LACK OF CONNECTEDNESS IS COSTLY — ESPECIALLY FOR REFUGEES THEMSELVES, WHO ARE ULTIMATELY MADE TO PAY FOR OUR REGION’S INEFFICIENCIES.
How long would it take you to find answers to these questions?
Why is it so difficult if Greensboro and Guilford County have been hosting refugees for decades?
Volunteers, sponsors, and charitable donors face an uphill climb trying to understand “how the system works”, who does what, and why. At Refugee Information Network of Guilford (RING) meetings and other large gatherings, a lot of time is spent explaining who does what or how and why a policy came into being.
The region needs a single information Web site that addresses regional refugee issues and can quickly bring stakeholders, policy makers, and the public up to speed. Individual refugee agencies have Web sites that reflect the scope of their missions, not the entire scope of refugees’ problems and concerns. Everyone working with refugees wants to see more success stories published and circulated. Most stakeholders recognize the need for an educated public and allies but as long as information is dispersed, hard to find, and held by a few, the public’s knowledge about refugees will be sporadic — marked by “feel-good” people stories, dramatic turnarounds like LFS's departure from Greensboro, reports on run-down housing conditions and crime.
Whenever I've suggested the expanded use of the Internet, online apps, and collaborative media at refugee meetings, the responses split along age and profession. Older folks like email and pointedly state they can't be bothered to learn more. But older folks who are professionals in fields like health and medicine are pro technology, because they use it everyday and know its value. Younger folks use and know the value of social and collaborative media, but at these meetings they don't make the rules. Oldsters believe an email notice announcing a meeting is sufficient to attract community involvement and bring the best talent to the table. When they do come, as they did at the Open Space meeting, they see old attitudes and beliefs ascendant. It's a turn-off, a signal to business, academia and the rising generation of would-be problem solvers, entrepreneurs, community activists that change in our city will be ponderous, controlled, and limited.
When Greensboro was a small town and all the decision-makers knew one another, I'm sure this small-town approach worked. This is no longer the case, yet despite clear signals that the Old Order's way of doing things is not adequate to the difficult tasks at hand — witness the pullout of Lutheran Family Services — we continue to believe email and proven remedies of another era will solve today’s very hard, chronic problems that only promise to worsen with more cutbacks just announced by the State.
