Interfaith Welcome Coalition IWC

After learning about the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, IWC, we committed to going to a General Monthly meeting.  I never have liked driving into San Antonio or really into the center of any large city.  So when we decided to check out this group in San Antonio that might help our community learn more about how to deal with their fears of ICE, Lucretia and I drove to the indicated address, parked and waited a little but there was no activity.  We decided to walk around the building and discovered the entrance was really on the other side of the church building.  As we entered, signs led us up stairs and down a hall to the meeting hall.

The meeting began with introductions and we discovered that there was another one there from our denomination and later met someone else from our town.   We were impressed by the conversations and the knowledgeable volunteers who were reporting on their work at the bus station, airport, and the actions in the Texas legislature.  The focus of the discussion was on the asylum seekers being released at the bus stations.  While the reports were interesting, we were there to learn how to help the families where we lived.  Near the end of the meeting, I asked if they had collaborations with other groups that might help with our issues.  There seemed to be a lack of cooperation among the various immigration groups in the area.  The meeting concluded by trying to get people to  break into working groups.  The table that was to be for collaboration was empty and we ended up talking with the two people that we had met, one from our denomination and one from our town.  We enjoyed the visit but came away feeling that we were still needing to learn more for our friends and this group, although desiring to have a broader cooperation with others, was not really able to point us to what we needed.

I went home and started researching the immigration issue by myself.  There was a lot from various groups.  As I was gathering information, we got an email from the IWC leadership which suggested that maybe the couple from out of town (us) might help fit in the role of collaboration since I had asked about it.  It was suggested that we join in with one from the leadership in working toward a collaboration with others.   I continued to work on bringing information together and created an online site to organize this.  Thus began our work with IWC to bring immigration groups together.

We began our committee work with Sr. Sharon.   After learning about a conference in Houston, we arranged a trip with the three of us representing IWC primarily to learn about how other groups were being brought together in Houston and around the country.  When we returned we were the speakers at one of our General Meetings to relay information that we had brought back.   We had met representatives from several groups at the conference and I began to try to make connections with these.  Our desire was to try to model what was organized in the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaboration.

From what we learned at the conference and from others locally and online we learned that important information was available as Know Your Rights training.  It was being taught in San Antonio and we were ready to work on getting this info our to our community.