A Pathway to Learning
By Daisy Byers, Manchester University
Prior to the start of my internship with New American Pathways, I outlined goals related to what I wanted to learn this summer. With each, I also came up with ways to achieve them. First among these aims was a desire for hands-on experience with best practices, client contact, community partnerships, and mentorship. I also wanted to gain an in-depth understanding of the immigration system in the United States. I wanted to finish the internship with a working knowledge of the steps involved in attaining citizenship with respect to age, race, gender, and country of origin. Lastly, I wanted to come out of this experience feeling fulfilled, knowing that I have made a positive impact on someone’s life. After two months of interning at New American Pathways, I can honestly say that I achieved most of the objectives I set for myself.
New American Pathways is a nonprofit organization that was created in 2014 when Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA) and Refugee Family Services (RFS) merged. The aim of the organization is to help refugees from their moment of arrival in Georgia through their journey to citizenship. It offers clients special programs that are designed to provide pathways to success for refugees and other immigrants as they build new lives. Along this journey, New American Pathways sets four key milestones for its clients: safety and stability, self-sufficiency, success, and service. In the first step of safety and stability, the organization assists refugees with resettlement, cultural orientation, helping them with English language literacy, healthcare, and school.
The first milestone focuses on securing safe housing, basic needs, individual empowerment, and whatever each person needs on their pathway to succeed. In the second stage, self-sufficiency is the focus. Once safety and stability are achieved, New American Pathways moves clients toward their career services programs, to ensure that each client/refugee has a job, a household budget, and is learning how to successfully navigate their community. During the third milestone — success — each refugee should either be enrolling in job training or in school/college. This stage is where the immigration specificities come in, because clients are now to the point of applying for citizenship, reuniting with family, growing into their career, and watching their children flourish. The last stage is service. Once each client has been helped and has received their green card or received citizenship, the organization then asks them to give back to the community, through volunteering, community leadership, and voting.
At New American Pathways, everyone who walks through the door will get the help they need, and after they get that help, the organization makes sure to keep tabs on them. The staff does 90-, 120-, and 180-day checks on each client that they help. Not only that, but they will continue to check up on those clients until the client comes in and tells them not to anymore. On any given day, New American Pathways would help 60–80 clients. They also do home visits with the client, from the moment they arrive to Georgia, to the day they decide to leave. The staff goes above and beyond for their clients. Carole Simon, the employment specialist at the organization, states that, “each client is like a family.” Employees even attend weekend soccer games to show their support for the families they serve. They do these little things because they want those children to feel loved and welcomed; they want to do whatever it takes to make families feel like they are not alone, that they have the support of the New American Pathways family behind them.
New American Pathways has a way of making everyone who walks through their doors feel like family. As a new intern, I was terrified for many reasons. I had never been to Atlanta by myself before, and I did not know what type of environment I was walking into. I was afraid that I would not fit in with the people or that they would not like me or welcome me. However, when I walked into the building for the first time, all of my worries went away. The environment was very friendly, and the people made me feel like I had known them my whole life. Everyone in the office took me in as one of their own. They were caring from the first day. I got such an amazing feeling from them that is unexplainable; it’s a feeling of warm love — the type of love that you get and don’t think you deserve.
One of the other unique things about New American Pathways was its commitment to women’s empowerment, as it is led by women. The CEO and 90 percent of the staff are women, many of them with experiences as former refugees or immigrants themselves. The entire resettlement and most of the career services department are all refugees or immigrants who worked hard to get their citizenship and are now working to help others who are in their situations get a better life. These people could have left to do something different after getting their citizenship, but they decided to use their success to help others.
Jessica Alfonso, the immigration assistant that I worked with was so loving, caring and welcoming to me. She took me under her wing and taught me almost everything I needed to know about working with immigrants. She even allowed me to work one-on-one with a client for a whole day, helping them file their application for green cards for their family members. I also filled out a citizenship application for a family. My time with Jessica taught me that there are so many different forms of visas and green cards. It also taught me the different types of people who can apply for them. When someone is applying for the I-130 petition, for example, it means that they are applying for a parent. I also learned that DHS gives first pick to U.S. citizens, then green card holders, and then refugees. Jessica also helped me understand the differences among N-400, I-90, 92, 130 and I-912 forms. I learned a lot about the way the system works, like if a U.S. citizen is applying for green card status for family members, it takes between six to nine months to get that approved. You cannot file or petition for anyone if you are not a citizen or a green cardholder. Different countries have different rules. Most people from Iran, Somalia, and East Africa are limited to two-year visas by their embassies. I didn’t know any of this information before coming to New American Pathways.
This internship had a major impact on me because it helped clarify my future goals. I aspire to work with immigrant and refugee groups within the United Nation (UN). I want to be an advocate, a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. My goal is to hopefully help change American policies on immigrants and refugee. I want to help give them better lives and help in any way that I can. Now that my internship is over, I plan on being part of SHECP in the future and continue to do volunteer work. I am going to use everything I have learned from my internship and put it to use at Manchester University. After graduation, my hope is to be accepted into the University of San Francisco’s master’s degree program in migration studies.
SHECP matters because it accords someone like me the opportunity to gain real life experiences in a field that has been of utmost importance to me since my youth. This internship not only gave me a reason to vacate my comfort zone by living in and exploring a city far away from where I was raised, but it has also enabled me to be more empathetic towards the various struggles that refugees face. SHECP matters because it opened doors for me to make connections with other people.
Daisy Byers is a political science major at Manchester University, class of 2019. She was one of 130 students selected for the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty’s 2018 Internship Program. Each summer, SHECP interns are placed with nonprofit and government agencies that work on the front lines of poverty and serve as co-educators to students. The views and opinions expressed in this reflection are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty.
