Refugees flock to DeKalb to overcome strife
by Gale Horton Gay
fastgale@hotmail.com
Chantal Mucyo and her son David came to Clarkston seven years ago after fleeing the Congo and living in a refugee camp in Cameroon for 18 months. Now both are American citizens.
Photo/Travis Hudgons .
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Each day people move to DeKalb County for reasons ranging from finding better jobs, following friends and relatives, pursuit of education, embarking on married life and simply starting over.
For most, beginning life in a new city and county has its share of ups and downs.
However, for a unique group of the county’s newest residents, the challenges of moving to DeKalb are greater and far more complex. And so are the payoffs.
Refugees–people fleeing from their countries due to persecution, war, or fear for their safety–have been steadily coming to DeKalb County for the past several years. In fact, more refugees settle into new lives in DeKalb than in any other county in the state, said local officials.
Numbers tell the story
According to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement, 80,000 refugees have resettled in Georgia since 1980. And according to Ellen Beattie, regional director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), 75 percent of the 2,000 refugees who are resettled in Georgia annually are brought to DeKalb County. IRC handles the resettlement of 500 to 600 refugees locally each year and is one of six agencies in metro Atlanta that works to resettle and support refugees, she said.
"DeKalb is the epicenter of refugee resettlement," said Beattie. And the reason for that is the abundance of public transportation and affordable housing options in the county, she explained, noting that the federal government mandates that refugees resettle within 50 miles of the local agency’s office.
DeKalb’s refugee community is made up of people from various hot spots around the globe, including Afghanistan Burundi, Somalia, Vietnam, Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea Liberia and Iraqi.
When Beattie speaks about various groups of refugees coming to DeKalb, it’s akin to a history lesson in international strife. She notes the following:
*An influx of people from Burundi today is the result of a massacre and displacement in the African country in the 1970s.
* Turmoil in Somali for more than 25 years has resulted in a spike in the local population of Somalian refugees.
* A military coup in Burma in the 1990s and subsequent political power plays are the reasons behind Burmese seeking asylum locally.
An IRC brochure bearing the agency’s slogan of "Refugee relief, respect, renewal," describes refugees as people who have been "the uprooted victims of violence, war, and political, religious, ethnic and racial oppression. They have fled from atrocity and persecution around the world. They are invited by the U.S. government to rebuild their lives in this country in freedom."
Over at World Relief, another agency in the resettlement business located on Memorial Drive in DeKalb County, Executive Director Brian Burt explained that all the agencies operate under 90-day contracts in which they are responsible for moving refugees from dependence to self-sufficiency.
That means getting them into apartments with basic furnishings, completing paperwork for Social Security and food stamps, getting them enrolled in English classes and getting their children enrolled in school, and most important, helping them to find work. The goal is to have their clients able to pay their rent by their fourth month in the U.S.
Through their contracts with the federal government, the agencies receive $425 per refugee to cover all these expenses (apartment, utilities, furnishings, food, clothes, transportation) for the 90-day period, according to Burt.
They then rely on other partnerships to maximize those dollars and stretch their resources as far as possible. After 90 days other agencies such as Refugee Family Services, also located on Memorial Drive, support the families.
Burt said he and his organization take a Christian perspective on their work. "We believe that such few number of folks get there that God is not going to bring them here to let them flounder," he said.
To that end, the agency solicits and accepts financial and in-kind donations from individuals, churches and other organizations to help bridge the gap. They also rely on a cadre of some 100 active volunteers who work as host families and individual volunteers. And they turn to local churches and other institutions for support. Clarkson International Bible Church opened one of its buildings for an English as a second language class that is paid for by DeKalb Tech, according to one official.
"We try as hard as possible to keep our refugees from accessing welfare. A job is always better than welfare," said Burt. He said relief workers try to be realistic with the people they assist, noting that they tell them "The U.S. government has not promised you a new life, they promised you an opportunity for a new life." He said the reality that America’s streets are not paved with gold and prosperity isn’t automatic is sometimes a slap in the face for the new arrivees.
Getting up at 5 a.m. to take public transportation to a cleaning job for $8 an hour isn’t what many refugees imagined when they dreamed of coming to America. "But the positive news is within months refugees do become self-sufficient. They recognize that while I might not experience the American Dream, my kids will," said Burt.
Chantal Mucyo, who works with World Relief as an immigration specialist and lives in Clarkston, came to Georgia seven years ago after fleeing the Congo and living in limbo in a refugee camp in Cameroon for 18 months. She has polished her English skills, taken classes at two educational institutions, held several jobs, married and added another child to her family. Now she’s thinking about buying a home.
Burt said that jobs are often found for the new U.S. residents in the hotel industry doing housekeeping or in poultry processing plants. "We strive to keep them away from seasonal work," said Burt.
His organization, like others, attempts to find jobs with benefits. However, explaining what benefits are and why they are important to people who have languished in refugee camps for years is often extremely difficult. And when a refugee is faced with deciding between a job with a higher income but no benefits and another with a lower wage but benefits such as health insurance, paid leave, retirement, etc., it can be an incredibly tough choice.
On a Thursday in mid-July, two white boards in a hallway of IRC’s offices at the corner of Covington Highway and Memorial Drive in Decatur reveal 27 refugees who will be arriving in the county in the upcoming weeks from Burma, Iran and Burundi.
Challenges many but so are the rewards
Refugees face a myriad of hurdles in beginning new lives here. Many come knowing limited or no English. They may no longer have access to any financial resources. They must find employment and earn a living.
Often documents such as birth certificates, educational diplomas and degrees have been lost and are not retrievable, especially in war-torn countries and ones with hostile governments. Some may have been professionals such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses and teachers in their country but have to settle for jobs in maintenance, janitorial service, housekeeping and such. Culturally, coming to America can be complex and confusing from any number of perspectives, including gender roles and changes in family dynamics when children become fluent in English and become translators for their parents. Most of the time refugee families overcome the many obstacles that they face, experts say.
Beattie, who has been working for IRC for four and a half years and has a background in international development, said her agency has a 92 percent self-sufficiency track record within six months of refugees arriving here. "We are very successful at this," she said.
The long road to DeKalb
Before coming to the U.S., refugees must be sponsored by an agency working with the U.S. State Department. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees serves as a clearinghouse that recommends groups of people who need to be resettled to the countries such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Britain that are willing to accept them. Beattie said the U.S. takes in more refugees than all other countries combined.
According to Beattie, typical refugees have languished in some sort of refugee camp for eight to 10 years before coming to the U.S. Often they have little if anything in the way of personal possessions and have been deprived of adequate food and health care and have not had much continuity of education. In addition, many have dealt with any number of traumatic events and suffer some degree of post-traumatic stress.
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