Refugee Resettlement

Imagine that today you were forced to leave everything you knew behind. Imagine losing your home, your family members and your way of life because of war and violence. Imagine traveling thousands of miles across the ocean to live in a new country.

You would need a lot of things. But maybe most of all you would need a friend.

A new program at Refugee Cooperative Services (RCS), a partnership of LSI and Catholic Charities, offers just that – friendship – to the refugees it resettles in Des Moines. The Circle of Friends, a new program formed through the creative vision of LSI volunteers, matches Iowans with refugees for the purpose of intentional friendship. Currently, over 100 community volunteers serve in 15 small group circles for 18 refugee families.

“We started realizing how challenging it is for refugees to adjust to life here,” said Jane Scanlon, a volunteer coordinator for Circle of Friends. “We were compelled to create a way to draw the community in to be friends.”

Established last October, Circle of Friends asks volunteers to commit to an intentional friendship with a refugee family for at least six months. Through training, volunteers learn about refugee resettlement and potential cultural differences.

They then form small groups that circle around a newly arrived refugee family. As they support their family, volunteers can help refugees meet needs, such as learning how to navigate Iowa’s transportation, education or health systems. And they have fun together – exchanging cultural traditions or introducing families to new things, such as trips to the movies or pumpkin carving.

It’s also a unique opportunity for volunteers to learn what friendship truly means in other cultures.

“We told one refugee family at a match meeting, ‘We want you to meet these Americans. They want to be your friends. Tonight is a chance for you to get to know each other,” Jane said. “And the father, who is elderly and nearly blind, said ‘They cannot be my friend in this building at this table. To be my friend, they must come to my home and drink tea with me.”

“Friendship to these families is personal,” Jane explained. “It’s not some agency. We want it to be a reciprocal friendship. We have so much to learn from them in the richness of their cultures and the richness of sharing.”

“The Circle of Friends is not about doing good,” Jane added. “It’s about growing—growing together through friendships with inspiring people from across the world. Our refugee families want nothing more than to be self-reliant. It’s thrilling to see them so motivated and so determined to learn.”

Since 1975, approximately 26,000 refugees have been resettled to Iowa. Since its creation in 1995, RCS has helped resettle nearly one-third of Iowa’s refugee population.

The Circle of Friends is one of many programs offered through LSI’s refugee services in Des Moines, Muscatine and Waterloo.