Opportunities and support: Great Bay Community College and Little Indonesia Link Up
Two organizations with similar missions, Great Bay Community College and Indonesian Community Connect, have partnered together to increase access to educational and professional resources. From left: Tom Andruskevich, GBCC chief business affairs officer; Dr. Cheryl Lesser, GBCC president; Raude Raychel, ICC president and founder; Ivana Tuati, ICC Indonesia secretary; Miles Lius, ICC summer intern 2023 from UNH. (Photo courtesy of GBCC)
Twenty-six years ago, Raude Raychel watched her father develop Seacoast New Hampshire’s first Indonesian community. At first it started with just a handful of people gathering in their home for religious services. Over time, her father’s role as a pastor broadened to supporting a wide network of immigrants as they got settled, found jobs and made their home in New Hampshire.
Today, the Seacoast is home to nearly 5,000 Indonesians, and Raychel is the founder and president of Indonesia Community Connect, an organization that provides support and resources to the local Indonesian community while also expanding awareness of Indonesian culture throughout New Hampshire and the United States.
While many Indonesian community organizations focus on celebrating culture and creating awareness through food and events, ICC also focuses deeply on helping local Indonesians find work, opportunities and support as New Hampshire residents.
“Most of the other Indonesian organizations really just do festivals or bazaars, which is great. Food is a great thing,” Raychel says. “But for us it’s really about having that local impact, because we have community members that live here, and we want to make this place home. So we want to make sure that whatever the needs are in different sectors, we reach them.”
That type of support includes interpretation services, workforce development and even assistance navigating U.S. procedures and systems. “There’s a huge gap of cultural difference — how the court system here runs, for instance, and how Indonesia is different,” Raychel says. By helping Indonesians navigate these systems, ICC is also educating the local community about how their systems are different, in hopes to foster more tolerance and understanding among locals.
Helping people navigate new cultural systems is what brought ICC to form one of its most exciting projects yet: a partnership with Great Bay Community College, where ICC and GBCC will work together to help Indonesian community members access educational support and resources, including better understanding career options, advising on coursework, understanding education financing, and even translation and interpretation services.
“We want the people to really grow in New Hampshire,” Raychel says. “And so that that idea of really connecting with Great Bay Community College is very important. The impact of it is going to be huge.”
Cheryl Lesser, president of Great Bay Community College, said the partnership was “a matching of missions.”
“When I first met Raude Raychel, we were kind of saying the same thing. I obviously focused on the educational piece and she on the community,” Lesser says. “Our students are housing insecure, and they’re food insecure. They need all the same types of things (that ICC offers). So we really found this common ground, that a rising tide floats all boats.”
While GBCC’s first priority is education, it’s also well connected across the entire Granite State. Great Bay hopes to use its vast network of partners to help ICC achieve its goals, whether helping them access funds for workforce development, or getting connected with social services.
“For folks that want what I call a beautiful life, however they define it, part of that typically has to do with having some type of education, whether it’s training, a course, a degree or a certificate,” Lesser says. “That’s the beauty of being at a community college, because we’re so flexible. There’s a lot that we do. And with Great Bay being part of the system, we cover the whole state, we have resources for people everywhere.”
Raychel feels excited about creating a cultural connection to not just offer resources but help build trust and understanding among the Indonesian community.
“This is highlighting a sense of place and sense of belonging, and also the sense of trust,” Raychel says. “It doesn’t come naturally within some of our community members to know the resources available to them — that there’s a school, maybe there’s training, workshops, classes, whatever. The very first step of that process is to bring the awareness. And usually when they know that there is a partner with ICC, there’s trust there.”
For both organizations, this partnership is just the beginning of a New Hampshire they’d like to see more of.
“My hope for New Hampshire in the future is that folks don’t have obstacles and barriers to what they need. A New Hampshire that’s really, really, really supporting everybody,” Lesser says. “This is a tough time. It’s nerve-wracking and concerning as a community college president.
“How can I best use my voice, and how best can Great Bay and the community college system in New Hampshire be part of the solution, and not be part of the barrier making? I’m really proud of the conversations around belonging (that we’re having at Great Bay), and that we’re finding our voice in all of this.”
Raychel is convinced that the partnership works both ways — not just benefitting the local Indonesian community, but helping New Hampshire become a more diverse and equitable place across the state.
“This doesn’t just specifically benefit Indonesian people. This is an added value for locals, for Somersworth, for the surrounding cities, for New Hampshire as a whole,” she says. “We’re making the world’s first little Indonesia; the world’s first destination (of its kind). That’s where the community lives, that’s where the community gathers.”
This article is featured in the winter 2023 issue of 603 Diversity.
603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.
