In our family support program, we look at four key areas that gravely affect the families we have engaged work with. Those areas include:
Employment: New Americans moving into the US most definitely believe there are enough jobs for them. They get the shock of their lives when they cannot get the employment they crave because of their limitations, like age, language, inability to read and write, etc. When they cannot get the job they want, they seek assistance from elsewhere, like government supported financial assistance. Our job is to find them job at all cost, and if that does not happen, we help to find assistance until they can land a job. Ways we find job for them include to find employer that have availability for the kind of jobs they can do and we compile resume that suit their skills and experience. We also practically fill application forms for them. But we also seek rent relief, food support, and other assistance for them. There are some who lose their jobs and are receiving unemployment benefits. We engage with them and encourage them to return to job by helping them to find job opportunities and filling their application forms. We also network with partners to achieve this.
Family management: This kind of activity is not how the parents manage their homes. Our job is to educate our clients on what is the difference between managing families in Africa and managing families in the United States. Some parents still transpose what they did back in Africa, which was controlling the women, not allowing their children to have a say in matters concerning the family, etc. We educate our clients how they could come in conflict with the laws if they did not abandon some of the practices they learned from Africa, which includes wife battering, children beating that sometimes show physical injuries and bruises. We network with like-minded partners to achieve this.
Economic empowerment: Our economic empowerment initiative is in two-folds: a) to increase our clients’ understanding of English thereby paving the way for them to communicate properly on the job, and b) to ensure that they are able to take the Citizenship test administered by USCIS. Most of them have already failed once and only have one more to pass or they cannot take the citizenship test anymore. We also encourage some of the single women, elders, and youths who cannot read and write to take GED classes. We are breaking grounds in this area and there is a great prospect.
Language improvement: Most refugees coming to the US speak English as their second language, others third language. But they are here. And while they are here, they need money to purchase their basic needs – food, clothes, etc. They must pay rent to live in an apartment and many other hurdles that they face. Our job is to first encourage them to consider attending GED classes. But for those who are older and cannot sit in class, we seek to improve their English. There is no formal classroom. We sit with them, talk with them only in English even though they are often tempted to speak their dialect/vernaculars. We tell them to ask us for the names of items in their homes – microwave, thermostat, etc. It has helped to bring most from “no English” to “little bit English”.