Refugees from Nepal find new life in the Valley

ANSONIA -- Seven-year-old Diwakar Majhi was running around the Derby Green recently, much like any 7-year-old would.

He darted in and out of the gazebo and when he went even remotely near the street, his parents warned him to stay away from the traffic.

But Diwakar is far from your average child. In his young life he has seen and experienced things most children can't imagine.

Diwakar, sisters Deepa, 12 and Deo Kuman, 14, and parents Jeed and Harka came to Ansonia two months ago from the refugee camps that line the rugged Nepal/Bhutan border.

After years of living in conditions that some describe as "human warehousing," several young families from Nepal are settling here and making the Valley their home.
With the help of organizations that include state and local agencies, as well as the United Nations, the Nepalese natives of Bhutan who have in some cases lived their whole lives in refugee camps, are now acclimating themselves to life in the Valley.

The family is busy learning English; the children at school and the parents at English as a second language classes. As their language skills grow, so does their ability to interact with their new neighbors and to make friends, they said.

But some here worry how Ansonia is going to accommodate its newest residents -- and especially, educating their children. It's a delicate balance of accepting the new immigrants and paying for their needs as Ansonia struggles financially.

At the budget hearing the Board of Apportionment and Taxation held last week, several people questioned why the city has to expend funds providing the new students with special services, mostly English as a second language instructors to teach them their new language.

While the district welcomes all students, paying for such services is an issue, Supt. of Schools Carol Merlone said.

And some residents who are supporting the tax board's zero percent increase budget said they too are concerned about the additional services that might be needed.

"How much will it cost to provide the extra help the students might need to learn their new language," asked Linda Peters, who attended the meeting with her 10-year-old granddaughter, Lissa. "I would never want to see the schools turn any child away who needs help, but these are really tough times."

But help is available, according those involved in helping resettle the refugees. "Whatever the perceived burden, we are ready to offset that," said Sharon Mackwell, executive director of International Institute of Connecticut, one of a handful of resettlement organizations that work with the U.N. and the federal government to bring refugees to the U.S.

Earlier this month, Jeremy Marshall of the Institute told the Ansonia Board of Education there have already been a number of refugees settled in Bridgeport and Waterbury and the institute is now focusing on finding places outside of the state's largest cities to welcome the refugees. When considering locations the institute looks at factors such as rental prices, public transportations and schools, Marshall said, as well as the ability to keep the refugees near each other to maintain relationships.

Initially she was told that the 15 families would be relocated in Ansonia, Derby and Shelton, Merlone said. There is only one English as a second language teacher in each of the city's schools, she said, and they already under a taxing workload.

Mackwell said she is trying to set up a meeting with Merlone to discuss what aid the institute can offer the school system, including ESL tutors. "We have volunteers who can do that," she said. "We are quite willing to provide tutors."

While the institute has also considered placing some of the families in Derby, to date all have ended up in Ansonia, Marshall told the board, because the network to settle them is already in place here.

The institute will be looking outside of Ansonia when placing three more families who will be relocating to the region, Marshall said, with the goal of keeping them near the new Ansonia residents.

It's unlikely that more will be relocated to Ansonia in the future, he said.

Thousands of the former Bhutan residents were forced from their homes almost 20 years ago and into refugee camps in their native Nepal when the Bhutan government began a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They have lived in the camps since, starting families and having children who grew up in and then started their own families there.

It is those younger couples who are now coming to the United States, and in the past three months, to Ansonia. "These are mostly young families who are coming to Ansonia," said Mackwell.

Life in the camps isn't easy, Mackwell said. Many live in homes made of tarps and few are able to find work. The role of the institute is to arrange for all the basics the families will need, Mackwell said, such as housing, food and clothing. The institute works to get the new residents Social Security cards and register their children for school, she said.

But what it isn't is a welfare program, she said.

"The goal is to get them self-sufficient within six months and integrate them into our culture, society and economy," she said. "Usually within six months they are up and running on their own. We have an imperative to get people employed and earning as quickly as possible."

When the first families arrived in March, members of the First Congregational Church of Ansonia were there to greet them with a home-cooked meal reminiscent of the food of their home country.

"We make our place very personal," said the Rev. Marcia Eveland, the church's pastor. "We got together and cooked a meal and took it to their home. The State Department requires that all refugees be greeted with an ethnic meal from the country of their origin," she said. The church has taken it upon itself to make the refugee's transition as smooth as possible, Eveland said.

Mackwell said it's important to remember the United States is a country of immigrants.

"It's who we are. We all came here pretty much the same way, and this is the latest group of people who can't live in the place where they were born. America has always been a place that has accepted folks coming from that kind of situation. I think that's where our `can do' attitude came from," she said,.

"It's folks not afraid to leave and say, `I don't know what is going to happen but we will make it work for us.' It's a mentality that supersedes cultural identity."