Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Quad-Cities’ Category

Water Safety For Refugees

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 20, 2012

After the accidental drowning of an African refugee boy last summer on the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area of Illinois, local organizations assisting refugees (not the local resettlement agency – World Relief) asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District for African language water safety information. The Corps has now responded with a water safety program to teach immigrants how to stay safe while enjoying recreation in or near the water in the US. An article at the official homepage of the US Army has more:

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. (March 19, 2012) — The drowning of an African immigrant last summer on the Mississippi River resulted in a request for African language water safety information that will help prevent such a tragedy from happening again.The 11-year-old boy was from Burundi, Africa. He moved to the U.S. four years ago and to the Quad Cities two years ago. The Church of Peace in Rock Island, Ill., and the Community Resource and Learning Center of Moline, Ill., work with refugees to educate, train and prepare them for new lives in local communities.

After the drowning, these organizations contacted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District to provide water safety programs to teach immigrants how to stay safe while enjoying recreation in or near the water in America.

This information program presented challenges in both culture and language…

…”We found that the programs were more successful by creating presentations with some key word translations and having a native translator on site to communicate our water safety message in their language,” said Lou Ann McCracken, a natural resources specialist with the Mississippi River Project… Read more here

Related: Arizona Daily Star – Refugees learn swim skills in free program

Posted in drowning, Quad-Cities, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Drowning deaths of new American children

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 5, 2011

A second African new American child has drowned in Rock Island, Illinois in a little over two years. On May 28, 2009 a 6-year-old Liberian child drowned during a school field trip, and now an 11-year-old Burundian boy has drowned while swimming with friends in the Mississippi River. A Quad-Cities Times article gives the details:

The drowning of 11-year-old Michel Niyubahwe on Monday will likely be used to help local immigrants understand the dangers of the Mississippi River, said Jill Doak, the organizer of a recent immigration study.

Niyubahwe, who immigrated from Burundi with his family four years ago, drowned while swimming with friends Monday afternoon near George Skafidas Parkway in Rock Island.

Josh Ngao of Fishers of Men Ministries in Davenport, who helped translate between police and family members who speak Swahili, said many in the local African immigrant community don’t realize the dangers of the Mississippi River.

Doak, who organized several recent study circles in Rock Island to discuss issues that immigrants and refugees face, said the river and the danger it poses
hadn’t come up for discussion but likely will now.

“Definitely, there is something that could be done that could identify the environmental changes here,” such as the river, she said.

Many native Quad-Citians grow up with knowledge of how dangerous the Mississippi River can be, but many immigrants come from regions of the world where the rivers are safe for swimming and wading, Doak said.

“We shouldn’t assume families know things,” she said.

Doak said the study circles developed five action strategies, including helping establish a better communication system between immigrants and police. Now that the local African immigrant community has had two children drown in the past two years, water safety also likely needs to be addressed, Doak said.

On May 28, 2009, 6-year-old Grace Vah, a native of Liberia in West Africa, drowned during a school field trip to the Whitewater Junction swimming facility in Rock Island... Read more here

This is also less than a month after a 9-year-old Burundian refugee boy drowned in a pond in Buffalo, New York.

Posted in Buffalo, Burundian, children, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, drowning, Liberian, Quad-Cities, safety | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Refugee women abducted and raped in Moline, IL

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 17, 2010

This is a story from March that we just found out about.
 
In Moline, Illinois (Quad-Cities) a man abducted and raped two refugee women. The women’s relatives report that their refugee resettlement agency, World Relief, did almost nothing to aid them after the crime.
  
A man in a van offered the women a ride to the bus stop, and after asking to borrow their cell phone he pulled a gun on them. He then drove them to an isolated section of Big Island and made them walk to an abandoned cabin where he tied them to a desk and repeatedly raped them. After the man left and said he would return for them the women were able to get out of their restraints and flee.
Police say the Woodhull, Illinois man accused of kidnapping and raping two women at gunpoint lured them into his car with the offer of a ride at a bus stop on the Rock Island-Milan border. 
 
 Instead, investigators say Jason Kugler victimized them in a day of terror on Big Island. 
 
”It was essentially a ruse, and once he got them into the van, he asked for one of the victim’s cell phones, and once he received the cell phone, he pulled a gun on them”, said Sgt. Steve Ven Huizen, the lead investigator for the Rock Island County Sheriffs Department, who said the women didn’t know Kugler. 
 
The victims, both in their 20′s were then driven the short distance to a remote section of Big Island. 
 
”He ordered them out of the vehicle, and marched them to an abandoned building”, said Rock Island County lead investigator Sgt. Steve Ven Huizen. 
 
The empty, garbage filled yellow cabin sits on the river, inside, a bunk bed, with a desk, which police believe the women were tied to and assaulted. 
 
”They were sexually assaulted, they were bound inside the building, he was telling the victims he was going to return later on”, said the detective. 
.
But once he left, they managed to un-tie themselves and escape, running through the woods, about a mile towards an embankment that lead to Route 92, where they flagged down a passerby for help…here 
Relatives of the victims said that World Relief stopped by only once after the rapes, and that the victims went once or so for counseling and then it stopped.
 
The relatives also said that they were not happy with World Relief services and how the agency was handling their situation in Moline. The refugees said that World Relief employs heavy control of them, but not real help.

Posted in abuse, dangerous neighborhoods, evangelical, faith-based, Illinois, police, Quad-Cities, safety, sexual abuse, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

 
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