By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
About 150 people gathered at the Old Logandale School on Monday, Apr. 3, to attend a program billed as a Community Refugee Awareness Family Night.
The event was organized by a local organization called Moapa Valley H.A.N.D.S, which stands for Helping a Neighbor Through Devoted Service. Formed in recent weeks by a group of local women, H.A.N.D.S. seeks to raise awareness in the local community of the many opportunities for humanitarian service in the southern Nevada region.
For last week’s program, the group focused on the refugee crisis in southern Nevada. Featured speakers at the meeting were Lighthouse Charities founder Cindy Trussel and South Sudanese refugee Biar Atem.
Trussel explained that she had founded Lighthouse Charities to help Las Vegas refugees in becoming self-sufficient as they relocate to the region. She spoke passionately about the scope of the problem.
“Millions are displaced from their homelands every year,” Trussel told the audience. “They have no choice but to leave everything they once knew behind and begin a new life somewhere safer.”
Trussel said that many of these end up in refugee camps living in overcrowded and substandard conditions. The average stay in these camps is around seven years as the refugees await the chance of being relocated, she said.
“For the lucky few who are relocated to a host country, they find that their troubles are far from over,” Trussel said.
Most of them relocate to a completely unfamiliar culture, with no knowledge of the language. Many, who have come from the most poverty-stricken third-world areas often don’t know how to function in what Americans would consider the most basic ways, Trussel said. They must be taught how to operate a stove, what a refrigerator is for, how to operate running water and so on.
All of this can pose an extremely steep learning curve for these people, Trussel said; never mind the difficulties of seeking a job so that they can earn money to be self-sufficient.
“These families know how to be self-reliant in their own country,” Trussel said. “They are very resourceful and intelligent people. But all that has been stripped away from them in refugee camps.”
Trussel said that around 1,300 people had been relocated to the Las Vegas area this year alone. And those numbers are expected to trend upwards in the coming years, she said.
Her mission in Lighthouse Charities is to help these people to get on their feet in their new environment. The organization currently feeds about 170,000 people in the Las Vegas area. It also distributes clothing for the refugee families and has organized food pantries in local schools for refugee children.
But all of that hardly scratches the surface of the problem, Trussel said. “Food and clothing is great, but it is still not near enough,” she said. “The need is overwhelming. People arrive in our community with absolutely nothing. I’ve been in family apartments that are just empty: no beds, no blankets, no cookware or utensils or household items, no food in the cupboards, empty refrigerators. It is heartbreaking to see.”
To speak from a refugee’s perspective, Biar Atem also gave a presentation at the meeting. Biar is one of the “Lost Boys” of South Sudan. He was one of more than 20,000 young boys who were displaced during the long Sudanese Civil War during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The war was rooted in economic, cultural and religious disparities between the north and south of the large African country. Muslim elements in the north sought to eliminate the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups in the south, Atem said.
“They found it easier to kill the boys while they were young, rather than allow them to grow up and become a force,” Atem said.
To escape the devastating raids of homes and villages during the time, thousands of young boys between the ages of 5 and 11, fled their homes and families and went into hiding in the dense African bush. Atem said that he was 7 years old when he left home and went out on his own.
Travelling together in large groups, and with the older children as their leaders, the boys walked a thousand miles across the rugged country to seek refuge in camps in Ethiopia to the east. Atem said that it was a very difficult journey. One in three of the boys did not survive it.
They stayed in the Ethiopian refugee camp under crowded and difficult conditions for three years until the Ethiopian government was overthrown. At that point, the boys were given three days to leave the country or be killed. Thus Atem travelled another 600 miles on foot south to Kenya to arrive at another refugee camp.
In 2001, Atem was selected for resettlement in the U.S. He left the camp on April 8, travelled by airplane and was assigned to Las Vegas. Coming so suddenly from the wilderness camp in Kenya to a big city in the U.S. was a major transition, he said.
“In the camp there were very few amenities or services,” Atem said. “The only light we had was in the daytime. It was a big difference coming to Las Vegas with all of the bright lights all night long!”
Atem said that, coming to Las Vegas, he had only two goals: having food to eat, and not worrying about being killed.
He soon found a janitorial job at the Venetian where he worked at nights. He enrolled at College of Southern Nevada during the day and soon had earned an Associates Degree. By 2009, he had received a Bachelor’s Degree in business from UNLV; and in 2013 he received an MBA.
Atem now works as a corporate auditor at the Venetian. He is married with two children.
In closing, Atem gave attendees a challenge to be aware and compassionate of the plight of refugees in this country. “I challenge you to continue to work to make America a country that welcomes refugees,” he said. “There is no place else like the U.S. which offers so much opportunity. Please keep it a place where foreigners are welcome and not feared.”
Moapa Valley H.A.N.D.S members emphasized that there are many ways to become involved and help in the refugee aid efforts. Lighthouse Charities has a Grant A Wish program where contributors can sponsor a family. And there are many levels of involvement from hands-on mentoring and giving assistance to refugee families, to assembling aid kits, to just giving financial donations.
The Moapa Valley H.A.N.D.S group is planning to have a booth at the Clark County Fair this week where more information on how to help will be available.
In addition, the group will have a collection center available at the east side of the Logandale Fire Station #73 during the Fair week. Donors can drop off items there that might help refugee families including things like towels, sheets, blankets, pillows, toiletries, cleaning supplies, tableware, dishes, cookware, mixing bowls, knives, scissors, clothing, shoes, school supplies and more.
For information about other items to donate, contact Erika Whitmore at 702-858-2356 or Keshia Phillipenas at 702-882-6987.
To learn specifics about more ways to help visit lighthousecharities.net.
