A day in the life of a Refugee/immigrant Health educator at the New American Welcome Center (NAWC)

A day in the life at the NAWC. This Welcome Center was initiated to welcome and receive newcomers and help people integrate into US culture and life.  We served families coming from all over the world, from Afghanistan, to Burma, Iraq, Sudan Congo to Cuba, Haiti and Columbia, over 16 countries with different cultural backgrounds and languages. I served as a cross-cultural liaison and holistic health educator to access resources for these communities.  

Our clients consisted of refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons among others.  According to UNHCR the UN Refugee Agency, “Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country,” they are protected under international law.  Whereas, according to the UNHCR, "An asylum-seeker is someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed. Every year, around one million people seek asylum,” they are also often fleeing dangerous situations and seeking asylum once they arrive in the host country. There are those that come with their families intact and those who have no family nor the necessary documents. 

The multifaceted complexities faced daily were astounding.  This experience gave me more insight and respect for the people and the many barriers they faced and overcame regarding language, distinct cultural expectations and systemic navigation, coming from traumatizing circumstances. Treading carefully and with empathy is essential here.  

Our morning starts with a mother from Honduras trying to enroll her 17 year old daughter in high school.“When did she arrive?” I ask, “A week ago,” the mother responds “Welcome,” I say.  “Do you speak any English?” “No, nada.” We call and ask if she can start in a high school beginning midway in her Junior year and if there are any bilingual schools she can attend. Everywhere we turn, barriers.  No bilingual schools in the area, she needs to learn English first.  We then connect her with a local community center, the Center for Language and Culture (CLC) so she can begin immersion in English;. Unfortunately, as anyone who has tried to learn another language, it is a life-long process.  But she is young.  She is one of those girls that may or may not be able to return to school later on, we see her leave hoping she doesn’t slip through the cracks. Resources can be hard to navigate - without a safety net - you need a center for support.

We then have Jacksonville University nursing students come to the Welcome Center who want to learn and volunteer hours with us, so we set them up with the food pantry and give them a project.  We see that many refugee/asylee/undocumented peoples struggle with high blood pressure, anxiety and a high risk for diabetes and so the students create healthy recipes and a poster for ”food as medicine;” although we encounter another barrier around food and access. Many of these families are large up to 8 people, several don't have transportation, and with the language barrier, they often seem nervous to come into the Center.  A lot of trust and belonging needs to be established with people that have encountered so much discrimination, persecution and trauma.  We collectively brainstorm on how to serve better.  Deep breath….

A woman from Ethiopia comes in to ask for help with affordable housing for her and her two children; her husband left and she is now a single mother.  My colleague sits down to start her housing application.  Another woman from Afghanistan waits for our assistance to see how she might be able to find a sponsor to help her brother who is alone in the country; she weeps in fear and sadness that something will happen to him.  Wrenching hearts, with this near impossible situation, we encourage her to focus on one small step at a time.  She says “Even if I only have a 5% chance, it's worth it,” we tell her we will research and make calls out to the community. I turn my focus to sit with a Cuban couple who just arrived a week prior, telling me their story of arriving and crossing borders in Central America and being held in a U.S. detention center for several weeks.  I am one of the first people they have talked to after this long and arduous journey, and speaking Spanish gives them an opportunity to tell some of their own story. Then we begin to fill out their application for Food assistance and Medicaid through the Department of Family and Children (DCF), we submit the application hoping they will have a translator for the interview to help support the process.  

Each day we serve with a team of 2.5 and other volunteers. People would say, “you need a team of 8 to be doing this kind of Work/Service.”  Truth.  Finally at the end of the day, we meet with a community partner, Volunteers in Medicine, to understand how individuals/families with no health insurance can get the care they need.  We learn about a local resource called JaxCareConnect, an online portal connecting hospitals and clinics in the area with uninsured people.  We need more networks of health and equity in public health.  Hopefully there will be better ways to navigate these systems so people can find the multifaceted care they need.   We often end up with a lot more questions than answers.  Even so we serve, together with community partners, and we hope to find more resources and community inclusion along the way.  I am grateful to have served this global community.