The Afghan Diaspora in the city of Fremont, California includes nearly 40,000 people and represents the largest Afghan community in the United States. Many of its members have recently fled war-torn Afghanistan and sought asylum in the U.S. Most refugees and recent immigrants do not speak English and have limited access to health care, education and other social services.

Recently, the Afghan community in Fremont has become a very active group, led by the Afghan Coalition for Community Service. The Coalition is a consortium of small Afghan community groups established to work for the well being of the local Afghan populations and for the purpose of unifying the Afghan community. Both before and after the September 11 attacks in the U.S., the Afghan Coalition has played a major role as the convener and representative of its constituents, bringing pressing issues facing the community into the public eye.

Between March 2002 and May 2003, Partners for Democratic Change, supported by the California Endowment, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stuart Foundation, worked to increase the organizational and leadership capacity of the Afghan Coalition. Partners’ efforts served to improve overall access to health and social services within the Afghan community, enhance collaboration and network-building within and outside the Diaspora, and address particular issues within the community such as youth involvement in community building, access to education, political unity and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

During a series of conflict resolution and cooperative planning trainings, Partners provided the Coalition with facilitation, effective communication, negotiation and mediation skills that enabled the Coalition to pursue active relationships with community members, the city of Fremont, and numerous health and social service providers in Southern Alameda County. The Partners Collaboration Model training provided the Coalition with skills that taught them how to facilitate a community-wide project. In contrast to long-standing theory and practice that only outside professionals can facilitate a multi-stakeholder social change process, the Partners Collaboration Model builds on the commitment, passion, and energy of an organization’s staff to be the facilitators of community projects.

As a result, Partners helped prepare the Afghan Coalition leaders to conduct a series of four community dialogues that aimed to encourage Afghan residents of Fremont to become involved in finding solutions to problems that touch the entire Afghan community, especially those related to health, social services, youth, and education. This dialogue project was the first democratic process of its kind initiated within the Afghan community in the U.S.

The Afghan community dialogues empowered the community to develop and implement a strategy to improve access to health, mental health and other social services; involve all members of the Diaspora in building a healthy and strong community; and improve communication with the municipal government. The Afghan Coalition also led the founding of the Afghan Health Committee, which in turn advocated for drafting the Afghan Health Partnership Plan to continue to improve the general health of the community.

Partners hopes that the processes will become models for promoting dialogue in other American and European Afghan communities, as well as generate ideas for collaborative civic action both in the United States’ Afghan community and in Afghanistan.