In the final leg of a two-year foreign exchange program, CCH Community Organizer Jim Picchetti left Thursday to join eight other U.S. organizers offering professional training to organizers and Roma community leaders in Hungary and Romania. 
Funded by a U.S. Department of State grant, the program has run training exchanges involving 21 U.S. mentors and 37 trainees from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. CCH has hosted six trainees for the three-week exchange, and CCH Organizing Director Jim Field and Reentry Organizer Rachel Ramirez traveled to East Central Europe to offer training workshops in 2013.
The Great Lakes Consortium of Toledo, Ohio manages the professional fellows program, “Building Grassroots Democracy in Minority Communities.”
Jim has worked two years as statewide organizer at CCH, mobilizing 40 services providers in nine suburbs and downstate cities. Jim promises to send along an article or two explaining his work abroad!
– Anne Bowhay, Media