IRS seeks Tax Volunteers

The Internal Revenue Service, IRS is looking for people to provide free tax help in 2017.  “Become a tax volunteer and make a difference in your community,” IRS said in a statement.

The IRS sponsors the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) programs. These two programs offer free tax help across the country for people with low-to-moderate incomes. 

This year, VITA and TCE volunteers prepared more than 3.7 million federal tax returns at no cost to families across the country. Additional information can be found on IRS.gov and type "tax volunteer" in the search box. "If you’d like to become a volunteer, you will need to submit your volunteer interest information on IRS.gov at IRS Tax Volunteers,” it said.

New American Festival holds Sept. 10

The New American Festival, an annual event organized by the Ethiopian Tewahado Social Services will hold Saturday, September 10 at the North YMCA, Karl Road, Columbus, OH.

The Executive Director, Dr. Seleshi Ayalew said, “The New American Festival fills a cultural need for refugee, immigrant, and asylee communities. 

According to him, “In learning a new language, culture, and establishing a new life in America, there is pressure to assimilate, losing the valuable traditions, arts, and strengths of the cultures New Americans come from.  

 This festival presents an opportunity to share these rich cultures with family, friends, and the larger community.” The festival is in collaboration with CRIS, World Relief Columbus, US Together and Jewish Family Services. –TNA

Resource center is one-stop shop – Mukhtar Yusuf

As Mukhtar Yusuf, partner at the Immigration Resource Center in Columbus, opened the office door at 10am, three women and a man in need of assistance were already waiting to go in with him.

 

Mukhtar Yusuf

Within 10minutes, a line was already formed. “We make sure we keep the line moving,” he told TheNewAmericans as he took few minutes to answer questions.

“This is a fast paced business. We render a lot of immigration services including petitioning for family members, green card and citizenship applications and other travel related issues,” he explained.

According to him, ‘a lot of people come here because somebody else that we have done something for told them about us. When they come, they know that it is a resource center that they can come in freely, ask for information and get knowledge. We also help them reach as far as the Department of Job and Family Services.”    

Mukhtar, who came to the United States from Somalia as a six years old, 24years ago said the center was set up in Columbus in 2001 and it has branches in other states. –TNA

I sell cars so my customers will be happy — Aden Jama

Aden Jama is the President of Central Ohio Auto Sales. He was born in Somalia and moved to the United States of America in 1988. He shuttled, lived, and worked in New Jersey and New York till 2005 when he relocated to Columbus, Ohio. He told TheNewAmericans that “Columbus is a nice city and the opportunities are here.”

Central Auto Sales

Aden Jama

We started in 2012. I started with auto repair shop in 2005. I wanted a business that will have to do with automobile industry. So I went to school for it. I was living in New York but it was an expensive place. One needs a lot of money to do business there. But I had a friend who was into auto sales and also had a repair shop in Columbus, Ohio. I moved to Columbus 11years ago and started with the auto repair shop. I started repairing cars. I switched to selling cars five years ago.

Advantage

The advantage I have is that I have the knowledge of cars. I know about different parts of the cars. I don’t just buy cars to sell cars, I buy cars to sell so that my customers will be happy, I will be happy and everybody will be happy. So I have great relationship with our customers. We sell to our customers through whatever form they can pay. We do a little bit of ‘buy here, pay here, and we do ‘in-house’, we do ‘outside vendors’ and we do ‘cash’.

 Source

We source for vehicles online, we attend auction sales, there are two big auction sales in Columbus.

The advice I have for others is that a person must do his homework and study the market. I learned the hard way, which is an experience. I used to be very excited buying cars. It is a challenge if you are not able to sell the car. 

Forecast

I look forward to being twice as big in five years’ time. I hope to have up to 10 employees. Right now, I work six days and almost 12 to 13 hours.  I don’t think that there is any country out there that is like America especially for an immigrant. The opportunities are here. We just have to find our dreams and destiny if we work hard and do honest job. I’ll say God bless America. /TNA

We advocate preventive health - Afua

“I noticed there was a need because I had a lot of immigrants and other diverse people referred to me,” Afua Nutor, CEO, Hope Pharmacist told TheNewAmericans.

While working at a chain pharmacy, Afua Nutor, who emigrated to the United States of America from Ghana, West Africa always had immigrants and other diverse people referred to her. This challenge ignited the need to have her own Pharmacy – Hope Pharmacy – in order to serve this unique need without restriction.

Afua Nutor

Afua who did most of her schooling in Ghana immigrated to the United States in 2000. “I went to the University of Science and Technology where I took my Pharmacy degree and was licensed as well.”

Haven arrived in the United States, Afua did her equivalency to get licensed with the Pharmacy Professional body. According to her, “It took me about two years to be able to integrate into the system and have my professional license to practice as a pharmacist.” 

Experience

I started working with a chain pharmacy because there was a required internship period. That was a time I got myself familiar with the system and the pharmacy terrain here in the United States. It was not a difficult transition.

Hope Pharmacy

Once I practiced at the retail for a big chain for a while, I noticed there was a need because I had a lot of immigrants and other diverse people being referred to me. I found that there were some unique needs that they had. I did realize that I will be in a good position to help them without any restriction if I have my own pharmacy.

We opened our doors in April 2014. It has been a gradual steady growth. That has been good for us because we’ve also grown into doing the work well. We have a passion for thoroughness and excellence in the job that we do. We’ve grown not too fast but at good pace that we can connect with our patients to meet their needs very well. 

 People are in denial that they have a chronic disease. They don’t want to be told that they have diabetics or high blood pressure.

Relationship

The key thing is to educate the people. I always start with educating them on what is available and how the system is different here. I collaborate a lot with other health care professionals so that I can send people for physician visits and other health care specialties if they are needed. We really personalize the interactions.

In the same vein we educate them about the insurance that are available to them and that they already may have acquired from their jobs or things that they are eligible for that they don’t know about. Also we help with application processes if it is needed. Sometimes the paper work may be a lot and intimidating. If there are coupons we could help them to apply for, we do that too. It has brought a lot of people to us because of this. 

Benefits

Most of our patients tell their doctors to send their prescriptions here. Sometimes, after a previous interaction with them, they come back. The good thing has been that when they come and they need a doctor’s referrer and we do the referrer, they always come back with the doctor’s prescriptions. It’s a win-win. We give them back and they come back. Because we’ve built a personal relationship with them, they come back.

Program

We typically will give free vitamins to our first time prescription patients. We also offer free diabetics counseling. We specialize in diabetics as a pharmacist because it is becoming one of the predominant and of big concern. Now diabetics is affecting the juveniles as well, even type 2. We do a lot of counseling, we have a counseling area, we do flu shots, basically immunization, and that has really opened doors.

Projection

I am hoping that Hope Pharmacy will be a destination to any health care needs that anybody might think of. If they think of their health, preventative health or maintaining their health, people will think about us, that we will be the first point of call.

I am passionate about stressing preventative health and chronic disease management. These are areas that a lot of people fall short. There is a lot of medication and advancement in medicine that we are not taking advantage of. People are losing their lives or not having optimal health because they are not maximizing the opportunities that are available.

We come to be the gap and advocate because a pharmacist is the most accessible health care professional. You can walk into a pharmacy any time and be able to talk to pharmacists and they can direct you to where you should be able to go. We want to be visible and to be available to help out our patients.  

Education

People are in denial that they have a chronic disease. They don’t want to be told that they have diabetics or high blood pressure. They think once they take the medicine for a month that they are good. We have to educate them to let them know. If you want to have good quality of life you have to control these chronic disease such that you have a longer healthier life and not have kidney disease in the end or any complications. A lot of people are maintaining and managing their diseases well because they are complying with their medications. They are seeing their doctors for checks. Science is so well advance that it hurts to see people hurting when there is help. The education piece will help people come on board, take good care of themselves because it is less costly in the long run to take care of it while it is in the initial stage before you have any complication. If you can do that the total cost of health care will go down.  /TNA  

46 U. S. NGOs get $10m for Citizenship Preparation program

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has awarded nearly $10 million in grants under two funding opportunities to 46 organizations that will help permanent residents prepare and apply for U.S. citizenship. Located in 21 states, these organizations will receive federal funding to support citizenship preparation services for permanent residents through September 2018.

Since it began in 2009, the USCIS Citizenship and Integration Grant Program has awarded a total of $63 million through 308 competitive grants to public or private nonprofit organizations in 37 states and the District of Columbia. Now in its eighth year, the program has helped more than 156,000 permanent residents prepare for citizenship. USCIS anticipates that an additional 37,000 permanent residents will receive citizenship preparation services by Sept. 30, 2018, as a result of the grant program.
                                                                                                                                     
“There is a great need for citizenship preparation services throughout the country,” USCIS Director León Rodríguez said. “Grant recipient organizations provide critical services to immigrants as they pursue their dream of U.S. citizenship.”

The Citizenship and Integration Grant Program is a major part of USCIS’ efforts to support effective citizenship preparation services and provide information to immigrants and public or private nonprofit organizations. Other efforts include the Citizenship Resource Center, a web resource that provides learning materials to help permanent residents prepare for the naturalization process, and USCIS’ partnerships with federal and municipal agencies that raise awareness of the rights, responsibilities and importance of U.S. citizenship among the estimated 8.8 million permanent residents nationwide eligible to apply for naturalization.

This year, these funding opportunities included a newly created grant opportunity to assist nonprofit organizations in establishing new citizenship instruction programs or expanding the quality and reach of their existing citizenship instruction programs. Through this new program USCIS sought to encourage the expansion of the existing field of citizenship instruction programs, particularly those offered by small, community-based organizations that have not previously received a grant from USCIS.

America proposes new rule for international entrepreneurs

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is proposing a new rule, which would allow certain international entrepreneurs to be considered for parole (temporary permission to be in the United States) so that they may start or scale their businesses here in the United States.
 
Read the advance version of the notice of proposed rulemaking: International Entrepreneur Rule. Once the notice of proposed rulemaking is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 45 days from the date of publication to comment. To submit comments, follow the instructions in the notice.

“America’s economy has long benefitted from the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs, from Main Street to Silicon Valley,” said Director León Rodríguez. “This proposed rule, when finalized, will help our economy grow by expanding immigration options for foreign entrepreneurs who meet certain criteria for creating jobs, attracting investment and generating revenue in the U.S.”
The proposed rule would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use its existing discretionary statutory parole authority for entrepreneurs of startup entities whose stay in the United States would provide a significant public benefit through the substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation.  Under this proposed rule, DHS may parole, on a case-by-case basis, eligible entrepreneurs of startup enterprises:

• Who have a significant ownership interest in the startup (at least 15 percent) and have an active and central role to its operations;
• Whose startup was formed in the United States within the past three years; and
• Whose startup has substantial and demonstrated potential for rapid business growth and job creation, as evidenced by:
  • Receiving significant investment of capital (at least $345,000) from certain qualified U.S. investors with established records of successful investments;
  • Receiving significant awards or grants (at least $100,000) from certain federal, state or local government entities; or
  • Partially satisfying one or both of the above criteria in addition to other reliable and compelling evidence of the startup entity’s substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation.

Under the proposed rule, entrepreneurs may be granted an initial stay of up to two years to oversee and grow their startup entity in the United States.  A subsequent request for re-parole (for up to three additional years) would be considered only if the entrepreneur and the startup entity continue to provide a significant public benefit as evidenced by substantial increases in capital investment, revenue or job creation. 
The notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register invites public comment for 45 days, after which USCIS will address the comments received.  The proposed rule does not take effect with the publication of the notice of proposed rulemaking.  It will take effect on the date indicated in the final rule when a final rule is published in the Federal Register.