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OLLAS Receives Grant to Further Work on Latino Leadership

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OMAHA - The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) has been awarded a grant from the Iowa West Foundation totaling $25,000 to further its evidence-based capacity building and leadership development and members of the Latino and immigrant community in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Funding will support the hiring of a part-time project coordinator and future community-organizer who will work closely with the Latino Center and the “Fuerza y Unión” committee which organized with the assistance of OLLAS under a previous grant.

Previous research reports published by OLLAS, particularly a report titled, “Invisible and Voiceless: Latinos in Council Bluffs," has served as an important baseline for understanding the challenges and opportunities facing Latinos, as well as the initiatives which must be pursued to further their successful integration in the region.

Claudia Lucero, OLLAS’ Community Engagement Coordinator who directed the work under the previous grant said: “We are looking forward identifying someone who will invest in Council Bluff’s Latino community development beyond the life of this grant.”

She underscored the fact that “this is a community that has yet to feel fully integrated into the host community to which they contribute fully in multiple ways.”

OLLAS was established in 2003 as a center that would contribute new knowledge and understanding of Latino and Latin American communities and migrants within the state and across regional, national and international borders. OLLAS offer a major in Latino/Latin American Studies and a minor in Chicano/Latino Studies.

For questions, contact Dr. Lourdes Gouveia at 554.3835, or visit http://www.unomaha.edu/ollas for more information about OLLAS.

For media inquiries, please contact Charley Reed, UNO media relations coordinator, at unonews@unomaha.edu or 402.554.2129.

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