by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— A new website that teaches English to Spanish-Speaking immigrants – *usalearns.org* – has attracted more than 500,000 visitors in its first three months of operation.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the site is the result of a collaboration between Project IDEAL at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) and the Sacramento County Office of Education in California.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the usage this new site has attracted so far,” says Jerome Johnston, an ISR research professor and Project IDEAL director. “It’s an important attempt to increase our capacity to supplement classroom-based English as a Second Language instruction for some 12 million U.S. adults who have low levels of English proficiency.”

According to Johnston, the site has been averaging more than 7,000 visits a day, with users studying the materials for 25 minutes per visit.

Before launching the site, Project IDEAL staff conducted extensive testing in communities around the country, including Detroit. Even adults with little or no computer skills were able to use the site.

“For the last ten years, we’ve been working on the problem of adult literacy,” says Johnston. “Even though there is a large classroom-based effort, this only meets the needs of between five and seven percent of adult learners. So we’ve been concentrating on using technology to increase opportunities and reach more adult learners.”

“USA Learns is one of many experiments in using technology to get more resources out to learners than we’ve been able to afford to do using only classroom-based education.”

In addition, Johnston points out, on-line instruction is more accessible to adults who may be juggling several jobs and family responsibilities, and who find it difficult or ­impossible to attend formal classes. “USA Learns is available whenever learners have the time to study,” said Johnston.

On-line education also has great potential for assisting U.S. workers to retrain for new occupations and careers, Johnston notes. “We’re making tremendous progress in developing on-line learning programs that are both effective and user-friendly. These programs are shaping up as important tools in creating a workforce that fits the needs of the 21st century.”

by Jacqueline Baylon

The Border Angels, a human rights group founded in 1986 by Enrique Morones to stop the unnecessary deaths of people traveling across the U.S./Mexico border areas of San Diego County and the Imperial Valley.

With the arrival of their 2009 Marcha Migrante IV in Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, followers of the San Diego-based immigration advocacy organization Border Angels have declared, “Our time has come.”

More than three dozen supporters spent three days lobbying Congress and the Fresident Barack Obama administration to pass and sign a bill thatwill provide relief to some 12 million undocumented ­immigrants residing in the United States.

Since February 2006, the Angels have led caravans coast-to~coast four times to further their cause.

This time they met with U.S. Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and with David Martin of the Department of Homeland Security, among numerous other advocates and listeners.

Founder Enrique Morones described the Border Angels’mission as reminding the new administration of President Obama’s campaign promise to address immigration reform during his first year in office. “They have to come through with their promise,” Morones told Weekly Report.

Angels representatives were among some 500 pro-immigrant supporters who marched in sub-freezing weather to the White House the day after Obama’s inauguration.

Achieving a comprehensive and compassionate bill this year “is not going to be easy, but we are full of hope like the rest of the country,” Morones said.

This year’s journey began in San Diego with representatives from about 30 supportive Latino organizations taking part. It featured rallies in California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. The trek ends Feb. 20 back in Washington.

“We are going to keep the pressure up,” promised Morones, who plans to return to the capital in April to lobby some more.

In other related news:

Obama postpones use of e-verify program

by JacqUeline Baylón

President Obama has postponed until May 21 the implementation of an executive order issued by his predecessor, George Bush, requiring all federal contractors to Utllize the E-verify program to ensUre their employees can legally work in the U.S.

After that date, it would require new hires of employers with more than $100,000 in federal contracts to use the program.

Established in 1997 as the Basic Pilot/ Employment Verification Program, it was created to prevent undocumented immigrants from gaining employment.

The American Civil Liberties Union said, “It’s only used by a fraction of our nation’s employers, but its ongoing technological snafus, database errors and bureaucratic bungling have caused enormous financial losses for both businesses and employees.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a national lobby group that proposes to cut back on immigration, stated, “E-Verify has proven to be the single most effective tool to protect American workers from losing jobs in their own country to illegal aliens.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the press Jan. 30 that she believes “it has to be an integral part of our immigration enforcement system. The review is in­tended to see what needs to be done to increase the capacity for the E-Verify system, how quickly that can be done.”

A Wall Street Journal article by Miriam Jordan stated that E-Verify “could be postponed further or even cancelled.” Hispanic Link.

por el personal de El Reportero

GRANADA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua has a rich history of poetry, and a common passion for the spoken word which unites class and cultural divides.

This past week has seen the Fifth International Poetry Festival take place in the beautiful, old city of Granada, bringing together more than 130 poets from 54 different countries.

Poets from Uganda and Iraq have made the journey to this Central American nation – testament to the festival’s credibility and commitment to the poetic cause.

Award-winning Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli was on hand to give the opening reading.

As vice-chair of the festival and author of 15 literary works, including seven poetry collections, she is one of Nicaragua’s big literary stars.

She thinks the festival is important because it opens up Nicaraguan poetry to an international audience.

“It also provides a big showcase for the different poetic tendencies in the world today,” she says.

Poetry in Nicaragua has often been, and still is, an outlet for political and social commentary.

In the years prior to the Sandinista revolution of 1979, it expressed many of the hopes and fears of the people.

And then, we’ll go wake our dead with the life they bequeathed us and we’ll all sing together while concerts of birds repeat our message through the length and breadth of America.

This extract, from Belli’s poem Until We’re Free, contains both a political message and a paean to the joy of poetry.

Modern poetry could be said to get a bad press – or not much press at all – so it is interesting to see a small country in Latin America putting so much emphasis on this literary form.

“Poetry is still as relevant today as it has been in the past,” insists Ms Belli.

“It can be used as both a celebration and a weapon in our society.”

DAS scandal could jeopardise U.S. assistance to Colombia

Colombia’s defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, explicitly stated that the intelligence service, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), should be wound up. His comments were heavily infl uenced by time and place.

Santos was speaking to an audience in Washington; fresh revelations about the DAS carrying out illegal wiretapping of government offi cials, the opposition, the judiciary, and the media, had just emerged. It is this sort of scandal which has deterred Democrats from approving an FTA with Colombia.

The US House of Representatives did approve a bill this week preserving 2009 financial assistance for the counter-narcotics initiative Plan Colombia at last year’s levels, but President Barack Obama is starting to send out signals that he might change direction on drug policy.

Where’s the crisis heading?

The insouciance about the world economic crisis in Latin America’s bigger economies has proved shortlived. In Brazil and Mexico companies are slashing costs and downgrading forecasts.

Among the middle sized economies, only Peru seems to believe that it will escape the crisis unscathed. Venezuela and Colombia have expressed worries about the crisis but barely touched the policy tiller. Chile, typically, has taken action. It has decided to raid its sovereign wealth fund to pay for a welter of new infrastructure projects. Ecuador has gone back and opted for blunt protectionism.

(Latin Briefs and BBC contributed to this report).