Africa House

Following in the model of IRCO’s very successful Asian Family Center, the Africa House Refugee Community Center serves as a focal point for the community and a “one stop” service center providing an array of community building and cultural adjustment services for over 200 African refugees and their families annually.  IRCO is excited to be delivering three additional years of self-help and self-determination programming through the recent award from the Office of Refugee Resettlement for ongoing programming at Africa House.

Services offered through Africa House include cultural adjustment services provided by bilingual bicultural staff, including community education workshops, life skills groups and famil mediation.  Africa House also offers community building services such as organizational development workshops for African community organizations, community leadership and civic engagement for Africa House’s Advisory Board, and African volunteer development. 

Africa House’s “one stop” service center model will co-locate IRCO programming for African families such as children’s services, youth services and family services (see other Program Descriptions) to ensure the community’s access to this support.  

For more information, please contact Program Coordinator Djimet Dogo at (503) 802-0082.

Funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, IRCO’s Africa House was just awarded two years of enhanced project services for African refugees living in Portland, Oregon.  IRCO’s Africa House serves as a focal point for the community and a “one stop service center providing an array of community building and direct cultural adjustment services.  Furthermore, IRCO’s Africa House offers the opportunity for IRCO to co-locate culturally specific services targeted to the African children, youth and families living in the Tri-County area.

African Dialogue Project (ADP)

In addition to family support services, Africa House offers culturally specific engagement opportunities for African community members.  For example, funded by the Andrus Foundation, ADP is a partnership between Portland State University’s Conflict Resolution Graduate Program and IRCO to provide facilitated conflict resolution dialogue groups and training.  IRCO works closely with targeted African communities living in the City of Portland, including the Somali, Burundi and Congolese communities, to engage community members in resolving historical tribal conflict through facilitated dialogue and conflict resolution.