Dear Network Friends:
Searching for Common Ground
A transitional housing community for international refugees and immigrants
needs a global communication system.
Resettled refugees face a myriad of barriers limiting adaptation and social
mobility in their new host nations. With the psychological, mental, and
physical trauma that characterizes the refugee experience, refugees can
better adapt to change through visonary community building processes.
Community building, locally and globally, can cultivate the social network
infrastructure for intercultural sharing, communication, and understanding
to work for the benefit of the whole community.
The NEED: A transitional housing initiative for refugees and immigrants is
looking for an international network or resources that will link residents
to their homelands, refugee camps, and/or families via the Internet.
This transitional housing concept was created to reduce or eliminate
situations where families come and immediately do not have a safety net or
are uncomfortable with their new residence where they are placed on arrival.
Refugees (from Ethiopia, Egypt, Vietnam, Somolia, Benin Republic, Gambia,
Sudan, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Bosnia and other countires) now living in the
U.S. have been separated from family and friends, sometimes for over five
years. The extreme difficulty of contacting and locating their relations
by phone or fax creates a desire for creative communication systems.
This is an opportunity to build community on the common ground of shared
suffering, involuntary displacement, resilience, and strength.
The new arrivals, in the aftermath of colonialism and often
post-colonialism, are so fragmented socially, politically, and ecomically
that they cannot, or have not been able to live together here in the
states, though they may have been forced to tolerate one another in the
refugee camps.
Then there are culturally derived hierarchical divisions (ie. casts, clans,
and social classes) that refuse to live with one another as neighbors,
especially equal partners.
So, in an effort to address the fragmentation, and not force people to live
with others for a long period of time that they do not feel comfortable
with, the idea of transitional housing emerged which helps prepare folks to
live in the U.S.
Refugees are examples of the human capability to survive and succeed during
the most tramatic forms of cultural change that humans can experience.
Access to Internet resources for this refugee community will cultivate
additional adpatation strategies and empower them to cope and manage their
lives in creative new meaningful ways.
"We must be the change we wish to see." - Gandhi
Confidentiality prohibits any details regarding the refugee community's
location, name, and organizational relationships at the present time.
For more information on the needed Internet resources or to contact
the refugee community:
catalinaplace@msn.com
dtsdixie98@aol.com
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Please share this story with others.
In Peace and Solidarity,
John Parker
Storytellers Network
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/storytellers