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AICC kids & staff get productive at the new education
center & computer lab!
American Indian Community CenterSmith-Barbieri Progressive Fund supported project!
New education department and computer lab open!610 E. North Foothills Drive, Spokane
A message from AICC Executive Director, Lux Devereaux …
The AICC education department and computer lab are set upand open for business. People are slowly migrating to the newcenter, including families and children. They are thoroughlyenjoying the computer assistance and homework activities. Wefully anticipate growing the program now that we are up andrunning.
We are very excited about the program particularly with itspotential to become a permanent service here at the Center. Tutoring youth is one of the areas with limited services,especially with our Native American kids and teens. We thankthe Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund for their support.
Check out the full services of the AICC here.
Like the American Indian Community Center on Facebook!
Meet two of the estimated 30,000 former refugees inour area
Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund important update
For Erick, Refugee Connections Spokane has done much more than help him navigate this strange land:it has given him the gift of usefulness, as well, by providing opportunities for volunteering andconnection with fellow refugees. Raad, newly introduced to the Refugee Connections Spokane staff, hopes his turn will come soon. Hehas a long list of projects he wants to begin to enrich Spokane’s cultural life, to give of his unique talentsto a community that has given him his life.
Former refugees and the people who help connectus allWorst of all, perhaps, for Raad, 60, an Iraqi refugee living in Spokane, are his feelings of utter uselessness whenhe has always given so much to the world. An artist, poet, and filmmaker, the scion of a well-known family, hewas a respected teacher in his native Baghdad, and, as a refugee in Syria for three years, an art therapist whohelped children process the horrors of war.His hands move constantly as he speaks, sometimes with tears inhis eyes, of all he would like to give to Spokane, but cannot make the right connections, somehow. Sharing asmall apartment, he has no room to make the glass and plastic art for which he was known until terrorists blewup his studio in an attempt on his life.After emigrating to Syria, he lived in Damascus, working as activitiesdirector at a community center and teaching art to refugee children who drew bombs and blood, gruesomedepictions of war and terror. One boy made images of beheadings, over and over. Raad asked him why, and hesaid he’d seen his own father murdered.”I changed those children,” Raad says, adding that many of thechildren called him “godfather.” “I am proud of what I did for refugees, what I did for kids.”In Spokane since2012, Raad is one of an estimated 30,000 refugees living in the city,
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said Stephanie Zimmerman of the non-profit Refugee ConnectionsSpokane, an organization working to help refugees assimilate andthrive in the community.The population comprises men, women,elderly, and children running for their lives-literally-from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Congo, Burma,Nepal, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries around the world.The list soon may expand to include Syria,since Barack Obama this week agreed to accept 10,000 refugees from that country, where bloody civil war hasdriven hundreds of thousands into Europe in a spectacular, devastating mass migration.For those who settlehere, Spokane is the final stop in a journey typically long and fraught with danger. News reports havedocumented the drownings of groups trying to leave their countries by boat, and, recently, of refugees founddead in the back of a truck in Austria. Those who make it this far count themselves fortunate to bealive.Resettled by the organization World Relief via a contract with the U.S. Department of HomelandSecurity, refugees find themselves in an often-bewildering new world when they arrive, says AnnaBondarenko, outreach coordinator for Refugee Connections Spokane and a former employee at WorldRelief.After greeting them at Spokane International Airport, World Relief caseworkers help refugees find and setup a home, connect them with the state Department of Social and Health Services for benefits, help them findmedical care, and help them find work. Some of the city’s biggest refugee employers include the DavenportHotel, the Panda Express fast-food chain, and building manufacturing company Scafco, Bondarenko says.
Among their first-and most formidable-hurdles is learning English, which they must do to receive federal aid,Bondarenko says. But another challenge they face isn’t so easily remedied: Spokane’s notorious lack of ethnicdiversity, and the biases that can result.
Too often, Zimmerman says, residents here view refugees with the same suspicious eye with which theysee undocumented immigrants: as criminals and takers. In fact, though, many who come are here beforethey had no other recourse except death-and, like Raad, they want to give something back to thecommunity.
Erick was 7 when his family, members of the Tutsi tribe, fled their village in Burundi, near Rwanda, in the wakeof mass killings by Hutu tribesmen.
The parents and six children had no time to plan their escape, but simply walked away, leaving theirpossessions behind, fearing for their lives with every step. They marched for weeks, sharing food with others inthe larger group, sleeping wherever they could, stripping the leaves from trees and trying to eat them, and, aftercrossing into neighboring Tanzania, knocking on doors to beg for food and shelter.
They lived this way for a year, said Erick, now 29, until the United Nations opened a refugee camp in Tanzania.Getting fed regularly and having a tent for shelter came as a great relief, but they yearned for home. Their oneattempt, in 1997, to return to their village did not succeed.
“It was crazy. They were killing people,” Erick says. The family turned around and walked back to the camp,where it remained until 2004-a total of 10 years.
Although better than living in constant fear, life in the refugee camp was very difficult, Erick says. In Burundi, hesaid, his family grew rice, casava, bananas and other foods in the rich, fertile soil.
“We didn’t have to ask if we were going to eat tomorrow,” he says. “We were happy with what we had.”
In the camp, the family built a hut on a plot of land too tiny even for a garden, he said. Unable to grow theirfood, they relied on handouts of cooking oil, beans, flour, and other staples.
“In refugee camp, I was not happy,” Erick says. “Refugee camp was not a good time.”
Now, Erick is on the giving end of the refugee chain, translating and interpreting, helping new arrivals witherrands in his car, and, this year, working in Refugee Connections Spokane’s newest program, the Refugees’Harvest Project, in which 50 refugees from various backgrounds harvest donated produce and distribute it freeof charge at the East Central Community Center.”It’s their way of saying, ‘Thank you, Spokane, for acceptingus. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Now we’re going to give back to you,” Bondarenko says.The programembodies “what a civilized compassionate society does,” says Sharon Smith, co-trustee of the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, which endowed the Harvest Project with a $4,000 grant this year. The
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philanthropic fund aims to alleviate poverty, among other causes.Smithalso lauded the program for increasing awareness of Spokane’srefugee community, which is largelyinvisible or misunderstood, shesays. With the Spokane areaexpected to grow nearly 20percent by 2030, diversity iscertain to increase in ourcommunity, and tolerance willneed to grow, as well, she
adds.“We need to start better understanding other people andadjusting to accommodate them if we are to live in wellness andprosperity together,” Smith says.Other Refugee ConnectionsSpokane programs include:Elder Outreach Project, connecting elders to one another and to services
Patient Passport Project, helping refugees document their medical conditions and histories in a“passport”-style brochure to carry with them, and
American Law and Justice Workshop, helping them to understand the U.S. criminal justice system andtheir own rights and responsibilities.
For Erick, Refugee Connections Spokane has done much more than help him navigate this strange land: it hasgiven him the gift of usefulness, as well, by providing opportunities for volunteering and connection with fellowrefugees.”This is what I am looking for,” he thought when he began working with the Harvest Project.”I like forpeople to be happy,” he says. “I’m very happy to be in the USA.”Raad, newly introduced to the RefugeeConnections Spokane staff, hopes his turn will come soon. He has a long list of projects he wants to begin toenrich Spokane’s cultural life, to give of his unique talents to a community that has given him his life.”I want tomeet people,” Raad says, and describes the films he wants to make, the writing workshops he wants to give,the speeches he could deliver, the Arabic-language TV station he wants to start, with artist interviews, comedicfilms (“In my country, we like to laugh”) and even a cooking show.”I want to make activities,” he says, his handsmoving, moving. “This is not right.”
***This article was commissioned by the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund and written by Sherry Jones. SherryJones is an author and freelance writer living in Spokane. Contact her at [email protected].
***World Relief didn’t return our call for participation in this story, however, you may learn more about their role inour local refugee settlement process in a Spokesman-Review article that ran online Friday.
Reproductive health care under attack in Pullman,literally
Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund important update
An early-morning fire at Planned Parenthood in Pullman Friday was arson, according to the Pullman FireDepartment and the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force (Spokesman-Review). The investigationis ongoing.Most Planned Parenthood health clinics have seen increased aggression since heavily debunkedvideos were released by an anti-choice group recently. A well-funded and organized anti-reproductive healtheffort has been particularly aggressive in Pullman for some time but it has ratcheted up recently.
The clinic has been targeted in spite of the fact that Planned Parenthood Pullman doesn’t performabortions.
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