URM prepares refugees for new life as adults By Fabvienen Taylor
JACKSON — John Aleu offered some advice to two young Haitians soon-to-be emancipated from the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) Program at Catholic Charities.
“They need to know how to manage their money so they can accommodate their bills,” said the 24-year-old.
Good credit is essential, he said. “I’m very careful. I never pay my bills late.”
Aleu spoke about what he’s learned about living on his own on Friday, Feb. 22, in the Belhaven Heights apartment he shares with two college roommates.
A tall young man, Aleu was among the “Lost Boys of the Sudan” who fled war in their native country and reached a refugee camp in Kenya.
In 2000, he was one of 70 young men and women relocated to Mississippi through the URM program. Through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) the refugees were referred to URM programs and resettled in Western countries. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in Washington, D.C., provides funding.
Catholic Charities’ URM program, established in 1980, is a special long-term foster care program for refugee children from all parts of the world.
URM has served populations from Vietnam, Haiti, Sudan, Liberia, Somalia and Cuba.
The program provides: assistance obtaining U.S. residency; translation services; cultural orientation, grooming, and health issues; case management and therapeutic services; independent living skills; educational support services; follow-up skills; and adult refugee resettlement.
When young people in the URM program turn 21, they are emancipated, or are no longer under the direct care and supervision of the program.
If they choose, they can emancipate at 18, but will not be eligible for benefits available upon completing an independent living skills program through Southern Christian Services.
After emancipation, URM provides a six-month follow-up, according to Debra West, program director.
“We help them with what they want to do,” West said. “If they want to relocate in the Jackson area, or move with family members elsewhere, we help them.”
In addition, URM staff regularly check on those emancipated, she said.
The cultural specialist for a particular group also visits them to make sure they are on the right track, or need additional resources.
“And whenever we have cultural events we invite those who have emancipated and quite a few come,” she said. “And then there are those who just drop by every month to say hello.”
West said URM keeps a permanent file on those emancipated: birth certificate, health records, etc. Emancipated from URM in 2004, Aleu attends business classes mornings at Holmes Community College in Ridgeland. From 2:15 - 11:15 p.m. he works in patient transportation at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC).
This spring, two young Haitians, Jean Philippe Walnes and Gusman Pierre, will be emancipated from URM.
“Being independent is tough, but it’s okay,” Aleu said. “I want to encourage them to be careful and to learn from their friends who have already moved out.”
In anticipation of living on their own, Gusman and Walnes are already working at a Japanese restaurant in North Jackson.
Gusman, who turns 21 on March 19, will graduate from CM&I College in May and Walnes, 21 on May 4, is completing work for his General Educational Development (GED) certificate.
“Gusman is the best saver I know,” said Patricia Murphy, foster mother to him, Walnes, Jackson Previlus and Guasnel Francois. “He spends money on nothing, nothing, nothing.”
That’s correct, according to Gusman, who was with Walnes in a shelter in Haiti before, at 14, they stowed away on a cruise ship leaving Port-a-Prince in 2001.
“I am saving for when I am out on my own,” Gusman said. “I want to go to community college to learn air conditioning repair and to work to pay my own bills. I came here because I wanted to have a better life. I want to get educated in a trade and take care of myself.”
Such opportunities were non-existent for them back in their own country, both said. Their families could not take care of them.
Their futures were dim, Walnes said. “In Haiti you have to have money to go to school. It is expensive. Everything is expensive. There are no jobs and there is political unrest. If I had stayed there before long I would have been forced to become part of a gang to survive, to live a violent life. I did not want that. I am a peaceful person.”
A better life, education, and more opportunities drove the two to flee Haiti, to leave their families.
Before he started living with Murphy, Walnes lived with foster parents, Henry and Tracey Mitchell outside Jackson.
“Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell are like my second family,” he said. “They taught me what they knew about living here and I taught them what I knew about Haiti.”
Walnes loves to sing and has written a number of songs, hoping one day to be professional singer. “When I get established I want to go back to visit my family,” he said.
“That is why I am here, why God brought me here,” he said. “I believe in God, God has blessed me, God has made my life better and I want to sing about it, about what I have learned, the truth as I see it.”
Such dreams are important for Walnes, said Lola Holloway, a URM tutor for five years. “It is his dreams that kept him alive when he left Haiti, and now they keep him going, keep him on the right path. I tell him to hold on to his dreams until he finds something more rewarding.”
Holloway and Edjuna Cole tutor both young men. “Gusman and Philippe both had some high school in Haiti. It is better when they have had some formal education,” said Cole.
“All of the students we tutor are at different levels so we have to adjust to that.”
It’s a long process, Holloway said. “In addition to academics we want them to be self-sufficient. We teach them to use a checkbook, grocery shop, read a prescription or a rent receipt, to look for an apartment, those types of skills.
“It is easy for us to take these things for granted. But these are basic life skills they need to survive,” she said. “URM is their home, their safety net.”
Aleu enjoys being on his own. “It’s pretty good. The URM program told me everything I needed to know,” he said.
Emancipated from URM in 2004, Aleu attends business classes mornings at Holmes Community College in Ridgeland. From 2:15 - 11:15 p.m. he works in patient transportation at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC).