DePaulia
The
Volume #106 | Issue #8 | Nov. 1, 2021 | depauliaonline.com
Feeding the soul
Students provide hope, mentorship to refugee communities By Maureen Dunne Contributing Writer
Chicago’s influx of Afghan refugees has overwhelmed aspects of the city’s resettlement infrastructure, leaving gaps in support services. DePaul students are working to bridge those gaps by supporting these new members of Chicago’s communities through case management and mentorship. The Afghan Placement and Assistance program, which created an expedited resettlement process for Afghan refugees in the wake of the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan, has overwhelmed many resettlement agencies with U.S. cases. Areas with strong refugee resettlement services and those with preexisting Afghani populations like Chicago are prioritized for settlement. According to a letter from Refugee One, Chicago can expect more than 500 Afghans to make Chicago their home. During August, the U.S. completed “the largest airlift in U.S. history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens,” according to a statement from the Biden administration. Emily Parker, a second-year masters student in the refugee and forced migration studies program, is a refugee resettlement caseworker with Catholic Charities of Chicago which is receiving Afghan refugees. Parker works to provide refugees housing and address other immediate needs within the first months of arriving in the U.S. “No one anticipated the Afghanistan situation, it all happened incredibly abruptly,” Parker said. “So, we have kind of just had to roll with the punches and completely transform our resettlement team.” The initial 90-day period is graced with state and federal funds for refugees including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for healthy foods, job placement and funds from the Illinois Department of Human Services. Resettlement agencies provide further case management assistance for up to five years. “It’s most intensive when [refugees] first come, within the first 90 days,” Parker said. “I pretty much hit every base with regard to housing, cultural orientation, public transportation orientation, everything that someone would need to acclimate to life in Chicago.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF SARAH PAJEAU
Volunteers serve the Iftar meal to refugees at the Rohingya Culture Center in the West Ridge neighborhood in Chicago.
Without much advance planning to secure housing, furniture and job opportunities for arrivals, many Afghan evacuees are greeted with temporary solutions. “Because we have such short notice, housing is the hardest thing,” Parker said. “Our community resource developer has a really hard time because we’re leaving our clients in hotels and extended stays for weeks until we can find them an apartment. It’s really hard to find landlords that will accept the terms that aren’t horrible living conditions and not making our clients subject to dirty buildings,” Parker said. Chicago’s other refugee communities are struggling during Covid-19and shifting city policies. The Rohingya community in Chicago is one of the country’s largest with over 1,500 people according to the Rohingya Culture Center. As an ethnic and religious minority in their homeland of Myanmar, Rohingya people are subject to persecution and unable to access education and other services in Myanmar.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SARAH PAJEAU
Volunteers pass out gifts to childern for Eid at the Rohingya Culture Center on the North Side.
DePaul graduate student Sarah Pajeau works as a program manager at the Rohingya Culture Center in West Ridge. She coordinates community events and provides job, educational and community support after the bulk of the resettlement
process. “We’re at a point of limbo,” Pajeau said. “There are people who’ve been here for almost a year now … and they haven’t been able to find work, and [resettlement
See REFUGEES, page 7
A work in progress: Theatre School revisits anti-racist committment By Nadia Hernandez News Editor
The Theatre School (TTS) has made curriculum changes, added anti-racist training and created a diversity committee since publishing their commitment anti-racist statement in June 2020. Prior to the curriculum change, TTS faculty and staff in the wig and makeup department did not have “immediate experience and cultural competency with a range
of hair textures,” according to interim dean Coya Brownrigg. This forced students of color to fill the gap and learn themselves. “That’s something that is not acceptable,” Brownrigg said. TTS then hired a new hair and makeup faculty member who was trained in styling all hair types and textures. “The new wig and makeup majors have done a really great job ... of educating on different hair types and making sure that we know how to communicate effectively
about just certain things that we necessarily wouldn’t have necessarily been equipped with prior to kind of a change in the curriculum,” said fourth-year costume design student Finnegan Chu. Changing curriculum is one of the goals outlined in the original statement. After a year, TTS is looking to revise language in the statement to reflect current language and events. “We’re in the process of re-looking at the statement now as a way of saying, ‘Does
this language still work? Does this language still feel complete? What’s missing from the language?’” said TTS diversity advisor Dexter Zollicoffer. “We think of it as an evolving document — it wasn’t written once,” Zollicoffer added. “We’ll keep updating it as language and as the times change, that is the goal.” TTS was one of the many colleges at DePaul that responded to national racial justice movements in 2020. Brownrigg
See THEATRE, page 8