World Refugee Day marks experience of remaking a life
By Sara Cunningham
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For 14 years, Muya lived in Kenya and worked as an assistant storekeeper.
In September of 2004, Muya, 27, and his wife Hawa Issa, 25, moved to Louisville to start new lives, he said.
"It is a good thing but it is not an easy thing," Muya said yesterday of his family's transition to America.
It's never easy for any of the hundreds of refugees who settle in Louisville each year after fleeing other places in the world, said Darko Mihaylovich, the director of migration and refugee services at Catholic Charities. Mihaylovich's organization provides support for about 800 refugees a year, he said.
Those who flee to America face a battle to rebuild their lives in a place that looks and sounds very different from their homes, said Mihaylovich, who is from Sarajevo, Bosnia.
To celebrate the strength and courage it takes to successfully make it through that experience, Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services celebrated Annual World Refugee Day yesterday with a parade, music, dancing and food.
"Today we celebrate the people we work for," Mihaylovich said, just before the drummers for the parade arrived. "They leave behind their lives and pick up what's left in a new place."
One of the biggest challenges for refugees can be language, said Celeste Goodwin, the coordinator for adult education and ESL for Jefferson County Public Schools.
For that reason, the school system and Catholic Charities have been partnering since July 2006 to offer English classes for refugees at Catholic Charities, Goodwin said.
"Our goal is to improve lives with education," she said as she took in the lively music of the parade. "This is their first opportunity to have English classes in many cases and that helps them find employment. It is the most essential skill they can have."
Muya, who is a caseworker with Catholic Charities, speaks five languages, including English, and now helps other refugees.
He and his wife have four children, ranging in age from 11/2 to 7 years, he said. While some of his children were born before the family moved to the United States, Muya said they remember very little of life before Louisville.
"Sometimes my 7-year-old will sing songs they sang in the (Kenyan refugee) camps so he must remember a little but that is all," Muya said. "It's not sad for me that they do not know what it was before. I can see that all of my children will go to school."
The freedoms and opportunities he has found in Louisville have made the hard transitions worth the effort, Muya said.
"I came because I looked for my life to be better," he said. "First people helped me and I learned something to help others now."
Reporter Sara Cunningham can be reached at (502) 582-4335.
Source: Courier Journal, June 17, 2007