Day: November 24, 2013

Bowling Green, KY: it is all about what the refugees need!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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.

Black Brits angered by immigration—want it stopped (or at least curtailed)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an interesting bit from the Telegraph late last week.  Some members of Britons black population think immigration is out of control in the UK.  Emphasis is mine.

Somalis in London protest plans to stop permitting remittances to Somalia

Black History Month is all about learning. I certainly learnt something this year. I trekked across England as a panelist on the Great Debate Tour. The tour travels to university campuses through October and November and invites black and ethnic minority students to Question Time style debates on immigration, integration, voter registration and enterprise.

To hear black people opposed to immigration is nothing new. In 2011 a study by Searchlight Educational Trust found 21 per cent of black Britons believed that all immigration into the UK should be stopped permanently, or at least until the UK’s economic situation improves. The study found 17 per cent of black Britons believed immigration had been a bad thing for Britain. However, what stunned me was the anger I witnessed.

One example (go to the Telegraph for the others):

At Greenwich University, a black charity worker from East London shared his deep-seated irritation at how the local culture had been transformed by Asian and Somali immigrants: “I feel uncomfortable” he said. His candid comment led to an awkward silence.   [It is not about race, it is about culture!—ed]

Immigration is the one political issue that motivates British blacks.

One concern of the Great Debate founders is that blacks are not as politically active as whites. But immigration was the one issue black people in these audiences did have a political opinion about. And black Brits are uncomfortable with it.

Photo is from this story you may have heard about.  Banks fear that money being sent out of western countries to Somalia may end up in the hands of Islamic terrorists.  These London Somalis who know how to work the system and, whose population is dramatically increasing, want the tap left open.

In Bulgaria refugees complain to UNHCR: we want the real Europe

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) Antonio Guterres got an earful from refugees when he visited a Bulgarian refugee shelter Friday.  He called on other European countries to help the beleaguered Bulgarians who were swamped with 10,000 refugees coming across their Turkish border this past year alone!

Antonio Guterres (left), former President of the Socialist International, talks with refugees in Sofia.

But get this! 4,000 were other-than-Syrians, so who were they?

From AFP via Ma’an News Agency:

SOFIA (AFP) — UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres on Friday called for the European Union to step up support for countries like Bulgaria coping with an influx of Syrian refugees living in overcrowded camps.

The EU needs to mobilize and show “solidarity … especially when some countries like Bulgaria have more limited resources and are at the external border of the union,” Guterres told journalists after visiting a refugee camp in Sofia with EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva.

Bulgaria, the bloc’s poorest member, has been completely overwhelmed by the arrival this year of almost 10,000 refugees — 60 percent of them Syrian — crossing over illegally from Turkey.

Bulgaria taking some action to stem the tide:

Bulgaria started turning non-Syrian refugees back at the border this month and plans to build a 20-mile fence in one area.

Refugees:  we want out of here, we want to go farther west into Europe!

“We thought that this is Europe but we were mistaken. We want to head west as soon as possible,” said a 34-year-old Syrian refugee, Yusuf Kuka, at the Vrazhdebna camp on the outskirts of Sofia on Friday.

“We have waited for two months already, in vain, and the conditions here are dangerous for the children,” added another refugee, Ralfa Gennan, from the city of Homs.

[….]

They complained about the lack of enough living space, the shortage of blankets, and the poor hygiene in the few toilets and bathrooms in the building.   [Perhaps Guterres arranged for the delivery of cleaning supplies.—ed]

We want passports out of here!

About 100 women and children blocked Guterres’ way out of the courtyard, shouting “Passports! Passports.”

See all of our previous posts on poor Bulgaria by clicking here.  Don’t miss Israel’s Mossad to the rescue, here.