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Sacramento Region To Host Thousands Of Afghan Refugees
BY JENSEN RADER
The U.S. continues to welcome waves of Afghan refugees and a large percentage of them are settling into the Sacramento region.
Learn what you can do to help Afghan refugees in Sacramento >>
World Relief Durham Afghan Refugee Response Update
Hear from World Relief Durham’s Director Adam Clark about our response to the Afghan refugee situation and what we’re expecting over the next few months. We are so encouraged by the outpouring of support and generosity from our community, which will enable World Relief Durham to serve and help resettle refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, the DRC, and other countries.
Emma’s Story
Photo: Emma shares a smile with former World Relief Durham Immigration Legal Services Manager, Kjerstin Lewis, moments after receiving her green card.
Emma is a mother of four, a wife, a homeowner, a new business owner, and a resident of Durham. She is also one of this country’s new lawful permanent residents (green card holders). Emma came to the U.S. over 20 years ago to seek safety after experiencing violence in her hometown. She did not want to leave her country and her family, but she felt there was no other option for a future but to leave. Â
Emma has made an impact on the community since coming to the U.S. After arriving in Durham, she met her husband, and they married and started their family. Throughout the years, Emma taught her children to give to others, because “you never know what someone else is going through.” Leading by example, she welcomes her children’s friends into her home as a safe space to stay, eat, play, and more. Emma calls them “her babies” and cares for them with love and affection. Similarly, several of them view Emma as their own mother, and call her and her husband, “Mom and Dad.” Even as they grow older, they still frequently visit Emma and spend holidays and weekends with her and her family. While most of her family still lives in and around Durham, one of her sons is deployed abroad as part of the U.S. Army.
With the approval of her work authorization in the past year, Emma became a local small business owner. She and her husband have worked for years insulating basements and doing other construction projects as contract workers. After her work permit was approved and she received her social security number, Emma and her husband started their own home construction business and now hire contract workers for her company.
While preparing her green card application, Emma shared that as soon as she was granted her green card, she wanted to return to her home country in a van filled with clothes, shoes, and other commodities for her family living there. She remembers being hungry, not having a bed, and not having a good life before coming to the U.S. and wants to give to her family back home. Even though the pandemic delayed her trip, once it is safe to travel, she still plans to drive to visit her family back home and see them for the first time since she left, over 20 years ago.
Now, as she reflects upon her immigration process after receiving her green card, Emma shares, “I am very pleased and I give many thanks for the help I received. All you can do is work as God intended and if you behave very well, God always blesses you.”
The Afghan Immigration Crisis Is Bigger, Faster, More Traumatic. Are Ministries Ready?
BY STEFANI MCDADE
One of World Relief’s focuses is on dealing with the trauma incoming Afghans will face upon their escape from Afghanistan and entrance to America. Because of these accelerated immigration processes, their experiences in their home country will be much fresher than for Afghans resettled in previous years.
“I can tell you there is a significant amount of mental health needs. The refugee process is born out of trauma always,” said Kerry Ham, the local director for World Relief Sacramento. But for Afghans “this is very acute, and it’s a lot of people at one time”—so “much of the funding we’re looking at for the next year is developing those pathways to help have thriving, integrated, brand-new Americans.”
World Relief Sacramento has enlisted Afghan counselors from the community to come alongside newly arrived Afghan individuals in the process. Many evacuees suffer from survivor’s guilt in leaving behind loved ones who are now facing the risk of being targeted and killed by the Taliban.
The primary factor when it comes to dealing with mental health issues is being aware of and sensitive to the religious background of Afghans, who are coming from a country that is over 99 percent Muslim.
See the full story on Christianity Today.
Learn what you can do to help Afghan refugees in Sacramento >>
World Relief Spokane expecting hundreds of refugees
SPOKANE, Wash. – World Relief Spokane is currently home to less than a dozen refugees from Afghanistan. However, in the coming months, they expect an influx of at least 300 more.
Director of Development Kevin Benson told KHQ World Relief was promised federal funding, but that it hasn’t arrived. He said they’ve been relying mainly on donations from the community.
“The need is far greater than the resources right now,” Benson said.
Outside of financial difficulties, Benson said the agency also wrestles with the phycological impacts refugees experience when uprooting their lives in such a short time.
“Quite literally, people may have been running for their lives before they were able to get to a place of safety and were able to get here,” Benson said.
Sorrow amidst dreams
When Nazia, her husband and three children arrived in Memphis in 2019, they came with the hope of providing a safe future for their daughters and son.
Nazia’s husband had worked for a company that helped with different projects for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and Nazia herself had worked with the BBC/AEPO in their human resources department. As a result, their family was viewed as traitors and targeted by the Taliban.Â
“In Afghanistan, I worked as a human resources administrator for 8 years, including with the BBC,” Nazia said. “My husband and I were working in Afghanistan with very great projects.”Â
Yet because of threats on their life, they were forced to come to the United States on Special Immigrant Visas. Her husband sold their car, and within a short time they were arriving in Memphis, a city they had chosen based off the recommendation of a cousin. Upon arrival, Nazia and her family were welcomed by World Relief Memphis.Â
“World Relief helped us a lot so we didn’t face any problems because [they] trained us in everything,” said Nazia, 31. “They trained us how we can call the emergency line, how we can go to the market like Kroger or Walmart. World Relief helped a lot with everything.”
Each month, a case worker went to their house to check in on the family. After just five months, World Relief’s employment department had helped her husband find a job with Amazon.Â
“They helped us with the resume and everything, and they also applied for us,” she explained. “We didn’t have a laptop, so [a caseworker] helped, and we are very happy with him. He helped us a lot, and he’s a very good person.”
A year later, Nazia herself began to work with Shelby County’s Emergency Rent and Utilities Assistance Program thanks to the help of that same caseworker. One day, she would like to return to a role in human resources, but for now she loves her job.Â
Thanks to the support of World Relief and the individuals who came around them, Nazia and her family have been able to begin rebuilding their lives in the U.S. Her daughters are free to pursue their dreams in safety.
“I would love for my daughter to become a great doctor in the future, so I hope, I pray,” Nazia said, whose oldest daughter is in the 3rd grade. “She said that she wants to be a doctor in the future, and she’s trying to learn more and more.”
If Nazia and her family were still home, this dream might not be possible because of the Taliban regime’s treatment of women. Knowing that, she cannot help but worry for the family and country that she left behind.
“It’s not one person, two people, not even one hundred—it’s more like a million people,” she said. “We can understand the U.S. force’s situation too, and we pray for them that they can help them.”
Nazia, thank you for sharing your story. We are praying alongside you for the safety of your family and home country.
If you want to help welcome our Afghan allies arriving in the coming weeks, it’s not too late. Come to a volunteer orientation, help furnish homes or perhaps buy a limited-edition t-shirt that supports their resettlement.Â
Resolution would express Spokane’s support for resettling Afghan refugees
Spokane City Council to vote on a nonbinding resolution expressing support for Afghan refugees.
With hundreds expected to arrive in the coming months, the Spokane City Council will vote on a resolution Monday expressing support for the relocation of Afghan refugees here.
Though nonbinding, the resolution would formally state elected officials’ support for taking in those fleeing Afghanistan as the United States withdrew its military and the Taliban gained control last month.
The resolution notes the assistance that many Afghans provided to the U.S. military during its nearly 20-year war in the country.
“Letter From a Refugee” film released
Letter From A Refugee by Sachi Dely from VerveFilms on Vimeo.
Film Synopsis & credits
Unfortunate circumstances in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 forced many people to leave their beloved country. Sachi Dely, an artist based out of Greensboro, NC, experienced something similar two decades ago in Vietnam. Through this visual poem, Sachi renders advice to new refugees to rekindle hope and faith.
A Film by Aby Rao https://www.vervefilms.com
Music by Kai Engel – Caeli//Soli
About Sachi Dely
Sachi, who currently resides in Greensboro, North Carolina, is an indigenous Asian-American artist born in Dak Mil Province in Southern Vietnam. At the age of two, her family fled Vietnam due to religious persecution and other human rights violations against indigenous people. Her family lived in two separate refugee camps in Cambodia before immigrating to the United States of America as refugees in 2002.
Sachi’s art site: https://www.chiartstudio.com/
Getting to Know a New Home
Micah and Susan Mhindu came to the Quad Cities through an organization called O’Grady Peyton International.
This organization partnered with our office to help families get settled into our community prior to going to work for Genesis Health Systems in various nursing programs.
The program is headed by our Church Mobilizer, Kaylee Fisher. Families in the program come from countries such as Jamaica, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria.
At a Meet & Greet, we discovered that Micah had been an Agriculture teacher in Zimbabwe. Because our Quad City area is home to John Deere and a huge farming community, we thought Micah would enjoy learning about farming in Iowa.
The family visited Cinnamon Ridge Farms (CRF) in Donahue, Iowa. They got to see the automated systems CRF uses to milk and feed their Jersey dairy cows, and make cheese.
Along the drive, Micah and Susan were impressed by how many acres of corn and beans they saw on the way.
If you are inspired to help our World Relief clients see the Quad Cities, consider becoming a volunteer and signing up for our Friendship/Visiting program. Contact Julie Hornbuckle 563-529-2084 or visit our website or fill out a volunteer application here.
Cinnamon Ridge Farms Photo Gallery
Over 50,000 Afghan evacuees expected to resettle in U.S., says DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
BY NICOLE SGANGA, BO ERICKSON, ELEANOR WATSON, ED O’KEEFE
Refugee and immigration advocates have been pushing the White House to provide mental health counseling and culturally sensitive services to Afghan evacuees. Mayorkas said Friday he’s met with dozens of non-profit and community organizations, and vowed to provide “cultural competency, access to counsel, trauma counseling and pastoral care” to at-risk Afghans arriving in the U.S.
See the full story on CBS Mornings.
Learn what you can do to help Afghan refugees in Sacramento >>