Belated Reflections on Donating to Refugees
As Weiss Fellows, (Fella's, if you want to be casual or more gender-appropriate), we not only dish about urban issues and host engaging speakers, but we also personally engage with residents of the Chapel Hill community via service projects that we design and carry out.
Our first project, inspired by our inaugural speaker back in September, involved collecting and donating household items as a "welcome kit" to help furnish the apartment of a recently-relocated Burmese refugee family. Families such as the one we sponsored come to the US fleeing political persecution. They arrive with few possessions and face many challenges.
In spite of the project's obvious benefits, I must admit, I had questions about it. For one thing, the process involved lots of uncomfortable uncertainty. It felt a bit impersonal and arguably unfulfilling to simply gather items without having met the recipients-to-be; in fact, we didn't know until the last minute whether there would actually be a family to accept our donation!
And, for me, it was awkward not knowing whether the objects were actually wanted or needed. Or, for goodness sake, if they were "culturally appropriate." Even meeting the (very sweet, college-educated) mother and her year-old baby, I have to admit, did not put me entirely at ease. (Especially when she looked at certain items we'd carted up her stairs, smiled and mused, "What will I do with THAT?")My biggest worry, though, was that by donating consumer items to a foreign family - items that an American-run organization deemed to be paramount to a normal, socially-accepted American lifestyle - I'd be contributing toward the imposition of American consumerist culture onto a family in the name of "helping" them. For the past half decade, I have taken serious efforts to remove myself from that lifestyle, but here I was advancing it in the name of "philanthropy."
However, Erin's post-donation post (below) dispelled many of my concerns. It pulled me back toward the side of my inner "consumption" debate which holds: objects are as good as how we come to them and what we do with them. In spite of my environmentally-aware inner critic, I know that material things can foster relationships, embody social meaning and help cultivate peoples' senses of self and identity in very non-materialistic, non-consumerist ways. In this case, the Fellows' oddball donations of carpets and crock-pots, super-size packs of paper towels, garbage cans and coat hangers,
toothpaste and shaving gel and pots and pans, appears to have noticeably enhanced the quality of life for a family in Chapel Hill. And that's ultimately what we were going for. Someday, if the Burmese family decides to renounce consumerist capitalism and all its material manifestations, perhaps they will donate all their unwanted items to the next struggling family.Thanks to the rest of the Fella's for your time and efforts on this project. Looking forward to your comments, and the coming semester.
posted by Audrey at
5:22 PM
3 Comments:
This project has a lot of meaning for me. I worked on a large project last year, performing a community health assessment for people from Burma living in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. To many people's surprise, there are more than 300 people from Burma living in the two towns, and there has been a big influx of refugees in the last few months after the release of a camp in Thailand. There are many difficult issues facing these families when they arrive -- even getting the required medical screenings and tests can be quite difficult if none of the health professionals speak your language. Thus, new families benefit greatly from the generosity of others to help with their adjustment.
This project is emblematic of urban livability. It shows how neighbors in a community can help one another when in need. The more we can understand people who live near and far from us, the better we will be able to create a world that is sustainable for all. Through the help within the community of people from Burma as well as the larger Chapel Hill/Carrboro communities, people from Burma have been able to get jobs, educate their children, and even buy homes in just a short amount of time being here. Some wish to go back to Burma if the government changes while others would now prefer to stay in North Carolina. The adaptability of human beings never ceases to astound me.
The project is also emblematic of the fellowship. Responses to this project were strong from people in all departments, and we received a great number of donations. Many colleagues told me they were glad to have a way to help this new family, and contributed generously.
As a transportation planner, I couldn't help but note the difficulty for this family of not owning a car. We used our leftover money to buy them a Target Gift Card, but they told us that they would need a ride to get there and use it. Luckily, community members from Burma are always helping each other out with things like this, and that is how they have managed to thrive. Still, I can't help but think it would be more empowering if somehow the family was able to get where it needed by walking or public transport.
Overall, I felt very good about the project. It was just a small contribution, but it clearly made a big difference in the life of this family.
Speaking to the Mother and child who were on the receiving end, I felt a very humanistic connection. We often hear about refugees on the news or even as part of someone's community service project. But seldom do we interact with people knowing if they are refugees.
I delighted in knowing that she felt more like an immigrant than a refugee - I know that the conditions under which many refugees come to the US are abysmal. Although I don't know her and her husband's complete back story by a long shot, her good humor and welcoming attitude indicated to me that there are indeed simple things we can do to improve someone's quality of life - keeping the cynical side of me at bay.
I was part of a team that spent the majority of the morning off in a little town/Raleigh suburb near Cary collecting the last large donations from a very generous family - I had similar questions, discomforts, and skeptical concerns as Audrey expressed in the main post, and those continued on for much longer in the morning because of our mis-adventures into the suburbs. So while the rest of the Fellers were meeting the family, moving in the rest of the donated items, quelling fears about "what it was," exactly, that we thought we were doing, my fellow furniture-getter and I were just... nervous and frustrated. Nervous and frustrated about the seeming disconnect between "urban livability" and the current project, with the fact that none of the items "matched," that we didn't know the "rules" of Burmese culture and did not want to inadvertently offend the family, etc... some of these somewhat justified, others somewhat trivial. Regardless, it was a charged morning, the trip took far longer than anticipated, and we were both "fired up" as we made the final turns toward the neighborhood.
About a mile from our last turn, we saw a convertible driving down Franklin Street, with Mr. and Mrs. Claus sitting on the back, waving. There was no parade, no signs of other festivities - just Mr. and Mrs. Claus, riding around on the back of a convertible on a chilly Saturday morning in early December. Our laughter broke the tension in the car, we rolled down the windows, and continued to giggle after we had delivered the final items, chatted with the mother, and cooed over her beautiful baby.
Thinking back on that morning, I'm struck by the stark contrasts between our suburban adventures in a very nice-looking little town and our time in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Although Chapel Hill and Carrboro are certainly not "urban" in the "I live in a big city!" sense of the word, they seem to encourage and welcome some of the "Weird" for which Austin, TX is notorious. Welcoming a collection of immigrants, old-time Southerners, college-aged North Carolinians, "transplants" from all over the world, business people, academics, service workers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers ... these two little towns provide some of the buffet of cultural opportunities and diversity found in larger urban areas while still enjoying the "benefits" often touted as "suburban": good schools, safe streets, friendly neighbors.
Point being: Chapel Hill seems to be a place where many can find a little niche for themselves and enjoy a pretty high quality of life. I hope that the Burmese family who received our hodge-podge of items can find their niche in this area and enjoy a high quality of life in this strange/wonderful little town that we *all* call "home" these days.
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