Day: March 20, 2008

Canada took Rohingyas, are they crazy?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the helpful aspects of managing a blog is that one can see what people are searching for that brings them to us.  A couple of people today were searching Rohingyas, Burmese Muslims, and Canada.    So I googled around and found out that Canada did take Rohingyas this time last year, and became the first western country to do so.

Go back and read our previous posts beginning with this one.   And, then go back further to this one.

All I can say is that I guess Canadian government officials who made this decision hadn’t been doing their homework, hadn’t even been reading liberal Time magazine.   Notice to US State Department, no Rohingyas here!

For a group of people living in refugee camps in Southern Bangladesh, the late arrival of the Canadian spring will mean a true fresh start in the spirit of the season. Canada is taking the initiative of opening its doors to a first group of Rohingya refugees living in UN camps in the southern tip of Bangladesh.

“White flight” believed to be happening in Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We keep hearing rumblings that things are not running smoothly in Australia, one of the world’s leading refugee resettlement sites.    No comment from me on this story from The Age of Melbourne.

Refugees should be housed across a wider spread of suburbs to halt the so-called “white flight” from some government schools, according to a senior Federal Government MP.

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Laurie Ferguson, parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, said white flight — where Anglo-European parents shun state schools that have a high proportion of students from other racial backgrounds — had become a big challenge for multicultural Australia.

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“People fear there is a monoculture in some suburbs. They believe there is an over-dominance of some cultures in schools, which is denigrating the quality of education,” Mr Ferguson told The Age.

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“So they are withdrawing their kids from government schools and sending them to religious or selective high schools. This leads to further concentration of marginalised communities in government schools and the further stigmatisation of these schools.”

Refugees in Pittsburgh helped, sort of, by college students

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an article from a college newspaper, “The Pitt News,” that talks about students helping refugees primarily to find jobs.   My guess is that job hunting is going to be a huge problem in coming months and years if the predictions about the economy come to pass. 

A Pitt group that helps refugees from war-torn countries now living in the United States recently launched a program to match students with refugees to help them find jobs.

The group formed by the students at the University of Pittsburgh found out that the refugees are either over-qualified or under-qualified for employment that is available.  

Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment is working closely with Catholic Charities to find clients who need assistance through a Refugee Resettlement Initiative.

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“We tried to figure out what major issues were facing refugees in Pittsburgh and how Pitt students could alleviate them,” said Molly Ferra, FORGE regional director and a Pitt senior.

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Through working with Catholic Charities’ employment specialists, FORGE members discovered that many of the refugees were either overqualified or under-qualified for jobs in the United States.

We have seen this dilemna elsewhere.  Refugees who are engineers or doctors where they came from must literally return to school to be qualified to work in America, so they end up cleaning motels and such.  

It’s good these students are trying to help because, as the students learned, the refugee resettlement agencies are paid to help the refugees for only a few months and once their federal dole runs out, they turn their attention to a new batch of refugees who come with taxpayer dollars attached.

One reason it’s important for Catholic Charities to connect with Pitt is that the organization only has two employment specialists, two caseworkers and limited money for resettlement programs.

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A lot of the money the organization has goes toward new refugee arrivals.

But, darn, don’t those students have a tough job according to the Catholic Charities representative.  They need to keep these refugees from being sucked into our materialistic society.  Imagine that these refugees would want cell phones and cars!  Tsk! Tsk!

“They’re basically being seduced in this western, very materialistic culture. We see people buying cell phones and vehicles, and then what happens is there may be two parents working in the household but one’s job may be cut, and then they’re not able to pay all their bills.”

O.K.  So, I was (mostly) fine with all this.  Afterall, we have been advocating that these agencies reach out to churches and other groups in a bigger way and find refugees more help to become a part of our culture and to be self-sufficient. 

But, then the student leader ruins it all by making this comment.

Ferra said FORGE is trying to acculturate the refugees. “It doesn’t mean assimilation – giving up their customs or religion,” Ferra said.

Heaven forbid we should ask anyone to give up any part of their religion or culture and assimilate!   When did we get to the point where ‘assimilate’ is a bad word?   In this brave new world of cultural relativism, anything one does in the name of culture and religion is just dandy.

Ms. Ferra, is every religious practice equal and acceptible in your mind?  How about if the practice is illegal, can we then request a refugee give it up when becoming an American?   I had in mind polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and honor killings—all are an acceptable part of Islam.