Grant will aid refugees

• District 518

District 518

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WORTHINGTON —- Starting Thursday, a grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services will give local refugees some much-needed help in adapting to southwest Minnesota.

An $118,500 Refugee Services Grant, awarded to District 518’s Community Education, will fund a number of services for refugees during the next year.

The grant will provide Community Connectors for the largest refugee populations (those from Southeast Asia and east Africa). The connectors speak one or more languages in addition to English and work with refugees in a bilingual outreach service.

“I help with housing and school and refer them to another agency when they need paperwork,” explained Play Say, a native of Burma (Myanmar) who already works as a connector with Karen and Burmese refugees. “With children, I will help students enroll in school, or (help) a new refugee to get a green card.”

She said the Karen and Burmese, both ethnic groups from Burma, usually adapt to United States culture with some semblance of flexibility. But the community still faces problems with housing, language barriers and transportation.

“Because they’ve never been to a city before, they don’t know how to ride a bus,” Say explained.

The grant also helps facilitate drivers’ education classes and behind-the-wheel training for refugees, and will help begin a car care program to help people repair their vehicles and help refurbish donated vehicles for refugee use. It will fund a household management class that will teach newcomers about sanitation, weather-related issues, and safe food storage and preparation. Finally, the grant will fund the translation of various documents into different languages.

“That could be anything from parent handbooks for schools to information about transportation programs,” explained Jerry Fiola, director of Community Education.

“It’s for all refugees,” he added “In our community the refugees are coming either from Burma or Thailand or they are coming from the Sudan, from Ethiopia or Eritrea.” Eligible refugees have been in the country fewer than five years, with priority going to those who have been here less than one year. “The expectation is that within a year you get as many as you can functioning completely independently,” Fiola continued. “Because there aren’t the dollars to fund indefinitely the refugee support.”

Almost all of the community’s roughly 400 refugees from Burma meet those requirements, with the biggest influx to Worthington being a year and a half ago.

“We have been offering some of these services on a smaller scale,” Fiola explained, but the grant will allow for expanded services, including the establishment of a parent liaison to District 518.

The Community Education office will also partner with the Southwest Minnesota Opportunity Council (SMOC) and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota in helping refugees to establish permanent residency and apply for citizenship.

Unlike immigrants, refugees are relocated to a number of locations worldwide because it is no longer considered safe for them to live in their home country. Many spend years in refugee camps before being allowed into the United States, where they are usually placed in metropolitan areas, which traditionally have more resources for dealing with refugee populations. Fiola said Worthington often serves as a “secondary resettlement” for refugees who have moved from the Twin Cities, often in search of work.

Tags: community education, news, worthington, district518, refugees