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REPRESENTING DIVERSITY:

A LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE BETWEEN CHAD, COTE D'IVOIRE, GUINEA, MALI, MAURITANIA, NIGER, SENEGAL, AND THE UNITED STATES

NCSL Leads Delegation of Sub-Saharan Parliamentarians and Senior Staff

on Study Tour to the United States

December 1-14, 2005

Parliamentarians and senior staff from 6 different countries visited the cities of Portland & Salem, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; and Washington, DC over the course of this, the first activity in NCSL's Representing Diversity program sponsored by the US State Department.  Delegates enjoyed the opportunity to study both the diversity of America and the diversity among their respective countries and were impressed by the legislators and legislative experts they encountered, inspiring them to improve in their outreach and constituent relations efforts.  Likewise, they were very impressed by the several organizations and government departments working to improve the situations of marginalized immigrant and refugee groups.  As a result, the delegates' images of the U.S. have certainly changed for the better, and rapports were built both with Americans and between the six countries involved that will certainly last beyond the end of the tour. 

The tour had many highlights.  In Portland and Salem, they had the unique opportunities to sit down and talk with the Oregon Governor, receive an official welcome and chat with the Portland mayor, and attend a Christian church with a State Senator - an event which they enjoyed very much even though the delegates were nearly all Muslim.  In Chicago, they had the chance to renew some of those Oregon acquaintances over the course of NCSL’s Fall Forum and to draw from the vast pool of experience represented both at the meeting and in the city for inspiration to inform their legislative work.  And in Washington, visits to the Brookings Institution, the House Republican Conference, and to the office of Congressman Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Secretary to the Congressional Black Caucus, among others helped complete the participants’ image of diversity on a national scale.

To see pictures of the tour, click here.