The Peer Workforce Navigator project is a three-year effort among community-based organizations (including Food AND Medicine, Gateway Community Services Maine, Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Equal Justice and Prosperity Maine) in partnership with the Maine Department of Labor (MDOL). For a great introduction to what PWN has accomplished so far, read the Century Foundation’s recent report, “Mass Layoff in Maine: Lessons Learned from the Maine Department of Labor and Peer Workforce Navigators.”
Our Friday clinics at ProsperityMaine have become a known resource for multilingual assistance filing for unemployment, public benefits, and jobs. We’re grateful for all our community partners and especially the cultural broker volunteers who bring awesome energy and expand navigator capacity. This clinic has proven such a successful model that researchers from the US DOL recently toured the clinic, as well as FAM and MEJ in Augusta and Bangor.
We are expanding our footprint in Lewiston/Auburn as navigators Bright, Hatim, and Leslie connect with New Mainers at our Lewiston clinics and the unhoused
community at the Pleasant Street Drop-in Center. We were also able to catch some sun at the DOL’s outdoor job fair in Kennedy Park.
In May, the Peer Workforce Navigator (PWN) program welcomed Hatim Ibrahim as the new navigator with Gateway Community Services. In July, Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness joined the team as an official partner, and is working to recruit and onboard two navigators in the coming weeks.
MEJ navigator Marcel Selamani returned from paternity leave after welcoming his second child. He was also recently featured in the Press Herald, check it out!
We said goodbye (for now) to AuLionne Agatako who we know will do great things as a paralegal for the MA Attorney General. Volunteer Coordinator Hussein Maow’s last project was designing our first Volunteer Navigator program, which kicks off this week. Hussein will stay involved with PWN as part of his work as an MEJ paralegal.
Food AND Medicine navigator, Suzy Young gave a presentation to the national DOL navigator working group and shared PWN at events like the Together Place fair in Brewer.
We are also celebrating a legislative win: LD 1394: An Act to Expand the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program was signed into law! Thanks to testimony from diverse stakeholders, including PWN Policy Advocate Kelli Musick, more workers across Maine will have access to funding for transformative education and training programs and related expenses like transportation and childcare.
Maine Equal Justice focuses its work on many of the issues that affect people’s daily lives – access to adequate health care, housing, transportation and childcare; food and income security; and higher education and training. Maine Equal Justice is a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization. Our EIN is 04-3346273. 