.png)
Refugee Resettlement
Rotarian Kent Fry gave a quick update on the Afghan family that the Holland Rotary Clubs and Central Park Reformed Church sponsored. Our family arrived in January and our formal relationship just ended at the end of September. Three of five family members are working and they are self-sufficient. The sponsors spent about $10,000 for resettling the family. David Beattie said he calls his experience the resettlement adventure.
Kent introduced Katie Carpenter from Bethany Services. She is the social worker who worked with our resettlement team. Bethany works in the following areas.
- Vulnerable Kids - This includes adoption and foster services.
- Refugees and immigrants - Resettlement services.
- Global Families - This is a relatively new area. Bethany works in 7 countries to try to keep children in their home countries rather than having international adoptions.
State of Refugees Worldwide
There are currently about 100 million refugees worldwide. About 27 million are outside their country of origin and the rest are internally displaced. Refugees are defined as having a well-founded fear of persecution.
In the United States, there are 9 resettlement agencies authorized by the State Department. Internationally the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees vets refugees and assigns eligible refugees to countries. About 1% of all refugees qualify to be relocated to a different country. When the UNHCR assigns refugees to the US one of the agencies takes over.
The Afghan resettlement program was set up to be different from the usual channels. Because the agencies are overwhelmed, Ukrainian resettlement is handled entirely by private citizens, not the agencies. The program is called Uniting for Ukraine.
Regionally, Bethany has resettled 205 individuals plus 235 Afghans between October 2021 and September 2022. The breakdown of the non-Afghan refugees are 74% from Africa, 11% from East Asia (mostly Burmese), 10% Near East (Iran and Iraq), and 5% from Latin America.
Bethany can use volunteers to be family sponsors, foster care, and mentors/tutors. They also have a wishlist on Amazon.