Seattle Afghan Refugee Support

Please help us to support two Afghan refugee families to start a new life in Seattle!

 

THANKSGIVING 2023 UPDATE

I hope all who celebrate are having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! In the spirit of giving thanks we want to share our deep gratitude for your generous donations for the Afghan family who we are helping as they continue building their new life in Seattle. We have some good news to share since our last update - which you have all helped to make happen with your generous financial support!

IMMIGRATION

One of the two brothers had his Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application approved, and per USCIS website status green cards have been approved for him and his wife/children - they are now just waiting to receive them in the mail!

The other brother has had his Humanitarian Parole status extended, which keeps him in legal immigration/employment status as he progresses to more permanent status. On that front, great news that his SIV application is back on track/in queue as he got a dispensation to proceed despite the 'technicality' issue where the US sponsor for his application neglected to put their rank/title on the SIV sponsor paperwork. So it looks like he will not have to file for interim Asylum status, and will hopefully follow his brother with getting SIV status and then green cards approved for himself and his wife/children in the (hopefully) near future.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

We have been able to provide both husbands and wives, and the elder (15-year-old) son with ongoing regular one-on-one English language tutoring lessons on their phones with a bilingual Pashto/English speaker. This has really been a huge help in accelerating their English Language learning! Both brothers are also now re-enrolling in English language learning classes at a local community college - which we hope/expect will now be doable for them given the progress they have made with the bilingual tutor (and now that they can also lean on the tutor to help them with lessons from the community college classes as well). They understand that English language proficiency will help to unlock higher-paying job opportunities, and they are very motivated to continue and accelerate their learning. English language learning was a real challenge at first, so we are very happy to see this 'breakthrough' in starting to make real progress thanks to the online/phone tutoring sessions!

EMPLOYMENT

Both brothers have had their work hours cut for the holiday season, as happened last year as well. One brother has been seasonally laid off for three months, while the other brother has had his work hours reduced to 2 days/week through the holiday season. Thanks to your generosity we are able to provide the family with some supplemental funds to help them 'bridge the gap' with basic living expenses while they work to find supplemental employment until they can go back to full-time shifts at their current employer in the Spring. They are also working toward finding higher-paying jobs in 2024 (leveraging their improving English language skills) - where their income will hopefully be less impacted by holiday seasonality, and to have some savings built up as a financial cushion in case they do have another period of un/under-employment.

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Thank you all so much for your continuing support! It is hard to put into words how much of a positive impact your donations continue to have on this family - and what a real blessing it is for them to be able to keep themselves housed and put food on the table, and get medical care, etc. as they learn our language and culture. Meeting these basic needs is not a given by any means, and we honestly have no idea how they would have been able to do it without the support of this kind and generous 'village' supporting them despite never having met them. We are all so thankful for your kindness, and for the trust you have put in us to use your donations to support this family and help to deliver on our country's promise to support them in return for their support in Afghanistan (which in turn made them depart their home country as refugees). Wishing a happy holiday season to everyone, as well as good health and good fortune in the new year!

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Please donate to help the Ballard Sunset “Care Circle” (see below for more information about our group of Seattle neighbors) support two families of recent Afghan refugees who have resettled in the Seattle area, in partnership with the Afghans of Puget Sound Alliance (https://www.apsawa.org/) nonprofit organization. These families are composed of two brothers and their wives and children; a 15-month-old boy, a 4-year-old girl, and a 13-year-old boy. These families supported US troops in Afghanistan for 15 years, up until the chaotic final evacuation last August when they helped to ensure that US personnel got out of the country safely. These families were amongst the last ones evacuated in the final hours. They were originally placed in Florida, where their case worker told them “we don’t want your kind here” at their first meeting and then essentially ignored them. Two Board members of the Afghans of Puget Sound Alliance paid out of their own pockets to fly the families to Seattle, where they and other volunteers have helped the families find housing, jobs, apply for public benefits, enroll in school, etc. The families do not speak English (yet), and as you know two minimum wage jobs will not go very far for a family of seven to build a new life in Seattle (case in point, even with both husbands working the families need assistance to keep current on their monthly rent). The families also face significant challenges from language and cultural barriers. For example, the family is unable to effectively communicate with the school, and vice versa - and the 13-year-old boy showed up on Monday of spring break to find an empty school.

 

Our goal is to raise funds to support these families financially for at least 12 months (hopefully longer!) as they get their feet under them, and to position them to really thrive as Seattle residents and community members. Our funding goal is for 12 months of rent in a one-bedroom apartment for each family. We will also be engaging to provide advocacy, logistical support, and “friendly faces” for these families as they get settled (see more details on what we will do further below).

 

Please donate what you can to help support our newest neighbors, and to help make them feel welcome in Seattle, Washington State, and the United States in general! All donations will be used by Ballard Sunset Circle to pay for the needs of these two specific families. The Ballard Sunset Circle organization is registered with the state of Washington (to enable us to open a bank account, etc.); however we are not a 501(c)(3) organization. If you would like a tax deductible receipt for your donation, Afghans of Puget Sound Alliance (https://www.apsawa.org/) will accept donations for “Ballard Sunset Circle” to be used to support these families as provided in our budget.

 

Immediate needs for the families include the following:

-Help with their monthly rent, as they are not yet able to make ends meet with minimum wage jobs and public assistance.

 

-English language tutors to help expedite language learning (on evenings/weekends for the dads).

 

-2 laptop computers (ideally Windows, because a tech support resource knows how to configure for Pashto language support)

 

-2-3 tablets (e.g., iPad)

 

-A reliable used van (both fathers have just gotten their drivers licenses however they do not yet have funds for a car)

 

-Any resources for Pashto speakers to learn English language

 

-One of the wives would really like a sewing machine

 

-More items to follow

 

Updates will be posted on the Go Fund Me page, so please subscribe to updates when you donate, and/or bookmark this page if you would like to stay up to date!

 

Who We Are

Ballard Sunset Circle (BSC) is a volunteer organization in Seattle, composed of neighbors from the Ballard, Sunset Hill, Magnolia, and Phinney Ridge neighborhoods. Our mission is to help support recent refugees who are resettling in the Seattle area in order to ensure that their basic needs are met, and furthermore to ensure that they are able to connect with opportunities that will enable them to integrate successfully into the Seattle community and build a safe and prosperous life here. Though we may expand our efforts in the future, our sole focus right now is to help support two families who have recently resettled in Seattle after being evacuated from Afghanistan. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us using the "contact" button at the bottom of the page.

 

Goals

Current US federal government programs for refugee resettlement provide only $2,275 per person to help new refugees to the United States get started in their new life (source: https://www.sponsorcircles.org/about). For a family ‘starting over’ to build a new life in Seattle, this federal assistance does not go very far; especially when the working adults are only able to make minimum wage as they learn to speak English and find more lucrative employment opportunities. Our goal is to support these families to ensure that they can progress beyond ‘survival mode’ and public assistance programs to become self-sufficient and truly prosper in their new home.

 

What We Do

Ballard Sunset Circle volunteers, with the guidance of the Afghans for Puget Sound Alliance (https://www.apsawa.org/), will work directly with the families to provide financial and logistical/advocacy assistance in the following areas:

 

Financial Assistance: Understanding that two minimum wage jobs will not be sufficient to financially support seven people in Seattle, our goal is to provide financial assistance enabled by donations from friends, family, community members, etc. to pay for housing, food, clothing, furniture, health care/insurance, transportation, and education for a period of at least 12 months (based on the level of donations, hopefully even longer!). We will also be helping the families to navigate the banking system and create a bank account, establish a credit history, develop an emergency savings fund, and to ensure financial literacy including budgeting skills, bill payments, etc.

 

Legal Assistance: Afghans who were evacuated as part of the current humanitarian crisis have been granted temporary residency in the US. They are eligible for permanent residency and will need legal help in applying for green cards. BSC is looking for pro bono or low-cost legal services for the families. If you or someone you know can provide legal assistance, please contact BSC with the "contact" button below.

 

Education: The Afghan families that we are supporting do not speak English. Our immediate priorities are to ensure that the school aged children receive the support that they need at school (including Pashto <> English language translation), and to start learning English as soon as possible. We will help the families to find and leverage available resources, and we will engage to advocate for them as needed in order to ensure that their kids are positioned to engage and learn at school. Beyond these immediate priorities, we will also help the adults in the families to connect with English language learning resources, and also to identify resources to help develop/transfer their skills into optimal employment opportunities.

 

Health Care: Our sponsored families have Apple Care health insurance coverage through the Washington State public healthcare exchange. However they do not yet have primary care physicians, and from our understanding have not had health screenings or basic preventative care (to date their only interaction with our healthcare system has been to go to urgent care as needed). We will help these families to get connected with primary care physicians and dentists who can care for them (including finding language translators as needed) and identify/provide referrals for other health care needs that they may have. We will also help the families to identify appropriate mental health resources that they can leverage.

 

Community: Beyond the ‘basics’ of Financial, Legal, Education, and Health Care we will also help the families to identify and connect with community resources to help them feel at home and to make/build relationships with other community members. This will include helping them to find and connect with local mosques, community centers, other Afghan immigrants/refugees, entertainment and recreational activities, etc.

 

Remaining Funds: After all necessities have been paid for, any remaining funds will be given to the families to use at their discretion.