Refugee Integration into Society through Education
RISE is the newest project of the Junior League of Salt Lake City which began Fall of 2007 and will end in Spring of 2010. The Junior League of Salt Lake City has worked hard in collaboration with Catholic Community Services in creating and implementing this refugee assistance program. The RISE committee has worked with refugees from the countries of Somalia, Burma, Burundi and Bhutan. Our classes meet on Monday nights and run in sessions from four to six weeks long.
Catholic Community Services, or CCS, is one of several agencies in Utah assigned by the federal government to shepherd refugees into life in the United States. The Junior League of Salt Lake City’s role has been to assist CCS by teaching the refugee women life skills. This includes everything from learning the American monetary system to fire safety to nutrition. We have focused on topics that are second nature to us, but foreign to these women who are in need of everyday skills to live successfully in this country. When we meet with a new class of refugee women, they may have arrived in the U.S. just days prior.
Our aim is to not turn the refugees into Americans; rather we want to celebrate the diversity they bring to our community. We do the best we can to assist these ladies in adjusting to their new life and even provide weekly giveaways of household items, food and clothes. We always try to maintain a dialogue with the ladies in our classes (via our interpreters) about the way they are used to doing things, and ways that we can try to make things easier for them here.
Each class is different, but the topics are the same: health and wellness, hygiene/cleanliness, budgets/finance, fire safety, kitchen safety, caring for babies and children. We hold graduation celebrations for the at the completion of the classes. The certificates we provide at graduation were at first a ceremonial gesture, but have actually proven to be a useful tool for these women as they seek jobs.
Our goal for the final year of RISE is to pass the program on to CCS so they can maintain it as a primary source of training for refugees for years to come. Interns from the University of Utah have been using the curriculum developed by the RISE committee over the summer to teach additional classes. After our three-year involvement ends in June 2010, the legacy of the Junior League of Salt Lake City’s RISE program will continue.
