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This text was produced as a part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teenagers all over the world to report on points that have an effect on their lives.
(JTA) — On a Sunday afternoon in February, a gaggle of teenagers met for the primary time on the JCC Mid-Westchester in Scarsdale, New York to make friendship bracelets and connections. Teenagers and tweens huddled collectively over a plastic folding desk, some laughing and others deeply targeted on beading plastic and elastic friendship bracelets.
These ladies — six from New York’s Westchester County and eight Ukrainian refugees — gathered as a part of the Westchester Jewish Coalition for Immigration. Partly organized by teen leaders, sophomores Jackie Kershner and Kate Douglass, the group gathered to create a secure house for the refugees and ease their struggles in acclimating to a brand new surroundings.
“It’s essential to try to let these youngsters have as regular a life as potential and to allow us to have an affect on their life,” mentioned Kershner, who has Russian and Ukrainian backgrounds and has lately began studying Russian. Outdoors of co-leading this group she tutors an Ukrainian lady from Ternopil, Ukraine by ENGin, a program that matches native English audio system with Ukrainian college students who wish to be taught English.
Over the previous yr 271,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to the USA with about 14,000 relocating in New York. The refugee group HIAS studies that near 200 refugees have resettled in Westchester County. Greater than half of them arrived in six months starting in September 2021. With $21 million being invested by the federal authorities to assist Ukrainian refugees in New York, a portion of that is being utilized by Jewish nonprofits which can be incorporating Jewish American teenagers into their efforts to ease the transition for refugees.
Kershner’s co-leader, Douglass, empathizes with the lately displaced teenagers and tweens. “Once I consider transferring to a brand new college that may be so nervousness producing, so for what they’re going by I can think about that they only want an additional buddy,” she mentioned.
The expertise is welcomed by Ukrainian teenagers. Valentyna Zabialo, who fled the nation lately, is grateful for the chance.
“Lastly I can converse with anyone else about our related tales about college and mates, how I’ve fled to America, how I’ve moved nations, ” agreed Renata Uhlinsky, who fled from Odessa final July.
Ukrainian teenagers and American teen volunteers on the JCC Mid-Westchester. (Lydia Ettinger)
Holly Fink, the CEO of Westchester Jewish Coalition for Immigration, sees the firsthand advantages from implementing bonding applications that teenagers and tweens like Uhlinsky have interaction in. “I do know from my work from Ukrainians that everybody who fled from the conflict has skilled an immense quantity of trauma, so I’ve created applications like this one to assist them bond with others,” she mentioned. “They’re assembly teenagers who I see as the way forward for immigration work.”
It’s essential for teenagers to be a part of the method, mentioned Caroline Wolinsky, the volunteer coordinator at HIAS. The refugee help group started because the Hebrew Immigrant Support Society in 1902. “Teenagers deliver not simply power however a data of how the world works now, methods to deliver individuals collectively, and methods to assume creatively about issues,” mentioned Wolinksy.
Up to now yr she has engaged with about 50 lively teen volunteers in locations starting from El Paso, Texas to Washington D.C. They largely have interaction in additional conventional hands-on work comparable to assembling “dignity kits” to offer refugees with important hygiene merchandise, however deliver their very own abilities to refugee work.
“A whole lot of fashionable organizing and change-making occurs on-line and on social media and so I believe utilizing the instruments which now have turn out to be a extremely intuitive a part of how younger individuals have grown up,” mentioned Wolinsky. “It’s so vastly essential to have the ability to use phrase processing paperwork and Google drive and issues like that that won’t come as naturally to older individuals, however do come very naturally to teenagers and actually make an enormous distinction.”
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Lyla Souccar, 16, feels a connection to refugee work by her household’s historical past: Her grandfather fled Egypt within the Forties due to Jewish persecution and relocated to Brazil. From his tales, she took an curiosity in aiding these in related conditions.
“Jews are refugees in so many locations as a result of we’re continually getting hate, and within the Holocaust there have been so many refugees after that [who] wanted to maneuver to so many various locations,” mentioned Soucar.
Souccar volunteers with Hearts and Houses, a New York nonprofit service group that helps Afghan refugees resettle in partnership with HIAS. In 2021, 2.4 million Afghan refugees have been registered worldwide — 41% ladies and 40% kids. New York State has 7,500 Afghan refugees.
By Hearts and Houses, Souccar created a membership together with her buddy Keren Jacobowitz at The Leffell College, a Jewish day college in Westchester. The membership fundraises, runs toiletry drives and spreads consciousness in regards to the plight of Afghan refugees. Later this college yr, she has deliberate for an grownup Afghan refugee to talk to the varsity. Past the classroom, she began working with two households by the group as an intern this previous summer time, and has continued the work by serving to the youngsters in these households with English and math homework.
“They have been a little bit scared to get near individuals, I keep in mind the youngsters used to cover a little bit bit the primary few weeks of me coming in, however now once I are available in they run to the door,” Souccar mentioned. “I positively really feel extra related to them, I’ve shared meals with them, I’ve watched TV with them, I simply really feel much more a part of their life.”
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