Move #4… Every resettlement brings about different issues. Each becomes its own story. Each varies somehow in its outcome. Our current resettlement case is still underway. We’re more than 3 months in at this point and we’ve reached an interesting milestone… 4 moves. That is we’ve moved the family, or parts of the family, into […]
Day 85 Each refugee resettlement effort writes its own story. This one started off as particularly difficult because we were helping two families simultaneously. Then, if you’ve read along, you remember that we had some issues moving the families into a house in a community 25 miles away from some of their family members who […]
How much volunteer effort is needed to resettle a refugee family? As a general rule plan on about 250 hours of volunteer time from the moment the family arrives at the local airport, to the completion of the first month. The second month is typically 1/2 or maybe only 1/3 the original effort. Actual numbers […]
One of the things that refugees must face on their journey to self-sufficiency is that of understanding finances. In a short time they will have to handle housing, food, utilities, transportation, repayment of their refugee travel grant, and other expenses. In our current refugee resettlement project we took a step forward today with the establishment […]
Now that the first month is complete, I have moved away from daily updates. Our activities have slowed to a point where it is a stuggle to come up with something interesting to write about each day. Instead I’ll still jump in with useful lessons to pass along. This past week we’ve continued to dedicate time […]
Days 31 to 33 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 […]
Day 30 Our education team leader set an appointment for the teenage boy to register for high school next monday. Great things happen when kids get started in school. They are generally resilient and can adapt well. Getting into school accelerates their English learning and helps create friendships. The family made arrangements with someone else to […]
Day 29 We have a great core group of refugee resettlement volunteers. Some of our activities come off without a hitch because we’ve got experience. Some things work well simply because we have enough people sharing the load. When things break down it is often because there are not enough people to handle the task. With […]
Day 28 Food cards arrived in the mail today! As one of our team members was attempting to explain the card and its usage to the family a 7th grade bilingual Burmese boy walked in. He was able to interpret some of the details simplifying the conversation. I often point out that interpreters are not […]
Days 26 and 27 Several team members involved in minor activities this weekend. A number of us have been watching the family’s mail for various notices. We’re still waiting on some social security cards. They received a “welcome” letter from AT&T. They received a letter from the Workforce Development Center detailing their initial public benefits. […]
