Show 40: Refugee Families in Alaska
IMAGINE BEING FORCED to leave your home, your friends, your job and your country – taking everything you can carry and moving from camp to camp until starting over in a foreign country. Now imagine doing this and having to start school, meet a whole new set of peers and do homework in a new language, too. That’s the reality for the some children in refugee families who resettle in Alaska. Our two guests are helping to smooth the transition for these families.
IN-STUDIO GUESTS: Joining guest host, Kathleen McCoy, in the studio are Karen Ferguson, the Program Director of the Refugee Assistance & Immigration Services program of Catholic Social Services, the only refugee resettlement program in Alaska; she is also the US Office of Refugee Resettlement's State Refugee Coordinator for Alaska. Christine Garbe is the supervisor for the English Language Learners Program with the Anchorage School District, the department that assists refugee children enroll in and adjust to school.
FEATURED STORIES:
• Music to Their Ears - Michelle Theriault Boots reports on the RAIS Refugee Youth Music Group in Anchorage. Learn more about the group, the kids, the leaders or to volunteer (musicians wanted!) visit: RefugeeMusic.org
• From Bhutan to Alaska - In 1992 Nir Rana, then 8-years old, and her family were captured and taken at the Bhutan/India border along with thousands of other Nepali immigrant workers residing in Bhutan to a camp in Nepal. Today, 4 out of their 8 family members have resettled in Alaska after 18 long years as refugees. Ann Kaiser sat down with them to hear their story.
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  This show is made possible by the Association of Alaska School Boards’ Initiative for Community Engagement, an initiative funded by the US Dept. of Education to provide Alaskans with information, tools and assistance to work together and engage in the shared responsibility of preparing Alaska’s children and youth for the future. |
Comment via email from Diddy
Comment via email from Diddy H. -
"One opportunity for teen refugees to show their pride in their own countrries and cultures - and their knowledge of it is if they represent their own country - with all their knowledge of it - at the annual Model UN of Alaska which all Anchorage High School's participate in. It makes them so proud to be able to represent with authenticity their own country - when other high school students are having to struggle to know about the countries they represent."
Comment via email from Diddy
Comment via email from Diddy H. -
"One opportunity for teen refugees to show their pride in their own countrries and cultures - and their knowledge of it is if they represent their own country - with all their knowledge of it - at the annual Model UN of Alaska which all Anchorage High School's participate in. It makes them so proud to be able to represent with authenticity their own country - when other high school students are having to struggle to know about the countries they represent."
Comment via email from Greg
Comment via email from Greg S. -
"I volunteered through the Anchorage East Rotary Club to help out a refugee family from Bhutan. I taught the father to drive. Club members donated a car and household goods and clothes. My wife and I had the Bhutan family over for holidays, dinners and spent time sledding and skiing. I think "transplanted families" really need friendship, as much as jobs, shelter medical care."