300 Burmese immigrants headed for Fort Wayne over the next couple of months…
…joining the 3,000 already here, the largest concentration of Burmese refugees in the US. This resettlement is being coordinated by Catholic Charities:
The Fort Wayne Catholic Charities office usually closes at noon Friday. For Nyein Chan and his resettlement staff, the day isn’t even half over.
“Refugee development is just starting,” says Nyein Chan, director of the department. Taking a quick lunch break at his desk, he ponders his day. Already, he has met with 17 newly arrived refugees from Burma, and two more families are coming in at 10:30 this night. Between now and then, he and others need to pick up furniture and groceries for the arriving families, plus check that their apartments are ready. Last night, and the night before, he also went to the airport to pick up arriving families.
It’s not an unusual day, at least not for the next three months.
About 300 refugees from the Thai-Burma border will resettle in Fort Wayne this year, more than twice as many as last year. The bulk of them will arrive by the end of September.
“It is an extremely large amount of people,” said Deb Schmidt, executive director of Catholic Charities. “It’s a tremendous amount of work, and they’re all coming in so fast.”
Anticipating the increase, Catholic Charities has hired additional staff in the last few months. Fortunately, Schmidt said, the burden does not rest on the resettlement department alone. “Every person who works in this agency is aware of what’s going on and doing what they can to help,” she said.
Last year, 127 refugees came here from Tham Hin, a refugee camp where conditions are rapidly deteriorating. This year, that movement continues. In addition, another camp called Mae La, the largest on the border, is sending 16,000 people to the United States, also by the end of September.
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