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Removing the fear

Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services helps refugee children and families adapt to life in America.

By TOM MARSHALL
Published March 27, 2007

Take 26 children, all of them refugees from the worst military or political troubles a 21st century world can conjure, and bring them to the beach.

Add cool water, warm breezes, soft sand, caring adults. See what happens.

Eight-year-old Mohamad Brown plunged right into the sea Monday at Fort De Soto Park, leaving far behind the chaotic circumstances of his birth in a West African refugee camp.

His 6-year-old cousin Solomon clung to a case worker and cast a fearful glance back toward his grandmother before dipping a cautious toe.

Mohamad's mother made it to America.

But Solomon's mother - who was seeking work on the day her family's number was called, the last day for resettlement out of the camp to America - did not. She remains in the United Nations camp, struggling to obtain a visa.

"When he sleeps, he jumps up in his sleep, 'I want to see my mom,' " said Solomon's grandmother, Martha, whose husband's violent death in Liberia prompted the family to flee that country's civil war in 1990.

The beach trip was just one of the ways Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services in Clearwater helps children adjust to new lives in a strange country.

"Just taking away that fear" can make a huge difference, said Abby Greenwell, case coordinator for the Refugee Youth and Family Program.

The program connects around 70 refugee children, or those whose parents have been granted political asylum, with caseworkers for tutoring, mentoring and support in a new land.

Some have difficulty focusing at school and need extra academic and social support.

But many children adjust far more quickly than their parents, some of whom have been jailed or even tortured for their political activities, Greenwell said.

Anhthu Nguyen, a 9-year-old from Vietnam, plunged into the ocean and looked for an adult to help with swimming lessons.

"I feel like I can swim, but I don't know how," she announced, breathless and giddy and up to her knees in the surf. "I'm scared. I want to swim like now!"

Her parents, who left Vietnam due to political problems with the government, don't speak English. So Anhthu has been figuring out America for the family.

"She asks me about tax properties, banking, the difference between the state and federal government," said her caseworker, Alan Janjus.

Anhthu strode by with a kite, pausing briefly to reflect on her memories of life in the Vietnamese countryside.

"My mom had a store," she said. "My grandma took care of us, and my dad worked. Can I go now?"

Down the beach, teenagers from Eastern Europe and Cuba played soccer.

And Solomon Brown dug hole after hole in the wet sand.

Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or 352 584-5537.

[Last modified March 27, 2007, 00:38:46]