A group of local residents and teachers have banded together to help more than 200 children, who are refugees from Myanmar. (Photos submitted)
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After escaping persecution and genocide with only the clothes on their backs, refugees from Myanmar are receiving a little help from Rutherford County.
Local residents and teachers have banded together to help a substantial group of refugees living in Smyrna.
More than 200 children and their families have been placed in the area and the need for additional help in school is essential.
“Several people have joined together and started nonprofit tutoring after school for the children, but it has been a community effort,” said Diane Mackey, a member of the Tennessee Board of Education.
Burned from their villages, pushed out of their homeland by military force, and living in refugee camps is a story the Karen (Ka-Wren) people living in Smyrna know all too well.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is situated between Bangladesh and Thailand in Southeast Asia.
The Karen is a minority group in Myanmar, which has been largely displaced as they seek refuge from an ethnic cleansing in their nation.
“About six new families just arrived, and they had no warm clothing when they got here,” Mackey said. “We just got some clothing to the children.”
Community Servants, a Christian organization based in Smyrna, is highly involved in setting up housing arrangements and providing basic needs for the Karen people.
Community Servants Director John Key explained most refugees come through a settlement agency known as World Relief.
The Karen refugees have been placed all over the United States through settlement agencies, though many more are moving to the area because relatives were placed in Smyrna.
“We try to make sure they have enough to help them get by,” Key said.
Key also said Community Servants cannot always provide furniture, but the group does provide shelter, food and a significant amount of help in school for the Karen people.
“We are working to help the schools, especially Smyrna, (which) have a lot of the children,” Key said. “We are trying to help them gain English skills so they can succeed.”
Nona Hall, coordinator for English as a Second Language in Rutherford County, has been quite active with the Karen people.
Hall helped start the nonprofit tutoring organization known as Community Connections when she realized ESL classes at school would not be enough for some of the children.
“Some of the children had very little formal education even in their native language, and there was a lot of secondary teachers who couldn’t teach somebody to read,” Hall said.
She said second language teachers rely on literacy of any language in order to teach English, but when someone cannot read in their native language there is an even greater difficulty involved.
“It was way more than a school system could do on its own,” Hall said.
Community Connections was able to rent an apartment for after-school tutoring in the complex where the majority of Karen refugees are living, providing convenient access for students.
In addition to tutoring children, Community Connections also conducts adult classes that focus on American culture.
“We focus on culture in America because most of the adults know nothing about it, (and) they don’t know how the government works or the law,” Hall said. “We have to teach them how to fit into our society.”
While the Karen people are a fairly new addition to Rutherford County, the first wave of refugees actually arrived in Smyrna more than four years ago.
Hall was pleased to point out the recent high school graduation of some Karen refugees who were among the first to arrive in Rutherford County.
“Right now, they have no voice, but we are helping them become productive members,” Hall said. MP |
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