Living Well 60+ September-October 2014

2 4 SEPT/OCT 2 0 1 4
Local Agency Helps Refugees Pursue the ‘American Dream’
Kentucky Refugee Ministries provides comprehensive resettlement services
by Tanya J. Tyler,
Editor
Started in Louisville
21 years ago,
Kentucky Refugee
Ministries (KRM)
is a resettlement agency dedicated
to helping refugees become selfsufficient,
contributing members of
the community.
What is a refugee?
“By definition, refugees have
to be out of their home country;
they’ve been forced to flee for fear
of their lives. They cross a border
and then they apply to get into the
refugee resettlement program,” said
KRM resource coordinator Dabney
Parker, who works in the Lexington
affiliate office that opened in 1998.
The refugees may be fleeing from
religious, ethnic or political persecution.
Most stay in the resettlement
process for years and years and
years, Parker said. Some Congolese
have been in camps in Africa for up
to 15 years. Some Bhutanese have
been in camps in Nepal for 22 years.
The holdup is mostly due to red
tape.
“When they cross the border and
find a refugee camp, there are folks
on the ground in those places that
are interviewing, but they have to
first of all prove that they qualify as
a refugee,” Parker said. “They have
to prove identification, and they
don’t have documents a lot of times.
If you’re fleeing, you don’t stop and
pack a suitcase. So with the lack of
documentation, just identifying
them takes a very long time.”
After going through the screening
process, the refugees come to the
United States, some of them right to
the heart of the Bluegrass.
“Kentucky is very different,” Parker
said. “All of our folks are coming
from very warm climates. One
family came from the Congo. They
landed in February at midnight and
there were three inches of snow on
the ground.”
Once the refugees arrive in Kentucky,
KRM’s goal is to help them
settle into their new life. The agency
provides new arrivals with furnished
apartments.
“After being in Africa or another
location for 10 to 15 years in a tent
or hut, a hardscape apartment –
furnished! – is overwhelming, seen
straight from an airport arrival
after 48 hours of traveling halfway
around the world,” Parker said.
Volunteers help set up the apartments,
greet the new arrivals at the
airport and take them to various
social service and medical appointments.
“They come alongside and help
them adjust to this new culture, this
new land they’re in,” Parker said.
Clients begin to take English as
a Second Language classes and an
eight-week course called World
of Work that helps with résumé
writing, online applications and
interviewing skills. Within a year,
generally, the former refugees are
working and pursuing their own
version of the “American dream.”
“There will be some that have a
more difficult time adjusting just
as there would be with any population,”
said Parker. “We stay with
them. If we don’t see them, that
means things are fine and they’re off
and running and doing what they’re
supposed to do: building a new life.”
One year KRM helped resettled
282 people, and it is on target to do
the same this year. Parker said the
work is personally very rewarding.
“I think refugees are the most
courageous, resilient population of
people I know,” she said. “They have
left everything that’s familiar and
they’re coming to a whole new place
and having to start all over. I have
the greatest admiration for them.
“What we do here is really what
America is all about,” she added.
“We are a nation of immigrants and
these are our newest new American
families.”
To learn more about KRM, visit
its Web site at www. kyrm.org or call
(859) 226-5661.
Pictured: WOW Graduation:
Refugees who have attended the
eight-week prep class World of
Work show off their certificates.
World of Work helps them with
résumé writing and interviewing
skills. Photo credit: Kentucky
Refugee Ministries
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