Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Ethiopian’ Category

A one-woman resettlement agency

Posted by Christopher Coen on September 14, 2011

An unnamed resettlement agency in San Diego doesn’t seem to meet even the minimum requirements of its government refugee resettlement contracts. An article in the Los Angeles Times mentions the IRC, but does not identify it as the agency in question. Luckily Owliya Dima, an Ethiopian woman who arrived in the US 30 years ago as a refugee, tries her best to fill in for the negligent resettlement agency. What she finds, however, is that what kills refugees the most when they come here isn’t the lack of tangibles, its the loneliness. Perhaps this explains the number of suicides in newly resettled refugees, and the importance of connecting refugees to their cohorts.

Owliya Dima scanned the bare apartment, noting the only new items the family owned: six white pillows stacked on two box springs that were missing their mattresses.

In the living room were three mismatched sofas donated by a church. One of the few items in the kitchen was an old skillet that the refugee family had brought from Iraq. The father, Hussam Zabiba, held up a handful of miniature shampoo and soap bottles for Dima to see. “Hotel,” he explained.

Dima, an Ethiopian Muslim who had been a refugee herself nearly three decades ago, moved through the two-bedroom Anaheim apartment with an Arabic interpreter, compiling a list of needed items. “Iron? And vacuum cleaner?” she said, making a note to herself about what to look for when she scoured garage sales the next weekend.

Years of war and famine in the Middle East and Africa have brought waves of Muslim refugees to the United States. The newcomers have often found themselves in communities that are ill-prepared and, at times, unwilling to help.

And so, much of the task of caring for newcomers has fallen to volunteers like Dima. She is a one-woman resettlement agency…

…“Why I want to connect people, it’s not to fill stomachs, it’s to fill the emotional need,” Dima said. “What kills people when they come here isn’t the lack of tangibles, it’s loneliness.”… Read more here

Posted in IRC, Iraqi, Islamic, beds, household items, missing or broken, furnishings, lack of, Ethiopian, San Diego | Tagged: , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Refugees trapped by backlogged U.S. immigration courts

Posted by Christopher Coen on November 27, 2010

According to an article in The Monitor, legitimate refugees, actually asylees, are being thrown into ICE detention facilities for long periods while they wait for their cases to come up before our backed-up immigration courts. Caseloads for immigration judges are now about three times that of federal district judges. Officials detained an Ethiopian refugee for seven months in an ICE facility in South Texas before his case began to wind its way through a patchwork of complex and confusing court asylum proceedings.

SAN BENITO — The young refugee retraced the long, twisted journey that landed him on the American side of the Hidalgo International Bridge earlier this year, pleading for asylum in the U.S., fearing deportation would amount to a death sentence.

The 24-year-old had fled his native Ethiopia months earlier, fearing near-constant government threats in retaliation for vocally supporting an opposing political party. Brutally beaten and twice thrown in prison, the young man was told authorities would kill him if arrested a third time.

His long path to the U.S. took him through Africa, Dubai, Cuba and eventually to Colombia, trekking through dense jungle to the Panama border. Over the course of months, a series of busses, trains and long hikes through Central America ended at the Hidalgo bridge, where he turned himself in and was immediately shipped to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Port Isabel, where he would stay for seven months.

“I was confused. I cried always because I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” the man recalled. “I was scared. I know that if I go back (home) they’re going to kill me.”

The man’s account echoes the stories of hundreds of others who come to the U.S. seeking political asylum every year in U.S. immigration courts, a system that experts fear is already strained and overwhelmed with exploding caseloads. In Harlingen’s immigration court alone, data shows that pending cases have more than doubled over the past fiscal year… Read more here

Posted in asylees, Ethiopian, ICE, immigration courts, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of San Antonio, Inc. continues to neglect refugee clients

Posted by Christopher Coen on November 22, 2010

Nothing seems to have changed at Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of San Antonio, Inc. Last March we reported about the severe problems that Burmese refugee clients were having with the agency. Now Somali and Ethiopian refugee clients of the agency are coming forward to express their distress and frustrations. Refugees report that Catholic Charities placed them in small, roach-infested apartments without any home-safety orientation. When refugees call the agency they don’t hear anything back for days at a time, or case workers tell them they will be out to see them and then don’t show up. The agency has made late rent payments to landlords resulting in landlord warning letters to the refugees. Some refugees are also receiving electrical disconnect notices. Refugees lack transportation and report that overall communication with the agency is extremely poor. They asked to meet with the agency’s director of refugee programs, Paula Walker, but so far she will only speak to them by phone. Some refugees have been so desperate for help that they have resorted to calling 911.

An American volunteer said that some of the refugees asked him a couple of times to come and meet a group of new refugees “that nobody is helping”. He said he went and the small apartment soon filled with over 30 people. Most of the refugees were Somali and they were desperate. They shared some
of their stories. One said that his family was picked up at the airport and left for three days and two nights without enough food. Another refugee said that instead of the traditional rental assistance for six months, it was being cut to three months because of the huge influx of refugees into San Antonio. Yet another refugee said that they were a family with eight kids and had a two room apartment. None of the refugees had a job and no one was helping them look. The volunteer said he came out of the meeting and saw a refugee woman with a young child with hydrocephalus—the child’s head twice the normal size. The woman said the family had been in the country for a month and still had not seen a doctor, nor did they yet have a doctor’s appointment. The child clearly needed a shunt inserted into his head to relieve fluid buildup.

The volunteer said he went back the next day and started on the myriad problems of one family – because the Catholic Charities’ caseworkers were refusing to help. While he was there, one refugee man called his Catholic Charities caseworker about an appointment to get scheduled inoculations for his family. The caseworker said that he couldn’t take the family because it wasn’t “in the budget”. Another refugee had an 85-year-old mother with hepatitis-C and a wife with a uterine infection – and again, no scheduled appointments. The volunteer reports that the number of serious complaints went on and on. Some refugees complained of verbal abuse from Catholic Charities staff, with an assistant director named Hisham telling one man that he “didn’t care about his problems!” All of this added to the volunteer’s experiences from earlier this year with the abandoned Catholic Charities Burmese refugee families. One Burmese refugee man hung himself and his body was found by children. The volunteer said that his conclusion is that there are hundreds of abandoned refugees in the Wurzbach-Gardendale-Datapoint streets area – and another 80 families are expected within weeks.

After the crisis with the recently arrived Somali refugees, a couple of days later the refugees called the police on Catholic Charities. Four police cars pulled up to the apartments. The police then called Catholic Charities to find out why they weren’t helping the refugees. Then two Catholic Charities administrators arrived and passed out $100 gift cards and told the refugees to go back into their apartments. A couple of days later, four blocks away, Catholic Charities held their annual “International Gala” at the Omni Hotel. The volunteer reports that San Antonio has been completely overwhelmed by vast numbers of refugees that continue to be mindlessly pumped in. The apartment complexes in the Wurzbach, Gardendale, and Datapoint streets area have basically become “refugee camps” of confused, frustrated, un-served, and under-served refugees.

Catholic Charities’ refugee program director Paula Walker was quoted last year in a news article about the agency saying, “In the past two years, the local program grew from helping 600 refugees settle into new lives to more than 1,000.” Perhaps this is the result of raising the number of refugees an agency receives so quickly in such a short period. That, of course, would be the State Department’s doing.

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, capacity, Catholic, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio Inc., children, Ethiopian, faith-based, food, health, housing, housing, overcrowding, insufficient assistance with daily tasks, late health screenings, police, San Antonio, Somali, Somali Bantu, State Department, transportation | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

USCCB’s Catholic Charities Inc. in Oregon opens lavish new headquarters

Posted by Christopher Coen on August 26, 2010

Catholic Charities, Inc. in Oregon this week dedicated a brand-new 60,000 square foot headquarters in Portland. The building, designed by Lundin Cole Architects, includes a homeless shelter with computers, laundry and shower facilities, an administrative floor with 14 conference rooms, and an oratory with beautiful sculptures of the Holy Family and the risen Christ. A significant part of the complex is an empty second floor that will allow for future growth.

…Catholic Charities will dedicate its new building, the Clark Family Center.

…In less than 18 months, 145 individuals, corporations and foundations, along with funding from investors from a special federal tax credit program brought the project funding to completion…Major gifts came not only from individuals such as Robert Franz and the Clark family including, Maybelle Clark Macdonald, Mary Clark and Mike and Tracey Clark, but also from many of the major foundations in the area including the Joseph Weston Public Foundation, the Collins Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Regence BlueCross BlueShield and Providence Health and Services. The response was an affirmation of the positive impact of Catholic Charities in our community. Community Funding Group also helped Catholic Charities get a large tax credit for the new building.

In June 2010, the staff and clients of Catholic Charities began to occupy their new home and the activity in the building is teeming.

On the basement level, chronically homeless women, who are assisted by the Housing Transitions program, now have space for meeting with caseworkers, access to computers, and laundry and shower facilities to assist them in preparing for job interviews.

A storage facility exists on the basement level to hold the many donations Catholic Charities needs. Along with helping homeless women furnish an apartment, Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement services furnishes apartments with household items and furniture when the agency moves a refugee family from war-torn parts of the world to the Portland area.

…For the first time, Catholic Charities will have storage space on site for easy access.

Most program staff will work in open spaces on the third floor and fourth floors. The vital work of the agency is done, however, in the 14 conference rooms located in this space.

…In addition to some program staff, the top floor of the center houses Catholic Charities administration. …with more than 180 employees the need for accounting, human resources, technology services, development and executive management is important.

…A unique feature of the top floor is the Regence Life Learning Center. Internally, the large room will be used for board of directors meetings and employee gatherings.

…Within an intimate area of the Regence Life Learning Center is a unique space – an oratory dedicated to the Holy Family donated by Mark and Leslie Ganz.  This chapel-like space, with beautiful sculptures of the Holy Family and the risen Christ, offers the opportunity for quiet reflection for the staff during what can be challenging and stressful daily work.

A significant component of the complex is an empty second floor. This space allows for the development of new programs in the future.

…The Clark Family Center was designed by Lundin Cole Architects and incorporates many green features including sun shades to sunlight, electric car charging stations and permeable pavement. here

The question that comes to my mind, however, is how Catholic Charities is able to raise such sizable funding for this type of complex while seemingly not being able to pay for minimum, basic services for their refugee clients.

The State Department’s most recent inspection report of Catholic Charities, from October 2006, indicates that the resettlement agency placed a Somali refugee family of nine into a three-bedroom apartment. Yet, according to Portland’s occupancy codes a dwelling unit is deemed overcrowded (29.30.220) “if there are more residents than one plus one additional resident for every 100 square feet of floor area of the habitable rooms in the dwelling unit”. The family had arrived 7 weeks earlier and the head of the household said that Catholic Charities had not given them winter coats, hats, or mittens, and that no one from catholic Charities had advised the family about immigration issues or advised them about repaying their IOM refugee travel loans. The family also had no personal hygiene items in the bathroom, and there were no towels anywhere in the apartment even though Catholic Charities represented in the case files that they had given the family towels.

An Ethiopian refugee family of four also indicated that no one from Catholic Charities had provided them with information about their immigration status or about repaying their IOM travel loans.

An elderly husband and wife refugee couple from Cuba that arrived five months earlier was found living in a three-bedroom home crowded with eleven people, all relatives (his son and family had been resettled just 11 months earlier and appeared to be struggling with their own resettlement). The elderly refugee man was suffering from epilepsy, diabetes, and chronic depression, and was hospitalized twice since arriving. His doctor advised him to find a separate apartment due to high activity and noise levels in the house. The couple told the State Department monitors that they wished that Catholic Charities had offered them more support.

The monitors also found that Catholic Charities’ case files were haphazard and disorganized. Of particular concern was lack of compliance regarding services to refugee minors, including lack of post-arrival assessment, home visits, and regular in-person contact with the minor for 90 days after arrival.

I know that refugee resettlement agencies always claim that they don’t have enough public funding for minimum-required services for their refugee clients, but then how are agencies such as Catholic Charities at the same time able to afford multi-million dollar new headquarters?

 It would be nice if mainstream journalists would ask some of these tough questions.

Posted in Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio Inc., children, clothes, Cuban, Ethiopian, faith-based, housing, housing, overcrowding, immigration assistance, lavish new offices, Oregon, Portland, Somali, State Department, Travel Loan Program, USCCB | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Refugee school children – separate but equal?

Posted by Christopher Coen on August 4, 2010

According to an article in the New York Times a dedicated and highly qualified elementary school principal in Burlington, Vt has been let go so that the Burlington School District could qualify for up to $3 million in federal stimulus money for its dozen schools. The school’s student test scores were low allegedly due to a 97 percent poverty rate and large numbers of refugee children, many with little earlier education. Under current federal rules, for a district to qualify, schools with very low test scores must do one of the following: close down; be replaced by a charter (Vermont does not have charters); remove the principal and half the staff; or remove the principal and transform the school.

By all accounts, the school’s principle, Joyce Irvine, was an exemplary leader.

John Mudasigana, one of many recent African refugees whose children attend the high-poverty school, says he is grateful for how Ms. Irvine and her teachers have helped his five children. “Everything is so good about the school,” he said, before taking his daughter Evangeline, 11, into the school’s dental clinic.

Ms. Irvine’s most recent job evaluation began, “Joyce has successfully completed a phenomenal year.” Jeanne Collins, Burlington’s school superintendent, calls Ms. Irvine “a leader among her colleagues” and “a very good principal.”

Beth Evans, a Wheeler teacher, said, “Joyce has done a great job,” and United States Senator Bernie Sanders noted all the enrichment programs, including summer school, that Ms. Irvine had added since becoming principal six years ago.

“She should not have been removed,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “I’ve walked that school with her — she seemed to know the name and life history of every child.”

…Ms. Irvine wasn’t removed by anyone who had seen her work (often 80-hour weeks) at a school where 37 of 39 fifth graders were either refugees or special-ed children and where, much to Mr. Mudasigana’s delight, his daughter Evangeline learned to play the violin. here

Unfortunate for schools with already low test scores, and that receive a large influx of refugee students, rules do not allow schools to leave out refugee students from testing. Refugee students have to take tests, in English, that they are not prepared for and have no way of understanding.

Under No Child rules, a student arriving one day before the state math test must take it. Burlington is a major resettlement area, and one recent September, 28 new students — from Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan — arrived at Wheeler and took the math test in October.

Ms. Irvine said that in a room she monitored, 15 of 18 randomly filled in test bubbles. The math tests are word problems. A sample fourth-grade question: “Use Xs to draw an array for the sum of 4+4+4.” Five percent of Wheeler’s refugee students scored proficient in math.

About half the 230 students are foreign-born, collectively speaking 30 languages. Many have been traumatized; a third see one of the school’s three caseworkers. During Ms. Irvine’s tenure, suspensions were reduced to 7 last year, from 100.

Students take the reading test after one year in the country. Ms. Irvine tells a story about Mr. Mudasigana’s son Oscar and the fifth-grade test.

Oscar needed 20 minutes to read a passage on Neil Armstrong landing his Eagle spacecraft on the moon; it should have taken 5 minutes, she said, but Oscar was determined, reading out loud to himself.

The first question asked whether the passage was fact or fiction. “He said, ‘Oh, Mrs. Irvine, man don’t go on the moon, man don’t go on the back of eagles, this is not true,’ ” she recalled. “So he got the five follow-up questions wrong — penalized for a lack of experience.”

Thirteen percent of foreign-born students, 4 percent of special-ed students and 23 percent of the entire school scored proficient in reading.

Indiana Senator Richard Lugar has recommended that refugee students be kept separate from other students until they can catch up (here), and not be tested until then so that their scores will not negatively impact schools’ ratings. What worries me about that is the opposite and equally damaging practice in which refugee students receive low-quality teaching, as noted in an article about schools in Buffalo here. Although the Senator is recommending that the federal government require that schools use “best practices” to guide refugee children’s separate but equal programs, how well would the government enforce that?

If the refugee program itself is any guide, not very well I presume.

Posted in Burlington, children, education, Ethiopian, funding, government, reform, school for refugee children, schools, Somali, Sudanese, Vermont | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Catholic Diocese of Arlington In Trouble In 2007, Three Years Before Media Reported Refugee Neglect

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 29, 2010

The USCCB’s Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Migration and Refugee Service was out of compliance with a federal government refugee contract in 2007 (here). That was three years before media accounts of their serious neglect of refugees at the Fredericksburg sub-office (here).

According to the State Department inspection report at least two refugee cases appeared to have been at risk  as result of little or no contact from the agency. Case files were also inadequate.

In one case a Catholic Diocese of Arlington case worker never even visited a refugee (Somali) at home, even though the State Department contract requires at least one home visit during the first 30 days (here, scroll down to Home Visits). Case log notes also ended the day after the woman’s arrival, even though basic refugee services are to last 90 days, and contracts require documentation of any services rendered.

Inspectors noted that another refugee family (Ethiopian) did not have enough blankets or bed frames. The family of nine was living in a $1,500-a-month three-bedroom apartment, and had been in a two-bedroom apartment until just several days before the State Department inspection.

Another refugee woman (Somali) who was single and 8-months pregnant at the time of her arrival said she didn’t get any cash assistance, and did not receive food stamps until after her baby was born. She wanted to learn English and find a job but had no one to help care for her baby. She said that Catholic Diocese of Arlington staff told her to come in to the office to learn more about English classes, but no one at the agency had even showed her how to use the bus.

Apparently the State Department inspectors didn’t think to interview any of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington refugee clients at the Fredericksburg sub-office. Oops.

What is it about the State Department inspections in which inspectors note problems yet the problems just continue on after inspectors leave? Is it the lack of penalties? The lack of follow-up? Do the agencies just realize the State Department inspectors likely will not return for another ten years so that the agencies have little to worry about?

3-18-11 **UPDATE** State Dept.’s Office of Admissions finally followed up with Fredericksburg refugees a year later in 2008. Found refugees in apartments with roaches, leaks, and little employment assistance.

Posted in arlington, beds, Catholic, Catholic Diocese of Arlington, employment services, ESL & ELL, Ethiopian, faith-based, fredericksburg, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, overcrowding, insufficient assistance with daily tasks, Somali, State Department, transportation, USCCB, Virginia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Open letter to Eskinder Negash, Director, ORR, from Gedlu Metaferia of AMAAM

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 16, 2010

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June 16, 2010

 

Mr. Eskinder Negash, Director                                                                                              Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)                                                                                  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services   

Re: ORR State letter #10-09

Sir,

Since I doubt that you’ll answer my correspondence I chose to ask you a couple of questions in open format to be published in a web site for you and other stakeholders.

1) Let me correct you regarding the refugee population that are survivors of torture, challenged, and/or victims of sexual assault. Out of the total US refugee admissions numbers it is a low percentage of the total that make up this category. An adequate service is important for this vulnerable group of people and I know in my heart sincerely as a person who faced the same horror of trauma some 36 years ago, the importance of good service for this group of refugees. When you write that the numbers are “many” it is my opinion that you are looking for sympathy to ask Congress for more money, which these sufferers may not see the services or a dime intended to go to their treatment. Whether you believe it or not I have worked with traumatized people, although in less number per year for the last 20 years while ORR and SAMSHA  (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) are channeling funds to large organizations, mainly for CEO and key staff salaries.

2) You have asked for a re-igniting of the enthusiasm of refugee resettlement service providers and the public, and the establishment of good will. The American spirit is generous and giving. In order to re-ignite our faith in ORR do the RIGHT THING! a) Although your general funding is less than many federal agencies, do not give grants 99.99% of the time for the same agencies in the name of responsible proposals. Examine the number of clients served and whether those projects are ever implemented. Include acceptable CEO proposal pay relative to the economic conditions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               b) Although it is difficult to be independent for you, do not cover the million lies of outside proposal reviewers. There are pitfalls in refugee service if outside evaluators are allowed. One person can hire an expert and can win millions. You also have to have on-site evaluations and visits for the benefit of refugees.  c) Stop VOLAG rip-off funds for capacity building and healthy marriage which are just for sophisticated enrichment. d) Call for a genuine reform, which will teach American values to refugees by example.  e) Work for a law that gives severe penalties for agencies who abuse refugees and enrich themselves.

3) Newly Arriving Refugees: Let us say you place refugees, find a house and a job. What are you going to do after the first 8 months and the first year? Since social adjustment is an ongoing process it is inevitable that they come to organizations such as ours, AMAAM (African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri), which has now become a volunteer agency – 8 volunteers plus two of our staff making only $400 per month each.

4) What prevents you from acknowledging the contribution of refugee/immigrant anchor communities and existing non-ORR funded refugee infrastructures? Many refugees, when resettlement does not work for them, go to their ethnic shops, restaurants and clubs. There they get the knowledge of survival and skills equal to a thousand encyclopedias. These are not brochures of translated materials and endless job fairs or orientations which you fund via your affiliates for millions of dollars. These are practical and down to earth sets of knowledge that are transmitted free. You have not mentioned the issue of anchor community coordination. If you had done that I would have been very happy.

5) The reform of ORR has to be done in a mufti-pronged approach. It also must be done in a transparent method. It has to balance refugee service cost with reasonable CEO pay. The voluntary agencies and the State Department must be partners to improve human rights all over the world. The interests of voluntary agencies and the State Department must focus on stopping conflicts and displacements so that durable solutions are found for refugees, especially in Africa. Resettlement and migration should also look at the issue of brain drain. The less educated people a poor country has the more exposure it has to extremism. Such a case may not be true all the time but brain drain is related to the national security of the US. This does not mean that learned people should be left alone to be persecuted, but there has to be coordination between refugee resettlement and the danger of further brain drain from vulnerable countries.

Sir, I will continue to advocate for the most vulnerable. That is my vocation without fear or favor. I called your office and emailed you personally to work with you. I cannot write untrue things in this letter which I cannot defend. I cannot tell you how sad I had been each time your office rejected my application to help refugees who are in our area more than one year and refugees who are secondary migrants. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was when ORR and ECDC created conflicting MAAs in St. Louis in 2000. Stop some VOLAGS using unsuspecting new arrivals to scheme funds. That is un-American and it is gambling on compassion. The more I saw and examined ORR’s inner workings and policies I realized it is inevitable that Congress is going to examine most of ORR policies and reform it. Before that I ask you for your reflection on changing the old ways of doing things. You might have been in refugee camp before you came to the US, I am guessing, therefore my strong advice to you is to travel the US and listen to as many different opinions as you can. Be independent of the established voluntary agencies and hear the real complaints of refugees. Every voluntary agency is established for a good cause, yet as the money pot increased many people diverted their path chasing the grant trail. Come also visit us in St. Louis, and if I do not have much as an unemployed volunteer director, I still have enough change to treat you at Burger King.

Refugees are the best capacity builders. They can feed seven people for five dollars. They contribute for the cost of funerals. They come together in time of weddings and holidays. They only need a little local free help to organize. Asking refugees to help is like asking help from the American people during the time of local disasters. They do not need a 1 million dollar grant for building the capacity of their communities.

By the way, get rid of that healthy marriage and capacity building contract. You cannot make marriage among refugees by counseling through modern psychology only. There are many factors among newcomers. Do you know there is a high percentage of wife killing and violence against women among the North African refugee population?

Sir, you have to listen to your critics. Of course you are new to the post, but ORR has a strong tradition, via your predecessors, of suppressing ideas with a BIG FOOT. It punishes and rewards grantees based on compliance. Let me give you an example. Many years ago I was nominated to advise ORR. Your agency picked three people, among them was Nikki Tesfai, who defrauded your agency and other state agencies in California. The organization she founded and ran was an ECDC affiliate that was heavily promoted by ORR bureaucrats. ORR had funded her for years through ECDC. ORR never posted a public apology or its own investigation. She was among ORR’s favorite people who wrote expert proposals and defrauded tax payers’ money. You can see her story by Google search. I have attached two articles with this comment. ORR has a lot of explaining to do regarding Nikki as we celebrate the Refugee Act of 1980. When ORR was promoting and funding Nikki through the Africa refugee network of ECDC I was struggling to keep up with the salaries of just four people. You must find a better way of judging proposals and addressing funding disparities. When I ask why do the same people always win ORR grants I think of elections in dictatorial regimes like Zimbabwe and Iraq from where refugees flee.

Thank you for reading this comment.

Gedlu Metaferia                                                                                                   AMAAM                                                                                                                               (314) 732-3350

Is the Saint of South LA for real?, LA Weekly 

Refugee agency founder held, Los Angeles Times

Posted in ECDC, Ethiopian, HHS, Missouri, Mutual Assistance Associations (“MAAs”)/Ethnic Community-Based Organizations (“ECBOs”), ORR, St. Louis | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

New report released on USCRI’s YMCA International Services, in Houston

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 12, 2010

U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants’ (USCRI) Houston affiliate, YMCA International Services, touts itself as an “agency that provides holistic services to Houston’s refugee and immigrant communities”. 

According to a June 2008 State Department inspection report we recently received these  so-called holistic services include:

1) Placing refugees in a dirty apartment complex, with apartments without smoke detectors, apartments infested with roaches and mice, broken, running sink faucets (not repaired for 2 months), inadequate clothing storage and no hangers, and refugee families packed into apartments too small for them, 2) making refugees wait 3 weeks after arrival for community and cultural orientation, so that until then they had no idea even how to use the bus, 3) failing to give refugees ready-to-eat food upon arrival after their long intercontinental flights to the U.S., 4) basic furnishings provided late, 5) waiting 2 and 3 months before enrolling refugee children in school,  6) leaving refugees without interpreters at medical appointments, and 7) mixing up refugee client records so that files contained missing reports, files contained documents from unrelated refugee cases, documents in the same file contradicted each other, and case notes that didn’t begin until four months after a refugee case’s arrival.

The State Department temporarily suspended refugee assignments to YMCA International Services, but not due to the above conditions. In fact, these conditions, which the State Department termed “partial compliance” (of refugee resettlement contract requirements) were what actually allowed the suspension to end. The suspension ended due to improvement from earlier worse conditions (“non-compliant” with contract conditions), which included among other things:

1) Placing refugees in roach and insect-infested apartments that the refugees did not feel safe in, 2) requiring refugees to pay for electricity for a time that predated their arrival to the U.S., 3) giving refugees sub-standard mattresses, as well as apparently a whole list of unmentionables, perhaps deemed unprintable.

Now wouldn’t you think that refugee resettlement would have been permanently terminated with this inept agency (or are they just uncompassionate?), and certainly not resumed? Apparently not. Yet, in what other areas of life is ”partial compliance” with contracts considered an acceptable form of business? It seems like this is accpetable only because the customers – the refugees and the taxpayers – are voiceless in the matter. The system doesn’t answer to them.

I think that State Department Office of Refugee Admissions officials have some explaining to do.

Posted in beds, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, community/cultural orientation, Cuban, employment services, Ethiopian, failure to enroll refugee children in school, food, furnishings, lack of, housing, overcrowding, housing, substandard, Houston, Iraqi, R&P, State Department, Texas, transportation, USCRI, YMCA International Services | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Office of Refugee Resettlement’s 2010 National Consultation

Posted by Christopher Coen on June 2, 2010

The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s 2010 National Consultation will meet next week in Washington DC. Apparently the ORR offered a travel scholarship to help some refugees pay for travel costs to the consultation.

Yet, according to Gedlu Metaferia, a former refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 1981 and the Executive Director of AMAAM (African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri), “Critics and refugees who advocate for change are not given scholarships [to] the consultation”, and the ORR is attempting to exclude refugees and refugee groups who have dared to criticize the government refugee agencies, i.e. those with “non-conformist views”. Mr. Metaferia also said, “If you raise one small criticism against the volag or ORR you are finished. They will marginalize and damage you employing various methods.”

Mr. Metaferia sent the following email exchanges.

Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010  

Subject: ORR’s 2010 National Consultation – Outreach to Encourage Refugee Attendance

Hello All,

….This year’s consultation will feature a listening session dedicated to refugee leaders and refugee community members and several small-group dialogue sessions to facilitate consultation between ORR and its stakeholders and on Monday, June 7. We are specifically hoping to have a strong refugee representation that day during these multiple opportunities for refugees to identify areas of needed improvement in refugee resettlement services and to make recommendations on how those services may be improved. 

ORR is specifically interested in learning about the challenges refugees faced as they resettled in the United States and what types of services would have been helpful.  With your help and other outreach efforts by ORR, we hope that there will be a strong refugee presence in the consultation and that the consultation will provide refugees with a platform to voice their views directly to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.  After the consultation, ORR plans to analyze the recommendations from refugees and other stakeholders and post an action plan on its website.  The action plan will guide refugee resettlement services in the year(s) to come….

Best,Essey Workie

Program Specialist (on Detail)

Office of Refugee Resettlement

Administration for Children and Families

Department of Health and Human Services

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Thank you for your interest in ORR’s 2010 National Consultation. ORR has a very limited travel scholarship for refugee community leaders to attend the consultation. We are working with the State Refugee Coordinators in key states to identify potential recipients of the travel scholarship. California is one of those states. If you are interested in finding out more information about this, please contact your State Refugee Coordinator with the contact information provided below:

Thuan Nguyen
Chief of Bureau
Refugee Programs Bureau
Department of Social Services
744 P Street, MS 6-646

Sacramento, CA 95814

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Sent: May 03, 2010 4:44 PM
Subject: the National meeting

Thank you for this notification. Gedlu Metaferia would be an important person to attend this meeting. He has worked with the Center and has been invaluable to the refugee community. Can you let us know if there is any funding available for scholarships that would allow him to attend.

sincerely
–
Jean Abbott, L.C.S.W.
Clinical Director
Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma

—————————————————————–

Sent: May 06, 2010 10:49 AM
Subject: RE: the National meetingGood Morning Mr. Metaferia,

I want to apologize for the error I made in my email to you below.  After I sent the email, I realized that I mistakenly indicated that you were from the state of California.  I know realize that you are in St. Louis, Missouri.  Missouri is not one of the key states we are targeting for the travel scholarship.  However, if you are interested (and to make up for my error), you may submit a statement of interest directly to me at essey.workie@acf.hhs.gov and be considered for the travel scholarship. 

The statement of interest should be no more than one page and should include a brief biographical sketch and describe the leadership roles you have assumed in the refugee resettlement community.  Please submit your statement of interest to me by COB Tuesday, May 11, 2010. 

If an individual is selected for the travel scholarship, ORR will cover his or her airfare, hotel, and per diem.  ORR will coordinate the travel arrangements directly with the travel scholarship recipient.  Also, we ask that the travel scholarship recipient participate in the Listening Session Dedicated to Refugee Leaders and Refugee Community Members which is scheduled for Monday, June 7, 2010 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.  The travel scholarship recipient will be asked to address Director Negash and other officials from the Administration for Children and Families.  During that address (approximately five minutes), ORR is specifically interested in learning about the key challenges each refugee group faced as they resettled in the United States and what types of services would have been (or will be) helpful. 

Thank you again for your interest in this year’s consultation in for your on-going concern for the refugee resettlement program.

Thank you,

Essey

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Short Statement of Interest to attend ORR Consultation Meeting June 7- 8, 2010

My name is Gedlu B. Metaferia. I am the Executive Director of AMAAM (African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri). I established AMAAM with like minded dedicated Ethiopians in April 13, 1983. I came as a refugee to the US in 1981 by way of the Sudan. I studied Public Health in Haile Selassie University at a young age for 3 years and did additional practicum  in Ethiopia. I left my country as a result of human right abuse in one of the darkest pages of Ethiopian / African History known as the “Red Terror”. Starting from the Sudan I have been involved in  refugee social adjustment work and health education for the last 32 years. I am a writer, human right activist and advocate for refugee and immigrant rights. My staff and I provide social adjustment (acculturation through diverse experiential and practical methods for survival and adaptation ), citizenship education, civic education, health education and promotion, interpretation and translation, permissible non-profit advocacy for health care, crisis intervention, education and practical intervention on the abuse of women ( an alarming trend among African immigrants) to all African refugees and Immigrants.  Initially from 1983-1997 the African population became diverse from each country of the continent. An informed Board of Ethiopian citizens accepted my initiative to change the name from ECAM (Ethiopian Community Association of Missouri) to AMAAM in 1999 and approved in 2001.  I have organized Grade A conferences with international ramifications on famine, enabling refugee women to enter the workforce in the USA, addressing the debt crisis in Africa, Conflict resolution and welcoming the stranger after September 11, 2001 which obtained a Press Release from the DOJ, Washington, DC, water a resource worth fighting for (the Changing Crisis of oil to Water in Africa), Interfaith Dialogue on Ethnicities, on tolerance and reconciliation. Three  of my international achievements include working with Ethiopian Elders’ Chairman as a volunteer advisor in the release of thousands of Ethiopian prisoners, providing knowledge about African culture  to a local US citizen diplomat of the Security Council to resolve conflicts, working with Somalis individually so that they may not fail to extremist indoctrination, fighting for comprehensive and just immigration reform and standing up against profiling  and backlash during incidents, raising $3,000 dollars and rehabilitating 7 hand dug wells by fitting them with Afridev hand pipes in cooperation with UNICEF in the Ogaden Region of Conflict Zone of Ethiopia providing potable water for 10,000 people thereby cutting diarrheal diseases by 90% for children, inviting Permanent Representative of Zambia to St. Louis in 2004 World Refugee Day to promote tolerance and reconciliation in Africa and to find durable solutions to refugees and internally displaced people, accepting a nomination by Zambia Hope (an NGO in Zambia) to be its Board member. To date AMAAM has served 15,000 immigrants, refugees, students and visitors of African origin since its inception. I am a writer both in Amharic and English, I am a recipients of numerous awards on my work for African refugees and human right. I am grateful for the State of Missouri Refugee Program ,the International Institute  and the Philopthochos Greek Women’s Society for their years of assistance to AMAAM. I am always grateful to this country which gave me the right to speak and to advocate responsibly, the right to speak my mind  without fear, the right to vote through the generosity and activism of citizens for which I have indebted to America better.

I bring a unique insight to the consultation conference as a former refugee, a community leader and service provider who has a wealth of experience working with refugees, State Refugee Coordinators, the International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis ( a VOLAG Affiliate), various groups of Africa and the interfaith community. My agency has provided uninterrupted service in economically best and hard times. It is one of the oldest MAAs in the US. Its longevity and experience and its capital of knowledge is unsurpassed among African MAAs. I also know that diplomatic approach, a welcoming spirit, listening to each other (even divergent and conflicting ideas) with good will to improve refugee services, tolerance and consensus building are important for the success of this conference. I have a voice of reason and understanding. I will raise issues of secondary migration that drain our resources and the challenges, why there is decreased civic participation among African refugees and the role of funding, the challenges of domestic violence among African populations what had been done to curb this, fair funding based on merit and experience as there is high turnover of MAAS built by various interests, strengthening experienced MAAs to defend immigrants and refugees from back lash. Although ORR should work with partners it has to look ways of independent approach for outcome oriented refugee service. I frankly gauge and see dissatisfaction in the refugee community whether new or old.  ORR has to work with community leaders and MAAS for “average” need fulfillment.

Gedlu Metaferia

Executive Director

AMAAM

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Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Subject: RE: ORR’s 2010 National Consultation – Nomination for Travel ScholarshipDear Geldu Metaferia,

Thank you for your self-nomination for the travel scholarship to attend the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) 2010 National Consultation. Unfortunately, your nomination was not selected by the Travel Scholarship Review Committee and the Director of ORR.　

We appreciate the time you invested in your application and your on-going service to the refugee resettlement community. We hope to see you in this and other ORR events. Until then, may you experience every personal and professional success.

Thank you again for your interest in ORR’s 2010 National Consultation and the travel scholarship.

Best,

Essey Workie

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Thank you for your reply. I was not self-nominated only. The State Refugee Coordinator wrote you a strong support email. One of your funded agency Center of Survivors of Torture and War Trauma sent you a strong email too. Regrettably ORR and its Director have missed “non-conformist views” essential for the reform of our refugee resettlement. Mr. Negash has missed the opportunity to provide fair leadership that is required in such consultations. The only difference of Mr. Negash’s consultation meeting is that his is openly advertised and participants are picked through scholarships and direct funding to give the resemblance of fairness while his predecessor did it with a mix of secretiveness and arrogance. May I remind you that American constitution, legislative process and even the Refugee Act of 1980 itself progressed through dialogue, approximating opposing views and through consensus. You should have been an example of promoting American values of dialog and conference building for the benefit 　and knowledge of refugees. Your decision of selecting participants through connected sponsorship affiliated with or sympathetic to ORR and the self-serving process of scholarship is worrisome.

Sincerely,

Gedlu Metaferia

Executive Director

AMAAM

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