The Institute for Practical Democracy's Mission

Yirgalem is the first recipient of this new award that honors Perdita Huston.

Perdita Huston insisted on the possibility that people in any society could create a better future. This how Yirgalem Madie has lived the years of her young life in her adopted country.

Acting on that belief and living it have not been easy, and will not get easier in today's world. It has come with pain, anger, tears and disappointment, but great triumph when people, including Yirgalem herself, have been empowered to walk down roads they cut themselves.

Before she headed off for college as an undergraduate 5 years ago, Yirgalem was an editor and writer, with other peers in the Institute for Practical Democracy, for their book of essays and poetry, "Stories We Must Tell Ourselves." These young people created this book as a way of telling Portland, Maine and the world, about who they really were, beyond political one-liners and random headlines about refugees and new immigrants. They wanted to document their families' experiences, their courage and loss, and the voices of the next generation. I think Perdita Huston, a prolific writer and recorder of the courage and nobility of all lives in the world, would have been a cheerleader for this effort.

Yirgalem was forced from her secure, hopeful and loving home of tradition and high expectations in Ethiopia when a civil war broke out. Her family, like other immigrants in history expected America to give their children better opportunities for a good education. Yirgalem soon learned about the stereotypes of immigrants that impinged upon her classroom experience, her life at every turn. She grieved for the loss of her Ethiopian home, her relatives and friends and hopes left behind. She learned the ways of America, the good and the dubious. She became a founding member of the Institute of Practical Democracy in 1997. She also learned more about democracy, civil rights, human rights and civic duty. So prepared, she took on systems that violated the hopes and the rights of immigrants, new Americans like herself, and constantly insisted on civic participation by her peers, adults and parents. She is an American civics lesson.

n a room of her mother's friends, in a study center where so many new American youth are trying to do homework and others blowing it off, Yirgalem can be found bringing clarity. She believes and acts on idea that no one is a lost cause. But, she also believes that families and young people from new immigrant families must learn to advocate for themselves, to support their young people advocating for them and give support to their children who are trying to make their way in a society that may expect little of them. She is always ready to lead or participate with youth and adults as they face a challenge, try to solve a problem, make a plan, even if they have few resources except their own creativity, determination and need.

She can tell a family they must listen to their children and tell a teen he or she must listen to their parents, because she listens very well across many different cultures and then she acts. Yirgalem developed a workshop in HIV/AIDS for the youth by working with an American-born friend who was a youth-worker and mentor in the immigrant communities. She sharpened the effectiveness of the workshop with her understanding of the values and fears of parents, the youth that must live astride many cultures, and respect for the positive contributions of both generations. When she organized the Mothers and Daughters forum, it was from her years of experience working with her American and new American peer youth-workers, respectfully listening to the lives and stories of mothers, living as a daughter in her family's new world and in the lives of friends from many different nations, including the U.S.

The Mothers and Daughters forum was for improving communication between Mothers and Daughters who are new Americans. But Yirgalem had another goal too: to provide a vehicle for women, mothers and daughters, to make a place for themselves as civic leaders at America's table. To help them find a voice that can be heard in schools, city hall, the legislature, work places and in their own neighborhoods.

Yirgalem lives and acts on her belief that any and all people have intelligence, wisdom, courage, traditions and strength to create a better future for themselves, their children and their country. Now working on a Masters degree at the School for International Training, she is gathering more tools for her future and the future of people trying to create a better future, wherever they live.

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