Refugee Resettlement: Help Wanted

Nazra Kazia works long days helping refugees coming to the Pittsburgh area. It looks like she will be working even longer. Kazia is an Intern with Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Program, one of four such agencies in the Pittsburgh area. We have “taken in 30 people in the last six weeks and hope to aid another 90 to 100 in the next 8 months”, she said. Kazia, a recent Notre Dame graduate, came to Pittsburgh as a Franciscan “Change a Heart Volunteer”. She is one of only two Catholic Charities Interns available to help with this program.

While people fleeing Syria have captured the world’s attention, Pittsburgh “has been taking in refugees from around the world, including the Congo, Burma, Nepal, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Bhutan. They may be fleeing wars or persecution. They are no longer safe in their native countries. They arrive with different skills and life experiences and little or no material possessions. They need help with clothing and furniture, with language skills, with medical, welfare and job training appointments, with interviews or just with filling out forms,” Kazia said. “This can be trying for a caseworker with more than one case for each day”, she added.

While other countries host more refugees (Turkey hosts over a million), Susan Rauscher, Executive Director of Catholic Charities, said “The US is actually the largest current re-settler of refugees in the world. Our biggest challenge is finding translators”. With the Obama administration planning to increase the number of eligible refugees from 70,000 last year to 80,000 this fiscal year and 95,000 in fiscal ’17, volunteer help will be very important. Syrian refugees are driving this latest increase, but many of them already speak some English.

How to Help

I asked Rauscher, “What do people need to know about refugees, beyond the technical requirements?” Her answer was enlightening. “People need to know that these refugees have legal status and standing to be here. We need to learn to be tolerant of people who do not know our ways or our language. Before they came here they may have been professionals or craftsmen but their credentials don’t transfer easily. They may be starting all over at the bottom. While they appreciate being here, they may miss families and really wish they could be home. Maybe some others never were professionals, maybe they were dirt poor, but they had dignity before they came. Now they need to depend on someone to learn how to shop for groceries or how to interpret a note that comes home from a teacher. What they really need is someone to spend time with them, someone to be a friend.”

Along with Catholic Charities, Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS), Acculturation for Justice and Access to Peace Organization (AJAPO) and the Northern Area Multi-Service Center of Allegheny County (NAMSC) provide similar services. JFCS has special services for children. AJAPO originally specialized in resettlement of African and Caribbean people. NAMSC is the largest provider of employment related assistance.

Finally, Rauscher added, “If you have any heart at all to help these people, make the call. It will feel a little different at first, maybe a little uncomfortable, but it will make a big difference in the lives of these human beings.”

Haydee McCarville, a close relative and immigrant who later worked with Laotian refugees, suggested ways to start small, “Offer a ride, a dinner or a kind word. If you can, organize a parish or community support group. If not, just make these people feel welcome.”

Volunteers can contact these agencies at:

• Catholic Charities: Bonnie Rollison, brolis@ccpgh.org or 412-456-6696

• Jewish Family and Children’s Services: Aryeh Sherman, asherman@jfcspgh.org or 412-422-7280

• AJAPO: Ynka Anganga Williams, info@ajopapittsburgh.org, 412-391-4985

• Northern Area Multi-Services Center: 412-781-1175.

James McCarville is a Thomas Merton Center member living in Ross Township.

Action: Talk to Elected Officials

Refugees fleeing the turmoil of Syria and the Middle East may push as many as 800,000 refugees into Germany. International organizations have suggested that the US should accept more. Some officials will use the terror events in Paris as a reason to push back from this goal. In meeting with elected officials, keep the following talking points in mind.

1. International organizations have asked the US to accept 65,000 new refugees; these are in addition to and not instead of current refugees who may have been sitting in camps for years.

2. The new refugees are fleeing the same kind of terrorists as those that attacked Paris. No wonder they need to get out.

3. The US has one of the toughest, if not the toughest, vetting processes to screen refugees.

4. While it sometimes takes years for refugees to clear the screening process, we already have an existing backlog of hundreds of thousands of other refugees including Iraqis, some Syrians who have been stalled in screening for years. Let's lend them a hand.

#article