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[Photo Credit: Facebook/TheMultifaithAllianceForSyrianRefugees]
At a time when the dominant political narrative paints refugees as a security risk, faith-based organizations are taking the lead by opening doors for refugees and helping them with aid and resettlement in the United States.
One such organization taking the lead in response to the Syrian refugee crisis is The Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refuges (MFA), a project of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding in cooperation with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
MFA is a coalition of 70 mostly faith-based organizations and secular groups including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jewish and other groups. According to MFA founder Dr. Georgette Bennett, 70 percent of refugees in U.S. are resettled by faith-based organizations, including organizations that are part of MFA.
“We believe that when religions unite to speak in one voice, they are a powerful antidote to the hateful speech and misinformation that prevails today,” Dr. Bennett said. “Such an alliance brings moral authority to what has deteriorated into a partisan debate. Moreover, religious leaders and institutions can mobilize vast constituencies and communication networks on behalf of Syrian war victims. Such an alliance serves as the conscience of our country.”
As a daughter of a Holocaust survivor and a refugee herself, Bennett was deeply moved by the plight of Syrian refugees. Having arrived in the US as a refugee, fleeing Hungary’s communist regime with only a couple of suitcases, Bennett knows firsthand the plight of newly arrived Syrian refugees. Fueled by her experiences, Bennett formed MFA to provide aid and help Syrian refugees integrate into American society.
MFA’s mission is to mobilize support for organizations that are working to provide humanitarian aid, raise awareness of the growing dangers of complacency to the crisis, and to advance future stability in the region through people-to-people diplomacy.
The alliances also serve as a coordinating body for change, facilitating partnerships between its participating organizations and other groups working on similar issues that may not have considered working together. A successful partnership forged by MFA is between Israeli and Syrian non-governmental organizations working together to deliver humanitarian aid.
“Many non-governmental organizations struggle to address this traumatized population’s immense needs,” Bennett added. “Among those groups are Israeli organizations that are operating throughout the region. In so doing, they are rising above politics, mutual suspicion and even hatred to alleviate terrible suffering.”
South Asian American organizations play an integral part in providing humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged Syria according to Bennett. One of the earliest organization to join the alliance was New York-based United Sikhs. Dr. Satpal Singh, a survivor of the 1984 religious anti-Sikh violence in India and a leader in the American Hindu community serves as an advisory board member of MFA.
This June, MFA organized one of the largest humanitarian aid events with Heart-to-Heart International and JDC. “We mobilized 1000 volunteers to assemble emergency hygiene kits to be delivered to Syrian refugees in Turkey by MFA participating organization, Orient for Human Relief. The Hindu community organized a large contingency of those volunteers,” she said.
The resettlement of Syrian refugees has become a political flashpoint of the 2016 presidential elections. Throughout the election cycle, Donald Trump and other politicians vehemently opposed admitting refugees into the US. By spewing anti-Muslim rhetoric, they are tapping into Americans anxieties about national security and a threat of terrorism, which Bennett states, stems out of lack of information about Syrian civil war and its victims.
“The Syrian people are generally afraid of exactly the same thing that Americans are: Islamist terrorism,” she said. “Many Syrians are fleeing areas held by the Islamic State, and they are doing so in contravention of ISIS edicts. On a dozen occasions, ISIS has condemned refugees for fleeing ISIS areas. In fact, the refugees have rejected an ideology of extremism. Syrian refugees are victims, not terrorists.”
She highlighted the crucial role faith-based organizations can play in countering the xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments in the country by “promoting positive messaging from their pulpits, in speeches and on their social media sites, etc., about who the Syrian people are and to counter, with facts, the misinformation that is so prevalent.”
With 10,000 refugees already admitted in the States through President Obama’s resettlement program, it is important, now more than ever, to dispel the myths and stereotypes associated with the Syrian people.
One way to do that is by helping the newly arrived refugees to find jobs, homes, and schools.
“Newly resettled refugees are given financial resources only for their first 90 days. After that, they must work to support their families,” Bennett said.
Want to help newly arrived refugees but don’t know where to start? Go to MFA website and click on Help Newly Resettled Refugees for a list of U.S. resettlement organizations and activities you can participate in.
You can help them learn Basic English language skills, obtain drivers licenses, get medical appointments, go food shopping, create resumes and navigate job searches, and even help enroll their children in school.
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