Starting over in America

This immigrant helped another immigrant group of women adjust in their new country by first teaching them to crochet. It gave them confidence, helped them learn the language, made new friends, earned some money, got them out of their houses and even taught them some health care. DP

Somali Bantu women enjoy a craft group while learning other skills needed in their new home

By Katya Cengel, The Courier-Journal

courier-journal.com: Louise Nyiramulinda knows what it is like to flee her country and to start over.

She came to the United States in 1998, leaving behind her native Rwanda, her degree in sociology and her job at a non-profit organization.

Seven years later, she was still laboring toward a bachelor's degree in social work at Spalding University while also working at Americana Community Center, a non-profit serving refugees and immigrants.

It was at Americana that she learned about the difficulties another refugee group from Africa, the Somali Bantu, was facing.

"We were hearing things about how they were struggling to adjust," said Nyiramulinda.

While their inexperience with technology, lack of English and often a lack of literacy in their own language were all hurdles, there was another obstacle as well, said Nyiramulinda.

"As a refugee, you go through a trauma, and then you come here and you think, 'Oh, OK. Phew, I can breathe now.' "

But the Somali Bantu, she explained, experienced a double trauma, because when they arrived they encountered expatriate countrymen of the same ethnic group who had repressed them there.

And the most isolated in their patriarchal society were the women, who rarely left the house, she said. Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.