Hello First Baptist Friends,
Thank you for your generosity and support as we work to assist Massachusetts based asylum seekers to settle in and integrate into our communities. We have an update on our families, our fundraising and volunteer opportunities, and a call for hosting one of our clients.
We're delighted to announce that our Easter - Passover fundraising efforts exceeded our goal of $30,000. We are at $32,000 at last count, and are aware of more donations on the way. This has allowed us to support two clients, I. and her baby daughter from Cameroon, and R. and her toddler daughter from Uganda.
I. is a high school math teacher, fluent in French with good English skills. We are working with her to improve her knowledge of math terminology in English, and to get work authorization. She is very much looking forward to working and becoming self supporting. Stay tuned, as we may be asking for volunteer babysitters who could commit to an afternoon or morning per week this summer in Brookline.
We are happy to say that R. and her daughter have have found a suitable long-term housing arrangement in Worcester. During the short time they were "in our care" we were able to help them reach several milestones, including getting their first library card, clarifying their career path towards nursing, and, of course, finding long-term housing. We’ll miss R. and we wish her great success as she continues her journey. However this does allow us to help another client.
Our cluster is now actively working with Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM) to identify another family to support. A likely candidate is a young woman from South America, with a three year old, pregnant with her second child. She speaks Spanish, and very little English. If this works out, we’ll be putting out a call for Spanish speaking volunteers to help us with communication. We’ve discovered that the list of candidates is very fluid as the clients we hear about from RIM sometimes find placements with other clusters or agencies while we are considering them.
Finally, given the success of our fund-raising campaign and the enthusiasm of our volunteers, we hope to add support for a third client. To do so, we'd like to find people who are willing to host an individual or family in their home for up to 6 months. RIM has safeguards in place for the host family and for the client beyond the basic requirements for RIM sponsorship (e.g. must have had their case accepted by a lawyer, passed a medical exam, etc.).
If you think you might be interested in hosting someone for up to six months, let us know and we can talk about what is involved in greater detail.
Gratefully,
Wendy on behalf of Compassion in Action Ministry
Thank you for your generosity and support as we work to assist Massachusetts based asylum seekers to settle in and integrate into our communities. We have an update on our families, our fundraising and volunteer opportunities, and a call for hosting one of our clients.
We're delighted to announce that our Easter - Passover fundraising efforts exceeded our goal of $30,000. We are at $32,000 at last count, and are aware of more donations on the way. This has allowed us to support two clients, I. and her baby daughter from Cameroon, and R. and her toddler daughter from Uganda.
I. is a high school math teacher, fluent in French with good English skills. We are working with her to improve her knowledge of math terminology in English, and to get work authorization. She is very much looking forward to working and becoming self supporting. Stay tuned, as we may be asking for volunteer babysitters who could commit to an afternoon or morning per week this summer in Brookline.
We are happy to say that R. and her daughter have have found a suitable long-term housing arrangement in Worcester. During the short time they were "in our care" we were able to help them reach several milestones, including getting their first library card, clarifying their career path towards nursing, and, of course, finding long-term housing. We’ll miss R. and we wish her great success as she continues her journey. However this does allow us to help another client.
Our cluster is now actively working with Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM) to identify another family to support. A likely candidate is a young woman from South America, with a three year old, pregnant with her second child. She speaks Spanish, and very little English. If this works out, we’ll be putting out a call for Spanish speaking volunteers to help us with communication. We’ve discovered that the list of candidates is very fluid as the clients we hear about from RIM sometimes find placements with other clusters or agencies while we are considering them.
Finally, given the success of our fund-raising campaign and the enthusiasm of our volunteers, we hope to add support for a third client. To do so, we'd like to find people who are willing to host an individual or family in their home for up to 6 months. RIM has safeguards in place for the host family and for the client beyond the basic requirements for RIM sponsorship (e.g. must have had their case accepted by a lawyer, passed a medical exam, etc.).
If you think you might be interested in hosting someone for up to six months, let us know and we can talk about what is involved in greater detail.
Gratefully,
Wendy on behalf of Compassion in Action Ministry
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