It takes a vision
In June 2023, 108.4 million people around the world had been forcibly displaced from their homes.1 That year, through May, the U.S. admitted 31,800 refugees – each needing a significant support system to settle in. What better place than a university community – with housing, health care, quality education, a diverse citizenry and tight social construct – that can quickly coalesce to give that support?
Seeing an opportunity and an organization with specific expertise in humanitarian aid, WSU stepped up and established a chapter of Every Campus a Refuge. This led to a partnership with Spokane’s International Rescue Committee (one of 29 IRC offices in the United States), which works with refugees to settle them into their new lives, making sure they have the basic needs of food, shelter, and legal rights met from their arrival to the region. The IRC works with their clients for up to five years and enables access to English language classes, education for the children, social and health services as they help build the job, and computer and financial literacy skills their clients need to become independent, productive members of the Spokane community.
The back story
Paul Whitney, WSU associate vice president of International Programs, worked with IRC Development Manager Kimmie Curry and a team of WSU volunteers to help settle two refugee families in Pullman in 2022 (Phase 1). One of the lessons of that experience was that integrating refugees into the U.S. health care system – often confusing and complex – is a major challenge. So, in 2023, with support from the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH), Phase 2 began when the WSU-IRC partnership expanded to include the College of Nursing in Spokane.
The program dovetailed nicely with requirements of the Nursing Commission that students participate in direct clinical service before graduating. Kay Olson, associate professor in the College, said two Nursing students completed their senior clinical practicum in community health at the IRC. Although they could not diagnose or treat clients, the students could listen to them at visits during IRC walk-in hours and make general suggestions (such as follow up with a medical provider). They also met with clients outside the office, helping them apply for Apple Health, fill out forms and call about their appointments, and going so far as to ride the bus with them to the doctor’s office. In many cases, the students and their clients did not speak the same language but got by with gestures, grace and Google Translate.
Olson said, “Service learning like this helps students gain a new perspective on how difficult it can be to navigate health care for people from different cultures and backgrounds. They learn empathy, which makes them better able to provide care to their patients.”
“The number-one quality of a great intern is being flexible, and our WSU interns were exactly that,” said Curry. “The clients were happy to have their assistance. Their work freed up IRC staff as well; their hands-on involvement filled big direct-service needs.”
“The IRC was delighted with getting this aid, and the students’ service-learning experiences prepared them to better manage refugee and immigrant patients in their future careers,” Whitney said.
The program will continue in the 2024 fall semester.
Going forward
Phases 1 and 2 served as proof-of-concept for a proposed Phase 3, which would extend opportunities for student support of refugee resettlement more broadly across the WSU system.
“At WSU we have a strong history of involving students in hands-on experiences that allow them to grow and apply their knowledge in transferable ways,” Whitney said. “Our graduates will work in a globally connected world. This effort will provide students with mentored experiences that stretch their ability to see the world from different perspectives and to apply their knowledge toward concrete, meaningful goals.”
By the numbers
Spokane’s IRC has resettled about 450 individuals since opening in April 2022. Their clients number over 1,000, which includes refugees who have been in Spokane less than five years and newcomers who have not been resettled by IRC. About 350 have accessed health care assistance.
As of October 2023 in Washington state, 993 newly arrived refugees and humanitarian immigrants applied for DSHS services.2
Refugee: A person who has been forced to flee their country to escape war, persecution, violence or natural disaster
Step into a refugee’s shoes for a moment.
To save your life – and likely your family’s life – you must leave your home where all your loved ones, friends and lifetime of memories are. You’ll be making a rushed, harrowing journey out of your country with no guarantee of safety. You may land in a large refugee camp where you’ll stay for months or years. Eventually, a visa to a new country may come through and you must uproot again and face a new uncertain future.
You and your family finally arrive at your assigned location in the new country, which you had no power to select. The food is foreign. You don’t speak the language. Money, transportation, shopping, health care are mysteries. Where can you worship? Where can you work? If you’re a doctor, you can’t practice medicine; a lawyer, law; a teacher or beautician, same.
You are a refugee – a stranger in a strange land – and you, an adult with responsibilities, skills, a past, must rely on others for your most basic needs as you navigate an unfamiliar land to build a new, safe life.