A Jesuit Volunteer Welcome

As 2013 comes to a close, December has been a month of new beginnings for my time here at Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement. For the second time, a Jesuit Volunteer has been given the chance to be a case manager for a newly arrived family. After a few hold ups because of the shutdown in October, things finally fell into place and I finally have the honor of working with a family.

                On a cold evening in mid-December I ventured to the airport to meet the family coming in from Nepal. Unfortunately, they missed their first flight and were delayed until late at night. At 11 pm, they finally came through security and I accompanied them to baggage claim. We loaded into the big van and set out for Beaverton and the home of their already-resettled family:  father, brother and sister-in-law of the father of the arriving father. It was around midnight when we arrived at the apartment; the exhausted family was able to find the safety of family and a quiet place to sleep after a long journey.

                As the new family started to settle in, I finalized plans on an apartment and helped them get food, winter clothing and any other immediate necessities. Today, a week after they arrived, their own apartment was finally ready. They moved into a freshly cleaned apartment with brand new beds and household items that they chose for themselves. Thanks to a generous donation, I was able to give the children with new toys (including a giant stuffed panda bear), a coloring book and a box of sixty-four crayons!

                As a new comer to refugee resettlement, it was an awesome experience to have a hand in the entire welcome experience from securing an apartment to reuniting a family. I’m excited to see what the next eight months will hold for this family as we move together into the wide world of refugee resettlement. Being a part of the team that helps resettle a family has been great, but there is something truly exhilarating and rewarding about case management in the resettlement process. 

The Gift of Sight

With the help of a former staff member, Erin Carkner, clients of Refugee Resettlement were able to take part in a free eye clinic hosted by Carkner Family Vision Care. The clinic was a chance for our clients, who typically would not see an optometrist, to have their eyes examined and any problems diagnosed. For one client in particular, this was vital.

Dr. Carkner found that a young Somali man who had been in the US only three months, had glaucoma and was able to give him a referral to a specialist at OHSU. Without the free clinic and the referral, this man’s sight might well have continued to decline until he lost his sight completely. Instead, he met with the specialist last week and received eye drops that will decrease the impact of the glaucoma and help prevent future sight degeneration.

Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement extends a large thank you to Erin and her family for their generous donation of time and medical treatment.  

The Kindness of Strangers

Last week was a whirlwind here at Refugee Resettlement. In less than 24 hours, we had eighteen new arrivals, beginning with a family of twelve. Our case managers and donations coordinator were stretched thin, so I stepped in to lend a helping hand wherever I could. This ended up being a trip to Wal-Mart with Refugee Resettlement’s program director, Toc.

Toc and I were given a list of items to buy for the family of twelve and set off for the store. We decided that our plan of attack would be to fill a shopping cart, check out, and then do it again. We ended up filling five shopping carts with items such as pillows, blankets, toothpaste, rice cookers, microwaves, and towels for the family; things that would make their new apartments feel like a home.

As this was our first experience doing the shopping for an incoming family, we had no idea as to what to expect. What we found, was a store full of wonderful employees very willing to help out and even take an interest in what we were doing. Toc and I returned to the same cashier twice because she was full of curiosity about refugee resettlement and wanted to know about working with refugees. It turned out that she came to the United States as a child from the Soviet Union. It’s a small world.

When it was time to take all of the things we bought for the family to the apartments, two complete strangers volunteered to help us carry things from the car to the second floor apartments. The men were standing around not doing anything and just jumped right in and carried some very heavy items for us. They served as a great reminder that even though the world can seem cold sometimes, there are some wonderful people out there who are willing to help whether there is something in it for them or not.

The apartments for the family of twelve were completed mere minutes before the family arrived. Their long journey from Somalia to Kenya to Portland, OR came to an end with a lot of help from store clerks, new neighbors, and the Somali community members who brought them dinner. It was an exciting twenty four hours to get to see all of the help from total strangers and to be part of the arrival process.

A Safe Haven in Southeast Portland

Over the course of the last two weeks, we’ve been posting on our Facebook page a series of articles about the refugee community’s positive influence on the Rockwood neighborhood in far Southeast Portland.

Portland’s refugee community has helped Barberry Village Apartments become a safe place for families to live. What was once a dilapidated and dangerous place to be is now a great place for children to grow up surrounded by various ethnicities from across the world. On any given day you can find the children of the apartment complex playing soccer while their parents talk in a smattering of languages from Arabic to Somali to Burmese. 

Check out the articles here:

Refugee Families Find Sanctuary in Rockwood

From Syria to Portland- One Family's Story

Barberry Village- Where A Kid Can Be A Kid

A Citizenship Class for Refugees?

Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement is proud to announce that we are working hard to unveil a citizenship preparation program. The curriculum for the class is being created with the help of two interns, one from University of Portland and the other from Warner Pacific College. With their help, we are hoping to have the class ready to start early next year.

Why a citizenship class?

Refugees who are resettled in America are eligible to apply for citizenship five years after arrival. A refugee who receives government benefits such as food stamps, social security or TANF (temporary assistance for needy families) have to become a citizen within their first seven years to retain these benefits.

If a child is under 18 when their parent applies for citizenship, they will automatically become a citizen when their parent passes the test. If a child turns 18 before the parent applies, they will have to take the test individually.

What is the citizenship test?

The citizenship test is comprised of two portions- English and United States civics. The civics portion includes US history from the Indians to September 11, 2001; as well as questions on the basic functions of our government and the major players. There are one hundred possible questions that the applicant is asked to study, but they only need to answer six out of ten correctly. Some of the questions are simple, for example: who is the president of the United States right now? Other questions are more difficult like: name two cabinet level positions.  

The English portion is mostly verbal, but there is also a written section.  This portion starts immediately as the applicant meets their interviewer. It typically starts with small talk as the applicant and interviewer walk to the interview room with questions like, “how did you get here today,” or “is it cold outside?” When the interview has officially started, the interviewer will ask questions about the applicant’s application form to check that the information is correct and to continue to test the applicant’s verbal ability. Questions like: “you used to live on Pine Street, but now you live on Maple Grove?” These questions can be a little tricky.

The written section consists of writing one of three sentences that is read out loud. The words used in the sentences are vocabulary words from the civics portion of the test. An example of a sentence the applicant may be asked to write is, “George Washington was the first president.”

How you can help?

When the curriculum is finalized, Catholic Charities will be looking for volunteers to help run the classes.

If you are interested in this or want to know more, please contact Emily at ereznicek@catholiccharitiesoregon.org or 503-688-2684.

Open For Business

                Despite governmental differences, the staff at Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement is working hard to meet the needs of their many clients. The RRP case managers are still as busy as ever visiting their clients and ensuring that the resettlement process goes as smoothly as possible.

The Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) has cancelled new arrivals through late October. In a letter to its partner agencies, PRM wrote, “We have just made the difficult decision to extend the refugee travel moratorium until October 21 because it is unclear whether certain federally-funded services and benefits will be available to arriving refugees.”

Rest assured that when the moratorium does lift, Catholic Charities will be ready to resettle new families. In the meantime, we will be here for our clients that have already found a new home in Portland.

Welcome to PDX

Do you remember the first time you were in an airport? I don’t remember when I first flew, but I can imagine that it was for something fun like going to see family.  Imagine now, that your first time at the airport was to leave the place that you call home and once you walked through that door you were not ever going back to your home country again. Such is the life of many refugees who come to the United States.

On Wednesday, I was given the opportunity to go on my first airport pickup with a case manager. There was a rare afternoon arrival and the case manager was willing to take me along, so I jumped on the chance. Early in the afternoon, Brendon and I climbed into the van and headed to Portland International Airport. The van was parked and five minutes later, the family of three appeared at the security checkpoint. Brendon and I introduced ourselves and the five of us set off for baggage claim. Within minutes we had the family’s bags and Brendon went to retrieve the van.

Once the van was loaded up, Brendon drove the family to their new apartment. Catholic Charities’ donations coordinator has provided the family with a bed, couches, chairs, pots, pans, a refrigerator and Brendon has provided food for the family. They are now the third Iraqi family to join the apartment complex and so they were greeted with friendly faces speaking their native language. Before we left, Brendon answered any questions they had about the apartment and how things worked. Finally, Brendon insured that the family would be able to have a home cooked meal with one of the other Iraqi families and we departed to let the family start to settle in to their new home. Thursday, they will meet with their case manager and their time in resettlement will officially begin.

Personally, I cannot imagine going through this process as a refugee. I cannot know how it feels to leave home and know that I probably will not go back. Nor what it feels like to land in a new country where an unfamiliar person is waiting to pick you up and take you to a strange apartment in a city which you’ve never visited. With all of these factors going into the new family’s arrival on Wednesday, they seemed to be handling everything pretty well, though I can imagine that having neighbors who also speak Arabic is helping with the process.  

The New Kid

Greetings to all Catholic Charities of Oregon Refugee Resettlement Volunteers and Friends!

My name is Emily and I am the new Jesuit Volunteer at the Catholic Charities of Oregon Refugee Resettlement Program. I was born and raised in Dallas, TX and attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. In high school and college, I was able to take advantage of many service opportunities including two trips to Central America, two summers spent in Poland teaching English and a semester abroad learning and doing service work in Northern Italy.

Emily Reznicek,
the 2013-2014 Jesuit Volunteer

It was during my semester in Bologna, Italy that I first worked with refugees and asylees at a house for men on the outskirts of the city. Much of my time there was spent talking to the staff about the services in Bologna, and talking to the men about their lives at home, en route to Italy and in Italy. It was this experience that led me to Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest to work with refugees again.

During my first year in JVC NW, I served in Boise, ID at Catholic Charities of Idaho’s Family Strengthening Center. There, I worked with refugees whose resettlement period was at an end, but still needed some assistance in adjusting to life in America. Many of my clients’ needs were very basic and included anything from help with paying rent or utilities to filling out food stamp re-certification paperwork. I also taught an English Language Learning class to adults two days a week where we worked on basic things like colors and seasons, as well as civics and citizenship prep. My time in Boise made me want to learn even more about refugees, which was a major part of my decision to come to Catholic Charities of Oregon as a second year Jesuit Volunteer.

This year, I will be assisting case managers in taking their clients to appointments; helping children enroll in and get acclimated to school in their new country; and talking to wonderful volunteers like you about the service opportunities available through Catholic Charities of Oregon Refugee Resettlement. In the little bit of time since I have started working here, we have already come up with some new volunteering ideas and will soon be reaching out to meet some dedicated volunteers to get these programs off the ground.

I’ve now been living in Portland for a little over a week and am excited to be here and to continue the learning process that I started a year ago in Boise. I look forward to meeting the volunteers that help Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement to better assist the newly arrived refugees. I have a feeling that it is going to be a good year and that you volunteers will help make that so.

If you have any questions for me about Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement, volunteer opportunities or Jesuit Volunteer Corps NW please do not hesitate to call me at (503) 688-2684, or email me at ereznicek@catholiccharitiesoregon.org.

Ramadan

Ramadan began today for most Muslim refugees living here in Portland.

Ramadan is a month of fasting that is inaugurated by the sighting of the new moon and also ended in that way. Because it is based on moon phases, Ramadan can begin and end on different days in different countries, but usually lasts from 29-31 days.

Ramadan is considered to be the holiest month in the Islamic calendar because it commemorates when Muslims believe that their prophet, Mohammed, received the Quran from Allah. During the month, all healthy adults are required to fast from food, water, sexual relations, impure thoughts, words, and deeds from sun up to sunset. Work also slows way down and office hours are modified so that people can be home during the heat of the day.

When I was living in Morocco, many kids often tried to fast part of the month or parts of days though they were not required to do so. Families and friends would gather at sunset to break the fast together with dates, a sweet called shabakiya and a special soup called harira. Another meal that included meat was also eaten later in the evening as well as a light snack right before dawn.

All over the world, in addition to fasting, Muslims also increase their charitable giving, recitation of the Quran and adherence to prayer. Ramadan is one of the 5 essential practices of Islam that include prayer 5 times a day, verbal acknowledgement that Allah is One and that Mohammed is his prophet, the pilgrimage to Mecca for all who are able, and charitable giving.

Ramadan ends with a celebration called Aid el Fitr that refers to the final breaking of the fast. In Morocco, families and friends gather to eat and give gifts, usually of clothing, to children.

If you are volunteering with a Muslim family, ask them about their special traditions around Ramadan and about the best time to visit. You can also wish them “Ramadan Kareem” which means “A gracious Ramadan (to you)”.



A typical Moroccan Ramadan sundown table setting




Moroccan families buying clothes for Aid el Fitr

High Speed Internet at Bottom of the Bucket Prices...

The word is out and low-cost high speed internet is on the doorstep of many of our clients. Comcast and CenturyLink are working to bring high speed internet to over 400,000 people who are unable to afford the bulky monthly payment under normal situations. Best of all the cost is only $9.95 per month. 

Comcast Information

To qualify the household must be located where Comcast internet offers its services, which all of our clients live in this regional area. The household must also have at least one child eligible to participate in the National School Lunch Program (with up to date documents). The household must not have subscribed to Comcast Internet service within the last 90 days and they must not have overdue Comcast bills from the past or unreturned equipment.

To apply for the low-cost internet a client or representative must call 1-855-8-Internet (1-855-846-8376) to request an application. Comcast will follow up with an application which the household fills out and sends in and then waits for a status update/confirmation.

To view more information check out Comcast’s website by clicking the following link: http://www.internetessentials.com/how-it-works . 

CenturyLink Information

To qualify the house hold must be located where CenturyLink offers its services, which all of our clients live within this regional area. The household must not have subscribed to CenturyLink within the last 90 days or be a current customer. The household must also not have an overdue CenturyLink bill or unreturned equipment.

Unlike Comcast, CenturyLink will only allow the low-cost option for the first 12 months of your contract and then the cost will increase to whatever standard price at that time.

To apply for low-cost internet a client or representative can visit the site to obtain an application. To view more information or find an application please click on the following link: http://www.centurylink.com/home/internetbasics/?rid=internetbasics . 

Please keep this in the back of your minds when working with our clients and families. 

Volunteer Training Opportunity

Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement is offering a training session called “Fundamentals of Interpreting” to all interested volunteers within the community. Effective, accurate and respectful interpreting is a vital skill needed to serve limited-English speakers in our community. This valuable, interactive, free session reviews the skills and framework necessary to interpret successfully. Volunteers of all language skills and cultural backgrounds are encouraged to attend.   

Benefits:

• Gain a valuable understanding of interpreting best practices
• Free of charge
• Certificate of attendance

Topics:

• Translation vs. Interpretation
• Interpreting as a profession
• National standards of practice
• Interpreting tools
• Effective interpreter partnerships
• Equalizing power with language
• Ethical issues
• Interpreting boundaries
• Legal obligations

Date:

Friday March 8^th, 9am – 4pm in the 4^th floor training room.

Location:
Catholic Charities

2740 SE Powell Blvd #8

Portland, OR 97202

Facilitator:
Toc Soneoulay-Gillespie, MSW is the Youth Services Program Manager at Impact NW and has served as a community organizer and trainer in the refugee and immigrant community since 2004. With the guidance from the State Refugee Coordinator, Mrs. Soneoulay-Gillespie implemented the very first Fundamentals of Interpreting training in Anchorage, Alaska using dialogue, roles plays, and other tools to enhance the knowledge and understanding of interpreting as a profession.

The space is limited to 30 participants and spots are filling up quick, so please sign up as soon as possible to reserve a spot.
 
TO REGISTER: email Patty Narvaez: pnarvaez@catholiccharitiesoregon.org or call 503-688-2692 (My office hours are: M,T,Th, F  8:30am to noon)

You Can't Travel Without Money

Greetings Volunteers. We hope this blog post finds you in good spirits as the spring season starts to peek through the rolling clouds. At the office we are falling back in to the swing of new arrivals and the joy that comes with placing new families and clients in a new and promising environment. We are using this post to shed light on a conversation topic that would be helpful to have with the Refugees with whom you share your time. The topic: Migration and Refugee Service Travel Loans.

What is the Loan?

Refugees traveling to the U.S. are issued interest-free loans by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to pay for the cost of their transportation to the U.S.  Every refugee eighteen and over signs a Promissory Note acknowledging  this loan, and the commitment to repay the loan in regular monthly payments once they are settled, usually within six months.

Why is it Important?

This loan, like any other, affects the credit of the individual who signed for the funds. This means the travel loan affects credit just the same as a car or house loan would. A default status or inability to pay the payments on time will put a negative score on the credit of the family or individual. On-time payments build a healthy and valuable positive credit score for the clients to use to their advantage in the future.

What can we do?

As volunteers helping out with the newly arriving clients, you can educate them on the importance of staying up-to-date on their loan status. This includes the following:

·         Notifying both our program and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) of any address changes made by the family or clients

·         Preparing the family for the arrival of the first bill around  the 6^th month following their arrival

·         Educating about the effects a negative credit score can have on their financial well being

It is the client’s responsibility, as stated on the promissory note, to maintain an up-to-date address and contact number with USCCB. If they fail to do this, and don’t receive the invoice for their travel loan, the IOM and United States Government can take action against the default loan. Please use this information in mind when talking with your refugee partners.  As always, thank you for your hard work and dedication and feel free to call with any questions regarding the travel loans.

A B ...C You Later!

Family and tutoring volunteers  commit to six months of weekly meetings with their refugee family.  And while most volunteers work at least that long with their refugee partners, sooner or later life circumstances intervene. The volunteer (or, sometimes, the family) moves on.  Good-byes, however, are part of life, no matter where you live.  And in this situation, they’re always positive and poignant.

 Below are two notes from Jenna Ramaker, a volunteer who helped three Congolese boys with their homework and their English for a year and a half.  The first was written in May of 2012:

Things are going really well with the boys.  They are making good progress, and the family has continued to be really rewarding to work with.

Just within the last month of so, Brian has progressed a lot in being able to start reading on his own.  Prior to this, we’ve spent a lot of time stuck on the basics of the alphabet and vowel sounds, and just recently it seems to be all coming together for him…I’d  love it if he is able to read by next fall when he starts junior high.  B and A are also doing well.  B is getting much more proficient with his letters and numbers, and although he definitely still needs a lot of guidance, we are starting to work on addition and subtraction.

The family has been great, and are always great to interact with.  I’ve gotten to know some of the cousins and neighbors over the past couple of months, so it’s been a really good environment to work in. 

Working with the K family has continued to be an amazingly rewarding experience.

The final update…December 2012:

Just to update you, Dec. will be my last month volunteering with the K’s. It has been an amazing experience, and I'm sad that I won't be able to continue; I'm graduating school in a couple of months, and the new year has uncertainty as I look to be repositioned and anticipate having less flexibility as I settle into a new job and possibly new city. 

The boys have made so much progress since I started working with them, it has been fulfilling to be a part of it.  When I first met B, he didn't know the alphabet and in the past year and a half of working with him, he has learned to read.  He also went from not being able to count, to learning addition, subtraction, and recently, multiplication.  C has mastered the alphabet and its sounds, counting, simple addition, and orally is much more advanced in English than when I started working with him.  As you can tell, I'm very proud of their accomplishments, and have found it really rewarding to work with the K family and the Catholic Charities refugee resettlement center. 

The other rewarding moment was each week when I’d arrive at the K’s house, hearing their two year-old sister start calling out my name, even before she spoke many other English words.

 I look forward to volunteering again in the future if circumstances permit!  

This is one volunteer, but she speaks for all of you who have every right to be proud.  Thank you, Jenna.

On a side note, if you’re working with someone who’s having difficulty mastering our alphabet sounds, here’s a link to a youtube video that might help.  It was created by Heidi Moses, another dedicated volunteer who not only mentors an Iraqi refugee but also facilitated the first stages of our ESL class.  Thank you, Heidi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VEsx4ERqE

SAFRN??? What does this mean??

We in the Refugee Program would like to take some time to thank Erin Carkner who is leaving Catholic Charities to pursue her education. Erin was the Refugee Youth Advocate for the SAFRN, a collaborative program based in all three of Oregon’s resettlement agencies: Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSNW), Ecumenical Ministry’s SOAR (Sponsors Organized to Assist Refugees) program and the Catholic Charities’ program. Erin’s last day with us was January 11^th  and with a large good bye party, we showed how much we’ve appreciated her work and how much we’ll miss her.

Erin Carkner is on the far left

SAFRN stands for “School Assistance for Refugee Newcomers.”  Funded by the federal government, the SAFRN program provides much-needed support to newly arrived refugee youth entering Portland’s school system.  Most of these students speak little or no English, and many have had no exposure to Western styles of education.  SAFRN also offers educational support to schools heavily impacted by new refugee arrivals.

Erin, like her colleagues in the other two resettlement agencies, carried a large caseload of new refugee students.  She worked with students throughout their first year in this country, helping register them for school, learn to ride the bus, understand what their teachers expected of them, and how to socialize with their peers.  She also organized parent workshops, and helped Portland teachers recognize and address the special challenges newly arrived refugee youth face.

Erin also started what is now an annual program: the Refugee Youth Summer School, where refugee students in first through fifth grade can practice their new English, math and reading skills, and newly arrived students discover what it means to attend an American school.

 Assimilation is a very difficult task for all our refugees. With SAFRN, the challenge becomes a little easier for refugee youth and their families. We extend our thanks to the collaborating agencies, and to you, our volunteers, who also help pave the way to a new life for refugee youth.

 

Shopping??? Why Yes I will.

A Look Inside a Shopping Trip to Deseret Industries

For the past five months I have had the privilege of accompanying our clients on a shopping trip to Deseret Industries (DI) located on SE 82^nd Ave. The information below is a glance at what the average trip entails as well as the barriers and laughter that weave themselves in the experience. 

Upon arrival at the DI store, our clients are briefed on what to expect. For many, this is the first clothing store they have walked into for quite some time. Furthermore, the main point we have to communicate is that this shopping trip is free for them, provided through the generosity of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The amount of money allowed depends on family size, need and what items they might require in addition to clothing. Once those minor topics are explained, the fun begins.

For many of our refugees, clothing and shoe sizes don’t match up to what we have come to know here in the United States. Depending on the country or regions from where they came, they may have different notions of how to gauge size. Therefore, trying to find out each client’s size has come to be a rather intriguing process.

I have seen the patented hold-it-up to-my-body method, the check-my-pants-tag method, and the rarely used method of using the dressing room to try the clothes on.  There is always laughter that breaks out when pants are way too small or shoes way too tight, or when the cart overflows or gestures are misinterpreted.

My time spent shopping with our clients has been one filled with a grateful outlook.

I have come to know a lot of the employees by name, and they have always greeted us with a smile and a helping hand, knowing full well that there will be many translations lost in the experience. Through Deseret Industries we have helped over 135 of our clients obtain necessary clothing, books and household supplies. We would like to thank them for their constant support and flexibility during the first year of our grant, and we look forward to working with them in the future.

If you are working with a family that needs clothing please feel free to give me a call at 503-688-2684. 

Happy New Year, 

Shane Young