A slightly edited version of following appeared on the April 7th, 2006 issue of the Malden Observer

I have always voiced that women should not be forgotten once March is gone.

This month I will "practice what I have preached" by bringing an important event that went unnoticed earlier in March which echoed Audrey Valeriani's recent column ("Who's your role model?" Observer, March 24). Many "s/heroes" go unknown, unsung, and sometimes unappreciated. Unless one browses the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women's Web site, few will know that 240 women were honored at the State House on March 3 for their tireless and often unrecognized efforts on behalf of their communities.

I was happy to represent Malden among those 240 "unsung heroines." Each honoree received a special welcome from Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy, and stood up as her name was called by the commission's board members. I felt very humble to have received an official citation by the state Senate signed by its President Robert E. Travaglini, attested by Clerk of the Senate William Welch, and offered by my state Sen., Richard Tsei. Thank you.

I want to acknowledge public officials who had taken their time to write to me. Gov. Mitt Romney and Healy wrote in their letter of appreciation: "This remarkable accomplishment is a testament to your hard work and creativity." Attorney General Thomas Reilly said at the end of his letter, "Again, congratulations on a job well done and honor well deserved." Middlesex District Attorney candidate Gerry Leone also wrote me a kind letter.

I also would like to bring in perspective some of the events that led to my nomination, besides someone in the Malden Observer paying attention to my call on the ethnic and immigrant communities to be more involved in the city's civic life. I have been engaged in the Haitian community since I emigrated to the Boston area in 1973. As a teenager, I was a member of the Haitian Youth group at the now-closed French Canadian parish, Our Lady of Pity. In 1978 this group merged with the adult Christian committee and created the first Haitian community organization in Metro North, the Cambridge Haitian American Association. Until it closed in 1992, CHAMA provided services to Haitians from all over Massachusetts.

As an undergraduate, I volunteered many hours in Cambridge's Master PAC, a now defunct citywide bilingual-parent organization that needs to be revitalized in Metro North cities including Malden.

I have also been interested in world issues since my adolescent years. My first rally was a march in Washington calling for Nelson Mandela's release. When I saw Mandela at Harvard several years ago, I murmured to myself, "I did not march in vain."

In the 1980s, I was active in a peace organization that worked to make Cambridge a sanctuary city for Central American refugees. Also during those years, noticing the physical violence that my students' mothers suffered from their spouses or partners, I started advocating for programs on domestic violence prevention in the Haitian community. At that time, as Haitians were fighting a dictatorship, I was viewed as "out of sync" with current issues. Domestic violence was a "sentimental issue" not to be compared with freedom from dictators. This was my first experience at being misunderstood by Haitian community"leaders." However, in the 1990s other women had taken over my concerns.

In the mid-1990s, feeling that I worked in vain for the return of democracy to Haiti, I became more involved in church. Throughout this country's history, churches have helped their immigrants assimilate into the new culture. As an educator, my proposals to lay and religious leaders to help Haitian parents and now increasingly African immigrants in the education of their children have been ignored.

Over the years, I concluded that the Haitian churches, like many immigrant congregations, don't have education and youth as their mission's priority. Until the recent government faith-based initiative grants that the Boston Black Ministerial Alliance had received, education, parental involvement, were not brought up in many African American pews.

I am not seeing or reading a lot of advocacy work or activities encouraging black parents to be involved in [Metro North] city's civic affairs or in the schools either. I believe given the changing demographics of Malden, particularly the increasing number of Haitians, to be blunt, the black community from this country, from Africa, Haiti, and other Caribbean countries need to "step up" for the benefit of the city's[and the country’s] future generations.

Anticipated grants for gang violence should be spent on calling and providing community meetings, youth jobs and programs as the summer approaches and many young people especially the blacks and immigrants will have nothing to do. Keeping youth "busy," providing supportive, adequate, recreational, [educational and cultural] atmosphere for them are means to prevent violence in lieu of trying to cure gang violence that many cities in Metro North including Malden had not experienced.

As I travel around the world and interact with cultures different from mine, I come to realize that the cultures that do well are those that make learning, education and youth development central components in their communities. I believe strongly that if we invest in the toddlers, provide an educationally rich environment in the churches and community-based organizations and continue our efforts during the teenage years, we will see less violence and greater achievement in the black communities. Ethnic churches could consider reading and discussing the March 20 article "Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn," published in The New York Times. Women would need to lead those group discussions because they are raising the men referred in that piece.

Furthermore, in its March 23 "Roving Camera" feature, the Boston-based African American weekly, The Banner posed the question: "What do you think the black community needs to move ahead?" Gail Burton responded: "We need better leadership for the young people and better education. Our young people aren't getting what they need to be able to be critical thinkers."

Patrick Roe's concluding statement: "We have to invest our resources in the children's future" is also compelling. In a little over three decades, I have seen the deleterious effect of lack of investment in young Haitians. The community has produced a disconnected generation and an "internal, local brain drain." I cannot think of one of my high school or college classmates or those who were in my church youth group who have remained in the community. To stop this downward spiral, I would encourage a Haitian, or any immigrant born in this country or who arrived here at a young age, to stay and give his or her talents to the local and larger community.

The last sentence in the editorial comment of the March 23 Banner, "African Americans must do all they can to live disciplined and purposeful lives so that the brightest and the best will be encouraged to provide the expertise and leadership necessary to move ahead," resonates for the Haitian community.

Meanwhile, despite some Haitian and African immigrants' lack of understanding of my position on continuous learning, civic involvement, and education, I will continue, in the words of my letters of recognition, my "selfless dedication to public service", to the city of Malden and the country “with no expectation of recognition and/or praise."

Thanks to all Observer's readers who understand my effort. My heartfelt gratitude to the public officials who wrote me those candid words.

Nekita Lamour is an essayist and educator. She holds a theological degree from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. Her column appears regularly in the Boston Haitian Reporter and periodically in the Observer.