{"id":3092,"date":"2014-09-11T15:42:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T19:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2014\/09\/11\/a-welcome-home\/"},"modified":"2024-07-24T15:57:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:57:41","slug":"a-welcome-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/a-welcome-home\/","title":{"rendered":"A welcome home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Atlanta<\/a><\/p>\n

ATLANTA \u2013 As their arrival date neared, Christina Bellino \u201915 hustled to get ready.<\/p>\n

Though she didn\u2019t know their favorite foods, she went to Walmart, bought groceries, and filled their refrigerators. Though she didn\u2019t know their favorite colors, she scoured Goodwill and Salvation Army stores in search of sturdy, good-looking furniture for their new apartments.<\/p>\n

When the refugee families, one Afghani and one Eritrean, finally touched down at Atlanta International Airport with only a few possessions in hand, Bellino was there to welcome them and drive them to their new homes in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been dreaming about this day,\u201d said Bellino, a psychology major and poverty studies minor from Roswell, Ga. \u201cFor me to be waiting for them with open arms, for me to be the first person that they see, that\u2019s very touching.\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing about the opportunity through Furman\u2019s Catholic Campus Ministry, Bellino spent the summer as a volunteer intern with Refugee Resettlement Services, a program of Catholic Charities Atlanta. Through referrals from the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, the program provides initial housing, assistance with basic needs, an orientation to United States culture, transportation, job readiness and job placement, and access to English classes and health care.<\/p>\n

CCA served nearly 20,000 clients during the 2013 fiscal year, providing a variety of services including nearly 11,000 hours of English language instruction and 280 hours of citizenship classes. More than 90 percent of refugee families resettled by the program become self-sufficient within six months of arrival to the United States, according to CCA.<\/p>\n

With clients speaking dozens of different languages from Arabic to Somali, every day was different and presented a new challenge for Bellino.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate Christina\u2019s ability to hit the ground running,\u201d said Kim Longshore, a community resource specialist with CCA\u2019s Refugee Resettlement Services. \u201cHer answer to everything is, ‘no problem.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Some days, the language barrier forced Bellino to communicate through lots of pictures and gestures. Some days, it was a little easier. One day, she was able to travel with a large group of refugee children to the Georgia Aquarium. \u201cYou don\u2019t need words when you\u2019re at the Aquarium,\u201d Bellino said.<\/p>\n

On another special day, she climbed up in the back of the CCA\u2019s white pick-up truck to unload two donated bicycles, given to a family from the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n

Though they spoke little English, the excitement on the children\u2019s faces was enough for Bellino. \u201cThey\u2019re near and dear to my heart,\u201d she said of the seven-member family. \u201cThey\u2019re so kind and appreciative.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Bellino got to know families, some shared stories of their harrowing journeys to America.<\/p>\n

Aida, who has a bachelor\u2019s degree in physics, spent the past decade in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Sudan. Two of her three children were born in the camps before the family was resettled in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hard life,\u201d she said, describing their tent home and their rations of wheat, sorghum, oil and sugar. \u201cWe suffered too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

She worked with Bellino over the summer learning job interview skills, in the hopes of finding a steady job along the city\u2019s Marta route. Bellino, who plans to be a school psychologist, even gave Aida homework, interview questions to practice with her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy because I am here. I want to help other people and I want to help myself,\u201d said Aida. \u201cIt gives us hope to get started here.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more about internship opportunities, visit Furman Internships<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA \u2013 As their arrival date neared, Christina Bellino \u201915 hustled to get ready. Though she didn\u2019t know their favorite foods, she went to Walmart, bought groceries, and filled their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":13656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,58,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-internships","category-psychology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33311,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions\/33311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}