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Findings from a first visit to OPE/Accra: hard work, team spirit
Faith Beauty Salon -- One of the many small businesses operating in the Buduburam Refugee Camp.
Photo: Jennifer Hendrick
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Church World Service's Overseas Processing Entity (OPE) in Accra, Ghana, and its sister Joint Voluntary Agency in Nairobi, Kenya, process the cases of African refugees for resettlement in the United States – 23,000 in 2004.
Upon arrival, these and other refugees from around the world get help starting their new lives from 10 agencies under contract with the U.S. State Department, including CWS, which resettles about 5,000 refugees each year.
This spring, CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Associate Director Jennifer Hendrick paid her first visit to the OPE and came away impressed with the high level of commitment and case-specific knowledge of the staff.
"Even with thousands of people being processed, staff knew detailed information about the situations and needs of the people," she remarked. "Interviews were conducted carefully, were well translated, and were sensitive to cultural definitions of family relationships."
 A Liberian woman at Bububuram Refugee Camp in Ghana Photo: Jennifer Hendrick
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"It was truly the best visit that I have had to OPE," Roberson commented. "The monitoring went extremely well with high marks to CWS staff and the work they are doing in West Africa. The staff displayed a strong team spirit in dealing with the challenges they face."
Cultural orientation is conducted by people with U.S. refugee resettlement experience, and offers a realistic picture of U.S. work and social culture, Hendrick observed.
"People were told to expect hard, lonely times, especially during the first year," she said. "While the emphasis was on self-sufficiency, people also were urged to turn in trust to their resettlement agency and cosponsors when in need."
In class, refugees worked to identify their job-relevant skills, whether or not they had formal employment experience, "and more subtle things, like how to be sure you are applying for the right job, and how to get a job but still stand up for your rights."
Invited to add a word, Hendrick emphasized the importance of "asking questions if you don’t understand something." To illustrate her point, she described going with a young Sudanese man on a job interview and being puzzled at his dismay when told he'd be helping developmentally disabled "adults."
Later, he explained that the word "adult" sounds a lot like the Dinka word for dog, and that he is afraid of dogs. He said he knew it didn't make sense for an English-speaking interviewer to use a Dinka word, but he was so caught by surprise that he didn’t ask for clarification.
Hendrick's example evoked laughter along with many appreciative comments that there was a lot to learn from the story.
In Ghana, Hendrick also visited the Accra transit center for especially vulnerable refugees, mostly from Darfur, Sudan, and the Buduburam Camp, home to 42,000 or more refugees, most of them from Liberia, Sierra Leone and southern Sudan. The camp is so well established that it is considered a semi-permanent settlement.
 Mr. Bah of the Buduburam Refugee Education Board
Photo: Jennifer Hendrick
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A Liberian doctor, himself a refugee, heads the camp's health clinic, and there are scores of small businesses, including cybercafes, DVD rentals, beauty salons, refreshment stands, clothing and toiletries stores, and more.
"As far as refugee camps go, Buduburam is pretty well set," Hendrick said, "but daily life remains a struggle — for food, for work. The people are still refugees, unable to integrate into the host country, and unable to return home safely."
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