We'rrrree Back!!!!
Yes, we are. After spending a week in San Jose and San Francisco during our annual pilgrimage to the middle school where one of Corry's cellos is played by students and to visit Corry's alma mager, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, we returned to Las Cruces NM for another week hanging out with Afghan friends.
We witnessed a lot of progress with these proud and resrouceful folk.
1. The main agenda for the Afghans is finding work. Work brings confidence, a powerful antidote to despair and depression
2. Money is successfully arriving to their families in Afghanistan, along with phone visits, thanks to WhatsAp. There is no way, for now, for the Afghans to get their families out of Afghanistan to reunite with them.
3. Permanent homes have been found for small groups of men and families
4. The children are thriving in school. Today, we were at the El Calvario UMC over lunch. The chef we met last time in Dec/Jan is now cooking for the Afghans. We sampled his fare, a large plate sized turnover bread stuffed with mashed potatoes and spices. Itwas delicious. His wife prepared to flour. Their girls were trying out with us their first English sentences
5. A number of the men have flown the coop to Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas, seeking better jobs and opportunities. Other have been united with relatives and friends
6. El Calvario UMC has assumed fifty more Afghans, with total number at around 125.
7. And the sheltering program of Asylum Seekers from the border continues. One hundred are being processed as we speak, spending the night at the church, then moving on to famiies and communities across the country. The beat goes on.
This is what we have done in the past 3 days:
1. We created a jobs directory for the case managers and volunteers to business owners to promote jobs for Afghans. Each case managers is assigned a number of "clients" to respond to their needs, as a one stop shop prividor.
2. Some non-English job seekers met with a jobs counselor at the NM Workforce Connection
3. We interviewed six Afghans to create their resumes
4. Trudy spoke with a hotel manager who agreed to meet with two potential workers. The next day, we took the men to the hotel and the manager hired them on the spot
5. We drove to a number of businesses and handed out flyers telling of the Afghan's need for job. The reception was very positive, especcially from the hotels and the restaurans. It seems that like in the rest of the country, Las Cruces businesses are having difficulty finding workers.
6. The response to taking English lessons for the adults is spotty. The they would rather work now than learn English, to send money home. Many business will hire non-English speakers in menial labor at the minimum wage in NM at $11.50/hr.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we drive to El Paso TX to meet with an English speaking Afghan who will translate for us as we gather resume information from five Afghans.
On Monday, I will drive 15 Afghans to Mano a Mano (Hand to Hand) day labor pick up. Mano a Mano is operated by the city of Las Cruces and puts people to work cleaning city parks, painting and general maintenance of city properties at $60 per day.
All those whom we met the last time, the families that we took to the parks, the translators, recognized us, but greeted us with us, as close friends, which they are.
That last time, we worked during Christmas week, while we helped give staff a very well deserved break. We were pretty much alone with our van driving rounds, while meeting a very few of the staff. This time we have interacted with most of the case managers who have given us tasks to do. These are very hard working - underpayed, sacrificial humanitarians of the highest degree.
Here is a sobering stat. Currently and rising there are over 80 million internal and international displaced persons on the globe of all catergories. About half are children. And as we all know, over 2M Ukrainians have fled their country and the numbers continue rise. Yes, half of these are children.
Stay tuned
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