Office of International Affairs, Louisville, Kentucky

This initiative has been identified as a good immigrant integration practice by the NLC. Click here to find all about the other programs!

The Louisville metro area has a population of 562,382 with 5% composed of foreign-born residents.

Louisville’s Office of International Affairs (OIA) works to create a multicultural community and to serve all members of the community, particularly new residents. OIA works to integrate immigrants and refugees into Louisville by connecting them to governmental and non-governmental resources and by serving as an information clearinghouse.

Louisville provides many services to the immigrant community, including:

• A community language bank for interpreters and translators
• Social services, i.e. resettlement agencies
• English as a second language classes
• Career opportunities
• Leadership opportunities that foster interest in and promote educational, civic, and social service activities

OIA has recently created the new Mayor’s Diversity Initiative for the Louisville Metro Government. General Diversity Training is a part of the Metro Training University, a career-development initiative, and promotes generational diversity. Class participants learn about attitudes, behaviors and career motivations that characterize each generation to diffuse tensions at work and increase communication. A related training program, “Diversity: Valuing Differences,” provides all Metro employees with a venue to discuss cultural differences and similarities, techniques to recognize potential conflicts and opportunities to share insight.

To further increase diversity within the Louisville community, the city also hosts the annual two-day WorldFest every Labor Day weekend. WorldFest is the largest collection of local ethnic restaurants, vendors and exhibitors at any one event in the state of Kentucky. The festival features live music; a wide array of cuisines, crafts and educational possibilities; and a Parade of Cultures. Immigrants can also participate in the Naturalization Ceremony, where hundreds of people take their U.S. oath of citizenship.

For more information, contact the Office of International Affairs at (502) 574-4774.