Communities In Schools of North Texas (CISNT) is excited to announce a new funding partnership with the Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation! The Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation is a group of Asian women who collaborate, pool their resources and leverage their networks to generate community grants that support social change and services benefitting the North Texas Asian community.
This year, they have provided CISNT with the funds to bring on a CISNT Chin Family Engagement Specialist. CISNT has worked with the Chin community for nearly a decade, since they began emigrating to the United States to escape religious and political persecution in their home country of Myanmar, formerly Burma. Many of the Chin have settled in Lewisville and have re-built their lives in a new, unfamiliar society. CISNT has walked alongside Chin students and families for many years, helping them to get acclimated to life in United States and the American school system and providing critical services to support students’ physical, social-emotional, and mental well-being.
CISNT is thrilled to be able to expand our support for the Chin community with the addition of the CISNT Family Engagement Specialist (CFES). This individual, a native Chin speaker, will work alongside our CISNT Site Coordinators in Lewisville to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate supports to Chin students and families. Additionally, the CFES will:
- Provide intentional, tiered services to Chin students
- Provide translation and interpretation services at CISNT campuses
- Provide opportunities for school engagement for Chin parents and families, and
- Develop a toolkit for best practices in Chin engagement and cultural competency for CISNT and LISD staff
We are so grateful for the support of the Orchid Giving Circle, and we look forward to sharing more information about the Chin Family Engagement Specialist in the coming months.
To learn more about the Orchid Giving Circle, visit https://www.txwf.org/orchid-giving-circle/.
