When your city has become a preferred resettlement site for refugees from the third world, eventually you will get to this point—needing workshops on “cultural understanding” and how “service providers” can do a better job supplying taxpayer-funded services to the city’s new impoverished people.
From the Bowling Green Daily News yesterday (hat tip Robin):
Mental health providers and other community members learned more about area refugees’ needs in a forum Friday hosted by Community Action of Southern Kentucky.
Refugees in Bowling Green sometimes don’t have easy access to services and resources they need, said Asti Offutt, mental health coordinator for the refugee service program at Community Action of Southern Kentucky.
“Because of the language barrier they are often ostracized or isolated in the community,” she said.
More than 100 people participated in the event throughout the day, which included two sessions – one for community partners and one for mental health providers, Offutt said.
Such a turnout indicates the need and desire for service providers to know more about refugee resettlement, she said.
Offutt said she wants to put together more programs, such as workshops to focus on cultural understanding of some of Bowling Green’s biggest refugee groups.
The program Friday was titled “Contextualizing the Refugee Experience: A Community Forum on the Resilience and Needs of Refugees in Bowling Green.”
Check out the community organizers at Community Action of Southern Kentucky—you are funding them! Out of an income of $15.7 million in their latest Form 990, government grants (you!) supplied them with $15.3 million.
Bowling Green, Bowling Green, where have we heard that before? Oh yeh! Here, on ABC’s Nightline about how Iraqi refugee terrorists found their way to Kentucky!
For more on Bowling Green, we have a lengthy archive here.