I know I should not hold my breath but I can’t help it.  The father in our Karenni refugee family started a new job last week!  He completed a 40 hour week; 4 ten-hour days Monday through Thursday.  So far so good!  I think I can let my breath out.

His job is a temp-to-hire position at a company that makes corporate promotional t-shirts and other clothing.  He does general cleaning and shop floor support.

He LOVES it! When I pick him up after work he is practically glowing.

The problem we are working on right now is transportation.  Although it is fortunate that the company is located only ten minutes from his home, it is not on a bus line.  On top of that, he must start work at 6 am.

I did not have a single person volunteer to drive him to work at that early hour.  Go figure!  Thankfully, the W-2 program has arranged for a taxi cab to take him to work temporarily – for one month.  This will give us time to work out a plan.  Currently, four volunteers pick him up from work at 4:30 pm, each taking a different day of the week.  This is working beautifully.

We are busy checking into a possible carpool situation.  He also likes to ride his bicycle and I know he will do that once he is comfortable with the route and the weather cooperates.  This is a heavy traffic area so outfitting him with a helmet and reflective gear is a must.  When we told him about our worries of him biking to work, he laughed it off.  He used to drive a motorized scooter in an overcrowded city in Thailand, weaving in and out of traffic with little concern of his personal safety.  He told us we worry too much.  We told him we like him too much and are prone to worry.  We are not backing down on the helmet!

Our group is so relieved that the demands of the W-2 job search are over!  As a team, we put in 146 hours of time in 6 weeks for serious job search.  Out of this effort came 3 interviews (one by phone, two in person with an interpreter) and 2 calls from companies interested in learning more but discovering the English language barrier too great for the job requirement.  Although nothing we did directly landed him a job, we did learn some valuable things for the future.

For example, the people that arranged the interviews, and the ones that called to find out more, all commented on how much they liked his cover letter…

I wrote a cover letter explaining his refugee status, refugee info in general, and our commitment in supporting him through the job process as well as being resource for providing interpreters and being the liaison between employer and employee.  I also included a phonetic spelling/pronunciation of his name.  This resulted in a lot of positive feedback on the letter, but most of all they appreciated how to say his name when they called! 

We had never had the foresight to send out a cover letter of that kind before.  We used to focus solely on skills, and work ethic but nothing on the situation and support behind him/her.  It certainly helped with the online applications and made him stand out among the other candidates.

In the end, however, it was not the 146 hours we provided for the W-2 program, but rather the staffing company that put him into the first job that lasted only one day back in January placed him in his current position.

It does not matter how he got this job, we’re just super happy he has one.  And so is he!

Our refugee resettlement funds are used up, the Matching Grant program is finished, and job prospects are thin.  This is the first time out of 7 resettlement efforts that we have failed to find at least one member of the family an ongoing job before funds were exhausted.

Now what?

In Wisconsin, this family is eligible for W-2 (Wisconsin Works), which is a welfare-type program.  We have worked hard to avoid this, but now it is our only option.  We’re not happy about this because the W-2 program is quite challenging for an English-language-limited person to succeed and requires an extremely time consuming effort from us as the co-sponsors.
 
There are several subsets to the W-2 program and our refugee family is eligible for only one of them.  It is called CSJ placement – Community Service Job placement.  This is where an individual works a 40-hour week at a job site doing community service in exchange for $673 a month.  English classes will count for 4 hours a week, making his obligation 36 hours per week of community service.
 
Normally, the work done at a job site by the client satisfies the hours requirement.  However, W-2 won’t place him at a work site right away.  They wait for at least 30 days so he can look for a job. 

Looking for a job is his full time obligation and it must be documented each week.  In this case, he must look for a job and document his search to equal 36 hours a week he would normally be working.  Think about that for a moment and let it sink in…  He must do some type of search activity for employment that adds up to 36 hours per week for the next 4 weeks! 
 
He can look in the newspaper, he can look online, he can fill out applications and he can go on interviews.  His drive time does not count except for the time spent BETWEEN appointments, not to and from his home.

So, imagine yourself in this position.  You can’t read English or understand the employment section of the newspaper, you don’t know how to go online, you don’t drive and you also don’t have a clue how to fill out an application, or how to call for an interview.  How do you go about fulfilling your 36 hours of required activity?  Could you even meet this requirement if you weren’t limited by your understanding?

The caseworker does not help you do this – at least his caseworker made it very clear that she would not help.  There are resources out there like free classes on how to interview and write a resume, but think of the amount of English you would need to complete such a class.  And yet it is imperative that each Friday by 4:30 he accounts for 36 hours of documented job searching time.
 
Oh, and one more thing.  He must complete 4 full weeks of this BEFORE getting a full payment of $673.00, which would come out to less than $4 per hour.
 
It will take 4 volunteers, if we can get that many, an extra 9 hours a week on top of regular refugee resettlement activities to pull this off.  That’s going to be tough.  But we’re 3 weeks in now.

Why am I sharing this with you?  I want you to understand that refugee resettlement can be gratifying.  It can be quite rewarding to help another person take back control of their life.  Yet, it doesn’t always go as planned.  Sometimes we have to adjust.  Sometimes we have to venture into areas that are uncomfortable or unknown.

Sometimes we have to face the systems that our society has put in place that we would rather avoid.  Systems like W-2 are, on the one hand life saving, and on the other hand so messed up that those who are not trying to screw the system have trouble making any progress at all!

All of this reinforces the importance of helping refugees become self-sufficient quickly.  We don’t want to mess with public support because it’s too messy and inefficient.  That path should truly be the last resort.

Can I have an Amen!?

The company that was hiring brought in a large number of people to begin employment at the same time.  During the training day, our hopeful employee was permitted to complete the day, but was not invited back.

The unfortunate part of the story is that he was not told directly that he could not return.  My wife met him that evening to take him shopping and found him to be very happy to have a job and excited to be going back the next day.  She had to break the news that he did not pass the test.  Not a nice situation to be in.  He went from a state of excitement to rather depressed in a matter of seconds.

According to the employer his English language ability was too low.  There were others with poor English, perhaps worse, but they had more work experience.  So the combination of low English and no work experience in the U.S. worked against him in this case.

While this is not the situation we would like, it’s also not unheard of.  It is difficult for employers when communication is not easy.  I cannot fault that perspective.  Generally, since the jobs offered to refugees are pretty low skill, we can sometimes overcome the obstacle by providing an interpreter during training.  In this case the company had enough other qualified options available.

Finding employment is always the last big issue.  We’ve found jobs that turn into careers for our refugees.  And, we’ve had jobs last very short times, for a variety of different reasons.  In that case we try to continue helping out, working to overcome the problems if possible.  Eventually everyone gets the right job where they can excel and take care of their family.  It’s a matter of time.

If you’ve read along with our journey, a resettlement case study that I began on July 20, 2009, you know we started with two Karenni families from Burma.

This resettlement project has been a greater challenge for us than most.  With two families, who did often not get along with each other, and therefore quicker burnout of our team, the last couple months have been a greater stuggle than usual.

However, today I am happy to report that in this past week, for the family that has remained in our care in Waukesha, the father has secured employment!  This coming Monday he will go through training for his job.  Then on Friday he’ll begin work, which is a 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. shift three days per week.

Having a job is of crucial importance to self-sufficiency.  Obviously, we want the refugees to pay for their own existence, and contribute to our society, not be a burden upon society. 

Perhaps a little less obvious is the self-esteem gained by the employed, as he is able to contribute to the welfare of his own family.  We have found that more than anything else, the men of the families want jobs.  They don’t want to sit around and have people take care of them.  They want to be the providers for their families.

Once employment is secured, their relationships in their families improve.  Their perspective on society improves.  And, our relationship with the refugee family can start to diminish.

It is at the point of employment that we can first consider that our project may be coming to an end.  Sure, we’ll still have to help out with little things from time to time, but the biggies are behind us.  Housing, medical needs, schooling, shopping, language training, and more, have been handled.  It’s just the job that remains.  And now, for this family, the job is in place!

The family arrived July 21.  The hire date was January 13 and the job will begin January 22.  Six months?  Yes, I think we can call it a success!

(Check back within the next few days.  I’ll post a summary of our time and expenses on this project.)

8/20

Today we had our third consecutive weekly team meeting.  We always start with a team meeting each week for several weeks.  It’s important to make sure than we’re all on the same page.  Only a few team members were available for the team meeting tonight.

8/21

Today was an important step in the resettlement process.  The matching grant coordinator from LSS came out to get a signature from a refugee family member in approval of the matching grant.

With the paperwork signed, the family is now poised to receive some money each month for the next 3-4 months.  This money allows them to cover basic expenses while searching for employment.  The advantage for us, the resettlement team, is that we don’t have to deal with state welfare services during this time frame.  If employment is gained within a few months we will never have to deal with the welfare system!

The family went grocery shopping again today.  This time they were shown how to use their food assistance card.  It works much like a debit card as it can be swiped through the credit/debit machine and the money is accessed with a pin number.

The family needed toilet paper.  This is not covered by the food card.  A good lesson in this for the family is that they cannot just buy anything they want and expect that its expense will be covered.

8/22

One of our team members went to the house today and showed them how to use their lawn mower to cut their grass.  Safety is always important so this was also part of the discussion.

While at the house our team member also opened the discussion of employment.  He had some initial discussions with family members regarding job skills.