Afghan refugees headed to Tucson this week

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TUCSON, Arizona (KGUN) – Refugees from Afghanistan are being relocated to the United States, and some will soon end up in Tucson.

Southwest Lutheran Social Services are one of the organizations preparing to help them. The team expects about 25 refugees to land in Tucson this week.

LSS-SW case managers offer refugees essentials such as a furnished apartment and food as well as help with learning English and finding a job.
According to President and CEO Connie Phillips, the program is designed to help refugees become self-sufficient in about three months.

“We want to help people get on their feet as quickly as possible,” she said on Monday. “In order to be able to earn his living himself, to cover his own expenses, to raise his families in the education system … to integrate into this life.”

Phillips says this can be extremely difficult for some refugees and that each individual’s experience depends on where they live in their home country.

“It really is beyond most of our ability to understand how enormous this is,” she said. “Our employees, many of them have already come as refugees, they have this lived experience.”

According to Phillips, around 400 refugees from around the world are expected to arrive in Tucson in the next 12 months – a sharp increase over the past few years caused by the new policies of the Biden administration. She says LSS-SW is prepared for up to 100 Afghan refugees in Tucson.

Alex Biddle is an LSS-SW volunteer who completed training and last year mentored a woman from Afghanistan who was relocated in Tucson.

“Understanding people’s stories and connecting on a personal level is really important to me,” she said. “It was a really impressive experience to get to know her culture, to share my knowledge of Tucson, to help her where I could and to learn a lot from her.”

Volunteers are often the first friends these refugees meet in their new home. Other volunteers help furnish housing and collect necessary supplies.

Biddle says she is still friends with her mentee, who followed her passion as she settled into her new home.

“She’s shown a really great interest in yoga and told me that she does yoga almost every day,” said Biddle. “It’s just something that helped her through this experience… We were able to get her a full scholarship at Yoga Oasis. So she became a certified yoga teacher through the program and did everything online. And was very dedicated, in addition to teaching English and teaching for school. “

The organization is looking for more community support, especially donations. You can learn more by visiting the organization’s website.

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