Chicago Organization Matches Latinos With Good Jobs
(CBS) – New job opportunities on the way for Latinos in the area.
And that's good news when you consider the unemployment rate right now for Latinos is at 7.2 percent in Illinois.
CBS 2's Roseanne Tellez reports on a Chicago institution making a difference in the lives of thousands of predominantly low-income Latinos.
Off of busy Pershing Avenue, in Chicago's McKinley Park neighborhood, is a small building where lives are changing.
The path from the classrooms at the National Latino Education Institute to the workplace is short and sweet.
"NLEI has been on top of where the emerging jobs are," Elba Aranda-Suh, executive director, says.
She adds: "The proof that it's working is the hundreds of thousands of success stories that have gone through our organization for over 44 years."
Austin Armstrong completed a 12-week training course on a Friday and went to work the following Monday.
"I just started maybe four weeks ago with the MZI Management Group," he says. "I'm looking forward to what the future holds."
NLEI offers heads of households ways to provide for their family: training, life skills, job placement.
"We strongly believe that by strengthening each household, no matter what that may look like, that's how you start to build our community as a whole," Aranda-Suh says.
It's a holistic approach. Employers like Art Miller, owner of MZI Management, say it works for the job seeker and job giver alike.
The group's annual fundraising dinner and silent auction helps make these programs happen. It begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Hilton Chicago on Michigan Avenue.
