Young Projects: Conflict Resolution, Community Building Between Nepalese & Bhutanese

Multiculturalism at work. Chef Jeff Bacon, executive director of the Triad Community Kitchen, collaborates with Roshan Shrestra, a GTCC culinary student, and Hari, a Nepali refugee, to create a new Nepali-American recipe as they prepare for DATS MashUp. During this event refugee women got the opportunity to work in a professional kitchen and learn employable skills.

IN THE GUILFORD COUNTY (NC) area, there are about 300 Nepalese immigrants and 500 Bhutanese refugees, with the latter population continuing to grow as resettlement continues. The Triad Nepalese Community Center (TNCC) was formed in March, 2010 to initiate more community dialogue and discussion about common issues and problems. Bhutanese associate themselves with Nepalese culture. Before they came to the US, they had moved from Nepal to Bhutan about 100 years ago. As refugees, their experience and history is significantly different from Nepali Americans, yet both share a common heritage.

Working with TNCC, we have developed proposals for conflict resolution meetings between the two groups as they seek to create common ground.

A strong, united community will be able to best represent the interests of its members beyond the brief time that refugees are under the supervision of local resettlement agencies.

Preserving culture, preserving identity. Members of the Triad Nepalese Community Center and Betsy Renfrew, grant facilitator, work with Bhutanese refugees to preserve and promote textile crafts. Although most American stakeholders in the region support the idea of refugees preserving their cultural values, it conflicts with their hurried goal to get them jobs and teach them English. As artists, we lament the lack of serious dialog about this important matter. Increasingly, as dollars become more scarce, local acculturation efforts seem to resemble nothing more than rushed Americanization. If refugees can organize and begin making their own community decisions, they're more likely to be able to hold their own against the prevailing interests of American agencies.

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Update: October 2011

United Dashain Festival was organized by the Nepalese and Bhutanese communities working together. The communities dealt with their internal differences and confronted hard-to-solve problems. Significant achievements were made, such as attendance by over 500 community members, active participation in planning committees, and a soccer tournament that featured rough but fair play.

We played the role of technical advisors, assisting with grant-writing (to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, which approved a $2500 grant), community relations, and documentation.