Office of Multicultural Affairs

The primary role of the Office of Multicultural Affairs is to function as a resource to all state agencies and to all communities served to improve services to minority and multicultural populations in the state of Maine.

Somali youth in the U.S.:From alienation to acceptance (Text Only) or (Power Point) (*free viewer)
Iraqi Refugees in the United States: In Dire Straits (1.07 mb) (Adobe PDF*)(*free viewer)
Capacity Building Program Pictures (Weekend of April 18, 2009)
Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights Features Former Child Soldier Ishmael Beah on April 14 (Adobe PDF*) (*free viewer)

~ I really hope you get a chance to attend this lecture! If you are planning to attend, please be there at least 30 minutes before the start of the event as the venues reach full capacity very quickly. Please note that there is also a simulcast/video-cast to the University of Maine Augusta ~

This year’s Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights at the University of Southern Maine (USM) will feature speaker Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier turned human rights activist. Beah will speak about his own experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone and the greater effects of war on children, Tuesday, April 14, from 7-9 p.m. in USM’s Hannaford Auditorium, Portland. The lecture, part of the evening’s focus on “War and Reconciliation: from Child Soldiers to Community Healers,” is free and open to the public on a first-come-first-served basis. Seating is limited to 525 in Hannaford Hall, however the lecture will be simulcast to an additional 325 attendees in other nearby USM venues. The program will also be simulcast to the Jewett Auditorium at the University of Maine, Augusta (http://www.uma.edu/beahtalk.html) Ishmael Beah’s story, told in his book A Long Way Gone: Memoir of a Boy Soldier (2007), has garnered national attention and also, a fair amount of controversy. Beah has made appearances on NPR’s Fresh Air and the Daily Show with John Stewart. His story has also been told in Newsweek and the New York Times.