Oromo Community Engagement in the Cedar - Riverside Neighborhood

The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis, located adjacent to the University of Minnesota on the West Bank of the Mississippi River (Figure 1), has served as a settlement for new immigrants for more than two centuries, starting with the influx of families from Eastern European countries during the 1800s. More recently, significant numbers of immigrants from Africa, and to a lesser degree Asia and Latin America, have chosen this neighborhood as their new home. One of the newer immigrant groups to arrive in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is the Oromo, the largest cultural group within the Horn of Africa, centered in Ethiopia. The Oromo Community of Minnesota (OCM), a nonprofit organization created in 1985 to provide assistance to new arrivals, estimates that 12,000 Oromo now live in Minnesota, with the largest concentration living in Cedar-Riverside. The Oromo have increased their presence in Cedar-Riverside during a time of growing dissent in the neighborhood regarding community development prospects—a situation that was exacerbated when historic Dania Hall, a 113-year-old landmark on Cedar Avenue that was in the process of being redeveloped as a community center, was destroyed by fire in 2000. CedarRiverside has lacked a unified community voice for many years. The lack of unity is ultimately disempowering and makes the neighborhood vulnerable to future development without input from or regard for the community. In response, the West Bank Community Development Corporation (CDC) has made it a priority to unite new immigrants and longer term residents in efforts to revitalize the neighborhood. Within this context, the West Bank CDC initiated the Oromo Community Engagement project in response to a sense of disconnection with their new Oromo neighbors and colleagues. Prior to this project, the Oromo have focused on their own community development efforts but have been less engaged in collaborative planning processes and, for the most part, underrepresented in the creation of a common vision for neighborhood revitalization. The West Bank CDC intends to ensure the interests of the Oromo are not overlooked during planning for future community development projects. Oromo Community Engagement in the CedarRiverside Neighborhood