PACDA USA
Education
PACDA offers a range of education programming, including our Newcomer Academy, an innovative and effective after school program designed to help newly arrived refugee students catch up, keep up, and get ahead. We help newcomer students learn English, acculturate to the United States, graduate from high school, and succeed in college and career.
Youth Development
PACDA’s Youth Development programs targets youth between the ages of 14 and 24 Kansas City Metro Area. We provide youth with a safe and supportive environment which encourages positive interaction and social and emotional development. We focus on enrichment opportunities, including activities and experiences that promote academic, personal, social and recreational development. We offer mentoring and tutoring as well artistic and cultural self-expression opportunities as well as access to some of the things young people care about most–sports and technology. Through education, work, and play we strive to provide young people with the critical skills they need to succeed in life.
Youth Leadership
PACDA is dedicated to providing dynamic and relevant programming which equip today’s youth to successfully navigate life’s challenges. This program seeks to increase youth’s knowledge in leadership development for the at-risk middle and high school youth. It focuses on academic achievement, school attendance, risky behavior prevention, social skill development, conflict resolution, financial literacy and creating safe recreational activities during after school and out of school time.
Connecting Generations
PACDA helps create bridges between generations, working to create positive relationships with parents and youth to promote healthy, effective, honest and open communication. PACDA’s works with parents to build community and social capital, situating educational activity in the lived experience of being Somali in Kansas City, and raising parents’ consciousness about their situations and their own power to
Advocacy and Support
PACDA through our partners connect individuals and families to wraparound support that meet a wide variety of needs, including education, employment, housing, and legal assistance.
Our support service connects individuals and families to case management, community outreach, housing assistance, financial education, health care, educational, vocational, legal, immigration, transportation, childcare, and family services, and provides additional resources and referrals.
PACDA works in partnership with other organizations and nonprofits to help children, youth, and families. Our goal is to promote resiliency through education, personal well-being, effective parenting, employment and financial stability in our community.
PACDA advocates for the Somali community and we work throughout the community in partnership and coloration with other organizations to obtain the best possible outcomes for children, youth, and families.
Employment and Economic Empowerment
PACDA’s Shaqodoon (job-seeker in Somali) program creates empowerment through employment. Our employment programs and services serve Kansas City metro area and are targeted at Somali youth ages 14-24.
We create economic opportunity for Somali youth by:
- Helping young people build resumes, apply for jobs, and prepare for interviews
- Encouraging service learning and internships, including STEP-UP
- Building pathways to high school graduation, higher education, and technical certification
- Working with employers to increase access to in-demand careers
- Increasing financial literacy
- Providing wraparound services to improve job retention
Family Sport
Strengthening Families is a framework developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) with the purpose of preventing child abuse and neglect. The approach helps early education and other children’s programs in working with parents to build these five protective factors:
- Parental resilience
- Social connections
- Concrete support in times of need
- Knowledge of parenting and child development
- Social and emotional competence of children
