Systemic change is not that hard.
After an orderly distribution of compost to families, the Glen Haven Mother's Group hands out more heavy duty farm hoes, watering cans and hoses and takes names of families who wish garden boxes. The day before they took it upon themselves to ask their Karen neighbors if they'd like to come to today's event. But first they asked me. Should we invite them? Yes, of course, I said, encouraging and reminding them of their stated desire when they formed the group to involve all their neighbors. Now they say the Spanish girl wants a garden box. I ask, Who is the Spanish girl? They yell for her and out of the crowd of kids, dads and moms carrying away tools, hoes and bags of dark compost comes a young woman, a Spanish speaker who grew up there since she was little. Unlike the Bhutanese moms running the Mother's Group, she knows all the families across language groups and cultures. She and her siblings played with all their kids, have been in and out of everyone's apartment, and grew up together. She knows R and probably would recognize V and L, all Montagnard youth who went on to become Bonner Scholars at Guilford College. Today she's a university student, studying health science. Does she know about our research work on refugee hypertension, food and nutrition, and wellness? Does she know these professors (I name them) who'd like her to be on our research team? No, but she is deeply interested.
Such is the state of services, communications and connections to and within newcomer neighborhoods. While there are plenty of services there's often no appreciable sense that very simple things, like connecting a young woman to on-going research and academic work happening at her own apartment complex and related to her career could help her, her family and her neighbors. Connecting her will certainly make a huge difference to our research work because our projects are 100% reliant on good relations, cooperation and mutual respect. Often, there's no sense among native-born Americans, volunteers or paid professionals working with newcomers, that small things build better relations among newcomer groups or improve a family's or individual's fortunes. Without that recognition they can't institutionalized and introduced into regular practice. Instead, newcomers get bits and pieces of advice, help or information, maybe with follow up but usually not. There is no standard for determining when a family's resettlement is complete, except when scant funding dollars run out.
Unless we make the effort to make those connections and recognize their value, our impression can be that communities are helpless and lack resources and talent. Five years ago we brought to the attention of the regional health system the existence of medical doctors trained in their native land and fully knowledgeable of their refugee community's health challenges. We got polite acknowledgement but no action. To this day hypertension and other chronic, preventable diseases continue to cause families and individuals to suffer. Since 2012, I was able to identify, advise and mentor youth like the young Spanish-speaking woman from high school to graduation, suggesting career opportunities and steering them to service learning and research work that both improved their communities and helped them appreciate the roles they could play as adults. Such young people will be the ones to finally force systemic change, I believe.
