Pre-arrival Services....a.k.a. Preparing for a Congolese Family

In Refugee Resettlement our work involves both pre- and post-arrival services. Most of this blog has focused on our post-arrival work but this post focuses on what our case managers do before a refugee family arrives. This is written from the point of view of Sarah Dupont, our Jesuit Volunteer who helped one of our case managers prepare for the arrival of a Congolese family of nine last week.

"My work started as soon as we got the arrival notice announcing that a family of nine people would be arriving from Tanzania within two weeks. At our program staff meeting we went through their biographical data (sent to us from Migration and Refugee Services) and figured out the ages of each of the kids, whether the family knew anyone in Portland, whether there were any outstanding medical issues that would require immediate attention, etc.. After the meeting I started searching for four-bedroom apartments on housingconnections.org and other online resources. Nearly a week passed with no luck finding an apartment when another case manager spotted a "for rent" sign in Beaverton and we managed to arrange a great four-bedroom apartment for the family.

Two days before their arrival we took the cargo van to our storage facility where we picked out couches, chairs, tables, beds, etc. from all of the donated furniture that our donations coordinator has collected. (I'd like to give a special shout-out to everyone who has donated furniture to us--it may have been put in an apartment this very week!). With the help of one of our regular volunteers we took everything--including four dressers and three couches--to the apartment complex and carried it all up to their second-story apartment. We spent the next four hours assembling beds and arranging furniture--by the end of the day I was exhausted! (with Mom, Dad and 7 kids that meant there were eight bed frames, eight box springs and eight mattresses that need to be carried upstairs and assembled....)

The Congolese family of nine--finally in Portland!!

On the day of their arrival I went with the case manager to go purchase what we didn't have on hand--e.g., pots & pans, toiletries, cleaning supplies, comforters, and culturally-appropriate groceries. I headed back to the apartment and spent another five hours putting everything away, stocking the fridge, and assembling lamps and vacuum cleaners.The case manager was tracking their flight and arranging for an interpreter from the Congolese community to meet us at the airport. We found out that their flight was delayed so we spent the extra time cooking a hot meal for the family to welcome them to their apartment (we had to do some guessing about what a Congolese family would want to eat, so to be safe we stuck with simple bread, roasted chicken, and sauteed veggies).

Their flight finally arrived around 10pm (nearly two days after the family had left Tanzania!) but we didn't see the family until nearly an hour later after we sent a airline attendant to find them--they were waiting outside their gate because they did not know that they needed to exit security to find us (not an uncommon problem with refugee families). They were a bit dazed and understandably exhausted but also incredibly relieved to see us (or rather, the interpreter who was telling them who we were). At one point I turned to the mom to say something and she had her face in her hands and was visibly shaking with relief. I don't speak Swahili but I think she was just repeating over and over "we made it."