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"Suddenly, war started" [This Week's Voices]


April 18, 2008
By Kathleen Sands Adams

San Diego refugee teens Refugee teens in San Diego taking part in an IRC after-school basketball program.
San Diego refugee teens Refugee teens in San Diego taking part in an IRC after-school basketball program. Photo: Emily Holland/The IRC
A regular round-up of notable quotes from the news and the Web.

"Suddenly, war started and strange people came to our house, stole our money, and they killed my grandmother. They asked us to leave our house and our cars. They did this because they had the power to do it.”

- Fadumo Issa, a senior at Crawford High School resettled by the IRC in San Diego, writing as part of A Different Life, an exhibit at the Museum of San Diego History celebrating the cross cultural experiences of young Somali refugees living in the U.S., and developed by the IRC’s Students Plus after school program in San Diego. Taken from a report by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
"It is wonderful to my mind."
- Burmese refugee Jamesteem Hla, marveling at the skyscrapers surrounding the IRC's New York office. The New York Sun published a front page article and slideshow Tuesday on the upsurge in Burmese refugee resettlement in the U.S. over the past two years. The paper profiled Hla's family and followed them from their arrival at JFK Airport in New York to their moving into a new apartment in Brooklyn—all the while accompanied by IRC caseworkers.

"Most of those that have gone back are not going back because they feel that it is safer. They are going back because their visas have expired or because they've run out of money in Jordan or Syria. In fact, more people are going into Syria than into Iraq. There's still more of a net outflow than a net return."

- Michael Kocher, IRC's acting vice president for international programs, in a World Politics Review story about the fears Iraqi refugees have about possibly returning home.
“I kept volunteering because I found everything I was looking for in the Peace Corps was right here in my own backyard. I wanted to be exposed to other cultures and maybe be able to help a little bit.”
- Mary Thompson, who volunteers with an IRC program that teaches adult refugees in San Diego how to speak English and learn basic job skills. She was quoted in Today's Local News.
“The challenge is to provide enough assistance to give the refugees a base to start. Each family, each individual deals with those challenges in different ways.”
- Ken Briggs, IRC resettlement director in Tucson, interviewed by the The Arizona Daily Star for an article Tuesday about financial difficulties besetting some area refugee resettlement agencies.

 

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