to high school students and alumni of the program and is available at http://tinyurl.com/n4epqbt. Applications are due Jan. 27, 2014. For more information, contact Sarah Amarragy at (213) 626-4471 or samarragy @jacl.org.