Enlarge Steve Parker greets refugees at Neighborhood Good Samaritan Center

Posted: December 5th, 2011 Tonya Jameson

In a small building tucked off Sharon Amity Road, dozens of refugees from Bhutan and elsewhere crammed into a small room inside the Neighborhood Good Samaritan Center.

Some wore flip-flops although it was cold enough to see your breath outside. Others were hungry after a long day of classes and little to eat. Yet, it wasn't the lack of warm shoes or even the hunger that bothers them – it was the lack of help. They were refugees fleeing countries such as Somalia, Vietnam and Bhurma. They wanted help, not hand-outs.

It was a refrain participants of Crossroads Charlotte's In Our Own Backyard: A Community Tour Through a World of Cultures bus tour heard often Thursday night. The tour exposed participants to organizations and agencies that help Charlotte’s Immigrant, Refugee, Asylee and International (IRAI) communities. The tour was part of the monthlong Many Cultures, One Community initiative.

Some of the tour participants worked with the IRAI communities’ service providers such as the Mecklenburg Area Partnership for Primary-Care Research and International House. Others simply heard about it and wanted to learn more about the IRAI communities.

Along with a stop at the Neighborhood Good Samaritan Center, the tour visited the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency on Monroe Road and ended at the Hindu Center off of Independence Boulevard.

One UNC Charlotte intern from Japan said the tour exposed her to diversity and the challenges people face. She said she doesn’t see a lot of diversity in Japan.

At the Neighborhood Good Samaritan Center, Executive Director Patrice Ognodo showed how his organization helps refugees overcome the challenge of moving to another country with little to no possessions and no English language skills.

He showed tour participants the center's activity room, classroom and computer lab. It sounds fancy and high-tech. It’s not. The rooms were small. The computers are dated. Still, center offers the refugees their best hope of surviving in their new homeland.

The refugees explained – through a translator – they needed more instructors to teach them English. Ognodo is only one person and he does it all: teaches, transports, advocates and more. With so many Charlotte agencies operating food pantries, it was difficult to understand why the refugees were hungry. Then Ognodo explained that they don’t know how to open cans or cook with American utensils.

Ellen Dubin, Executive Director of Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency, shared similar stories. In her small office off Monroe, she and her volunteers track the arrivals of new refugees and the progress of those who currently live here. Her agency helps settle refugees as well. Along with picking them up at the airport and providing them with furnished apartments, her staff and volunteers teach some of them everything from eating with utensils to sitting at a dinner table to making beds.

Dubin and Ognodo, however, emphasized that along with the material needs such as money, furniture and volunteers their organizations need employment assistance. Their goal is to get the refugees settled and employed as quickly as possible so they can take care of themselves and their families.

Steve Parker said summed it up best.

“We often think about it in terms of going overseas and going to third world countries and going to places where there’s great poverty and need,” he said. “I think what we saw tonight was that there’s a tremendous amount of need right here at home. People need to be made more aware of it.”

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