{"id":63445,"date":"2019-03-13T08:20:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T14:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/companeros-four-corners-immigrant-resource-center-looks-to-grow\/"},"modified":"2019-03-13T14:20:36","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T14:20:36","slug":"companeros-four-corners-immigrant-resource-center-looks-to-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/companeros-four-corners-immigrant-resource-center-looks-to-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center looks to grow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Matt
Matt Karkut is the new executive director at Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center in Durango. He said a website update for the group is under development. He is seen with Tory Smith, a graduate practicum student at Compa\u00f1eros.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Matt Karkut, the new executive director at Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center in Durango, is looking to strengthen and expand programs and services as well as revamp the organization\u2019s dated website.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hoping to grow,\u201d Karkut said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been a small organization, and we\u2019d like to increase staff and provide more classes, programs and services for immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compa\u00f1eros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center<\/a> helps immigrants \u2013 legal and people in the country illegally \u2013 obtain driver\u2019s licenses, provides general information about immigration and provides information about governmental or nonprofit services tailored to meet immigrants\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

The center also offers Know Your Rights classes that provide information to immigrants about their civil rights in the United States. The center has no lawyers, and Karkut said it does not give personal legal advice to immigrants.<\/p>\n

The center also works with other partners to provide classes for immigrants, such as cooking classes and yoga classes in Spanish to help them integrate into society.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to help marginalized people who have it rough. Ultimately, our goal is to help people,\u201d Karkut said.<\/p>\n

The website remodel is aimed at making online interactions with the center easier and at creating an accessible way for people to donate to the center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t charge for our programs and services,\u201d Karkut said. \u201cWe rely on private foundation donations and the local community to support us. We couldn\u2019t do our work without the generous support we receive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karkut moved to Durango in 2018 when his girlfriend began working with the Southwest Conservation Corps. Initially, he worked as a volunteer at the center. He applied to be executive director of the organization in fall 2018, when Danny Quinlan, the previous executive director, told him he would be departing and suggested to Karkut that he apply.<\/p>\n

Karkut, who has a degree in philosophy, political science and economics from Pomona College<\/a> in Claremont, California, has worked as a translator for immigrants in Utah. He also worked for a year in Spain teaching English, led a youth group tour of Costa Rica and spent a semester in college studying in Spain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe serve to empower immigrants in the Four Corners to live fulfilling lives, to achieve self-sufficiency, to be active members of the community and to be able to raise children to their full potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

executive director working on updating organization\u2019s website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1175,13,28,2194,904,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63445"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}