How Family-To-Family Support Makes A Difference

How family-to-family support makes a difference

- Julia Pelly

When Babin arrived in Charlotte from Nepal, he was just 4 years old. He remembers feeling overwhelmed by his new surroundings and having trouble understanding everything that was happening around him during his early weeks and months in the United States. In 2010, soon after Babin’s arrival, he started kindergarten and began attending a daily after-school program called that was called The Bridge.

Now called our BRIDGE, this local organization serves refugees, immigrants and first generation children in kindergarten through seventh grade. “ourBRIDGE gave me a place to feel at home,” says Babin, “when I was at our BRIDGE I didn’t feel alone and I started to settle into life in Charlotte.”

According to the Pew Research Center, the United States admitted 84,995 refugees in 2016, the year with the most recent complete data. Of those nearly 85,000 individuals, between 600 and 700 were settled in Charlotte. While the number of arriving refugees has dropped in the last 18 months due to new restrictions and a ban on refugees from certain countries, it’s estimated that there are close to 17,000 refugees currently living in the Charlotte area.

The refugee families who call Charlotte home hale from all across the globe; they have diverse backgrounds, varied circumstances and a whole lifetime of unique experiences. The one thing these individuals all have in common is that they are unable to return to their home country because of a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion or national origin.

With the recent debate around the United States refugee program, many nonprofit leaders worry that misconception about who refugees are and how they come to the United States impacts the welcome and support they receive once they arrive in Charlotte.