Sustainable Livelihoods Relief Organization (SLRO)
"We need to respond to our marginalization in the Maine food economy by building up the knowledge and the capacity to farm, harvest, market, sell and distribute our products,” ~Executive Director.
ABOUT US:
Sustainable Livelihoods Relief Organization aims to develop the capacity of New Mainers to become productive members of society and integrate successfully into the labor market as both employees and business owners in order to raise the standard of living, strengthen the people’s resilience to adversity, and create a supportive environment for improved community well-being. Many leaders of the New Mainers community earned their livelihood through farming in their home countries and are interested in not only starting careers in agriculture in Maine, but in staying connected with the land. SLRO focuses entirely on sustainable career building, youth leadership in the food system, business cooperative development, and agricultural sciences. SLRO seeks to address oppression, inequity, and injustice by advocating and creating economic opportunity for New Mainers community.
Our Mission: Sustainable Livelihoods Relief Organization (SLRO) is to develop the capacity of the New Mainers to become productive members of society and integrate successfully into the labor market as both employees and business owners to raise the standard of living, strengthen the people's resilience to adversity, and create a supportive environment for improved community well-being.
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Our vision: Every man and woman have the opportunity to achieve his/her fullest potential, integrate into the job market and contribute to all aspects and leave a sustainable society for future generations.
Back row: Left Abdikadir, Abdisalat, Mohamed and Khadija.
Front: Jamal and Jama
Last three years’ accomplishments: 2016, 2017 and 2018.
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We formed “From Apartment to Lot to Greenhouse to Field to Farm project.”
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Formed a cooperative called Isuken Co-op through food system on a food truck, this coop is workers owned by immigrant mothers of seven people five of them of worker-owner are non-English speakers while two are English speaking.
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We trained 35 youth providing eight different workshops between of age of 13-25. We have 20 youths committed, who will be taking food system classes from the University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College summer of 2019.
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We trained 75 mothers for childcare training, we provided ten workshops. During these workshops, we were partnering with the Cooperative Development Institute(CDI) and Somali Bantu Community of Maine.
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We formed “Mainers Integration Potluck”. Arranging New Mainer visiting and cooking with native Mainer's homes to build relationship and bridge integration barriers. Builds strong ties between New Mainer's community and mainstream community and eliminate gaps, misunderstanding, and any perceptions.