A typical Wednesday at BCNH
June 5’s refugee-resettlement work at BCNH was pretty typical.
The guest at our 9 am staff meeting runs a nonprofit that wants to partner with our clients to make videos about their experiences as refugees.
Eric Irakiza, case manager, assigned tasks for our big event on Saturday: a community meeting bringing together New Americans from Manchester’s Congolese, Afghan, Ukrainian, and Haitian communities to talk with Mayor Ruais and their school board members.
Liliya Mayevsky had to miss the staff meeting so she could take a Ukrainian child for X-rays.
Hussain Amiri proofread some text in Dari and Pashto so our Afghan clients will receive proper information about our services. We also talked about how best to recruit someone for our newest open position: a case manager to work with Afghan women.
Vijay Bhujel, deputy director, spent the afternoon with an elderly Bhutanese woman in Manchester. Vijay is helping her use the federal Welcome Corps program to get two of her children to New Hampshire from the refugee camp in Nepal that has been their home for the last three decades. There are still more than 6,000 Bhutanese in Nepali refugee camps.
I spent time building connections with the workforce development people at Manchester’s “Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Initiative” to create pathways for the region’s refugees to be among the 9,000 employees they will need to hire over the next few years.
I set up a brokerage account so we can receive donations of stock from our supporters.
We also replaced a few busted staplers and a yellow printer cartridge.
Our work has profound impacts on the people we serve and the communities around them, even when it’s just acquiring the office supplies and paying the rent that makes it all possible. Please support that work with a financial contribution during New Hampshire Gives.
At any time between 5 pm on Tuesday, June 11, and 5 pm on Wednesday, June 12, go to www.nhgives.org and “search” for BCNH. Or just click here. Have a credit card ready. Generous donors, including past and present board members, have already committed more than $12,000 dollars that will match your gift dollar-for-dollar. And when we receive our 200th donation, my wife and I will add another $1,000 to the day’s total. Please be one of those 200+ supporters who want to make sure that BCNH can make the most of every typical day.
