Refugee Transitions Newsletter To All The Friends of Refugee Transitions
March 2006
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We are striving to find ways to keep friends of Refugee Transitions up-to-date with what is happening, and have decided to adopt an email newsletter format, which we can send more frequently than a paper mailing. We hope you find the newsletter valuable and will communicate ways that we can improve it. If you prefer to get things on paper by regular mail instead, let us know. And of course you can tell us you do not wish to receive an email newsletter; simply replying to the newsletter e-mail with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.
		Refugee Transitions and partners
Community Wellness . In 2005, Refugee Transitions, traditionally an education and social service agency, expanded its programming to address the health needs of the Liberian community. With a planning grant from the California Endowment, we collaborated with Survivors International, a non-profit dedicated to helping survivors of torture, and the Liberian Community Foundation to conduct needs assessments to determine the most effective way to help Liberian refugees access health, education, and wellness services. Guest Speakers from Liberia Refugee Transitions and Survivors International developed and offered a volunteer training on posttraumatic stress disorder and have spent the last 11 months providing needs assessments for Liberian refugees who recently resettled in the Bay Area after spending years in refugee camps in Sierra Leone and Cote-Ivoire. On Saturday, January 21st Refugee Transitions held its second Liberian community event and invited guest speakers to share information about careers as certified nursing assistants and childcare workers and to talk about safety and self-defense. Over 50 Liberian adults and youth attended the event. In addition to listening to speakers, guests ate traditional Liberian food and danced to African music.
Refugee Transitions 7th Annual Silent Fund Raising and Silent Auction Event . On November 24th, Refugee Transitions board of directors and staff held its 7th annual fund raising/silent auction event at Cafe Royale in San Francisco-our most successful ever. Dancers from a community partner, the Cambodian Community Development, Inc., performed beautiful traditional Cambodian dances and the Youth Coordinator at Youth Speaks read her poems about growing up as a Korean American in San Francisco. A big thanks to Cafe Royale for hosting the event for the 2nd year in a row and to all the people who worked hard to put the event together. Special thanks goes to our Partners and Silent Auction sponsors.   For a full list of sponsors, please click here.  Cambodian Dancers
Upcoming Training Dates Call (415) 989-2151 to Sign Up! . Refugee Transitions Volunteers Become involved with Refugee Transitions and help support the refugee and immigrant communities in the Bay Area! You'll receive extensive training and case support and will benefit from a unique experience. March 7 - Training for teaching English to speakers of other languages and civics education to adults. March 9 - Training on post traumatic stress disorder for Refugee Transitions volunteers To volunteer, please contact Muhamed at 415-989-2151 or go to our website at www.reftrans.org and fill out an application Those  of you who have been volunteers, please talk to friends who you think will benefit from such an experience and encourage them to give us a call. The agency has long waitlists of students requesting our tutoring services, so we are in need of volunteer tutors! It only takes two to four hours of your time per week, and you can help change someone's life. Refugee Transitions' mission is to assist refugee and immigrant families in becoming self-sufficient in the U.S. by providing services that help them attain the English language, life, job, and academic skills they need to succeed in their new communities. Our volunteers work hard to insure that our newest neighbors do not become isolated behind language barriers, and unable to function in a new and strange land. In helping, the volunteers themselves have an enriching experience and form lifetime friendships. To learn more about our program services and history, please visit our website at www.reftrans.org.
Facts . There were over nine million refugees around the world at the end of 2004. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, up to 35% of refugees have been tortured, and 90% have witnessed torture.   According to the U. S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, 73,851 refugees came to the U.S. in fiscal year 2004 (2005 data is not out yet) , of which some 6,749 were sent to California . Large numbers of those refugees settled in the Bay Area. Of course, that is only part of the story, because many refugees sent elsewhere eventually migrate here to join family members or other immigrants from their original country. Multiply that by many years of resettlement, and you can see that the numbers are large. Once on American soil, a refugee is granted employment authorization and is eligible for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident after one year. A refugee is eligible for naturalization to U.S. citizenship after five years in the country.