Jewish Family & Children Services of Pittsburgh is touting its refugee employment services. According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette JFCS of Pittsburgh is using federal stimulus funds as well as a grant from Allegheny County to fund their job readiness program for refugees.

[Leslie Aizenman, director of refugee services at Jewish Family & Children Services of Pittsburgh] said the nonprofit organization strives to help its clients who are refugees navigate government services and get their families settled into suitable, safe living quarters. It works toward its goal of helping refugees become financially independent by providing job readiness training.

 

…”This is different from economic development,” Ms. Aizenman said. “This is strictly humanitarian.” here

Of course that’s not entirely true, as we’ve heard from officials in others states that they lobby for and accept refugees into their communities as a type of economic development, here.

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Ms. Aizenman obviously means that refugees come here not as immigrants who are simply in search of better economic conditions, but because they are fleeing oppression and at this time are not able to return to their home countries. At the same time, however, I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that there are many people here — politicians, state officials, business people — who are more than ready to use the refugees as (1) easily exploitable low-wage labor (2) a tool to fill emptied crime-ridden and decayed neighborhoods (3) or even as a means to bring in federal funds, via welfare and many other public funding.

Last month, 11 refugees graduated from the first tier of the organization’s job-readiness program, which received stimulus funding through a Community Services Block Grant and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“The students are certainly a focus,” said Judy Berkowitz, refugee services coordinator at the nonprofit. “The [older] adults have a harder time adjusting so we wanted to see if we could get some of these younger adults to take a leadership role in their families and communities.”

To do this, Ms. Berkowtiz and co-workers researched how other organizations across the country are engaging younger refugees and setting up weekly workshops to teach them everything from business etiquette to how to apply the skills they learned in their home communities to job opportunities in Pittsburgh.

“You have to remember their jobs in their villages might have been to forage for food,” Ms. Aizenman said.

I guess I don’t quite understand how JFCS helps them to apply skills in food foraging to job opportunities in Pittsburgh. I also don’t understand why groups such as JFCS of Pittsburgh have to research all of this themselves in order to create job readiness programs. Isn’t the purpose for having national resettlement networks such as HIAS so that they can train and direct their affiliates with their specialized knowledge and experience? It sounds like the affiliates are each having to reinvent the wheel.

A separate grant from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services Office of Community Services helped Jewish Family & Children Services of Pittsburgh offer a second tier of the program — one that would help the 11 participants get actual experience as well as a paycheck.

The grant pays the wages to the interns for their employers, which is minimum wage for those younger than 18 and $10 an hour for those 18 and older.

“These students were already doing resumes, and this came in and I could tell them they really could get a summer job,” Mr. Berkowitz said, adding it would have been impossible to place the students if it weren’t for community partners such as Whitehall Public Library.

Karen Rock, a longtime educator and liaison for Jewish Family & Children Services, worked with the students throughout their training. She meets with the interns and their employers every week, and so far, she said, things are going swimmingly for all involved.

“Everyone is just so pleased with the interns and it’s only been two weeks,” she said. “I think it’s a win-win situation.”

Ms. Rock and others stressed that not only does the internship program help the students learn valuable work skills, it also helps them support their families.

Nan Kyi Kyi Htay, 16, said that’s how she will use the money she earns this summer working at the Whitehall Library: to help buoy the family’s savings.

One thing that is clear here is that none of this is being paid for by JFCS of Pittsburgh — a so-called private sector agency. Instead, the money is coming from the federal and county governments, which makes me wonder what the value is of the private sector participation. (Whenever the resettlement agencies talk to Congress and the media they never seem to mention the county government and stimulus funding they receive.)

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I mean, this could be run at the county level. Not that I’m greatly impressed with much of government agencies’ efficiency, effectiveness, or even accountability. Buy private organizations are certainly not at all accountable to the public. Their participation, intrusion even, also comes with private agendas, such as personal religious agendas. What are we getting here for our money?