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Hello dear community! In this month’s newsletter we would like to highlight a special CERI program: CalHOPE, 2020-2023. For our refugee and immigrant community members, working with government systems can be difficult at the best of times - and in 2020 with sudden closures and limited hours due to the pandemic, navigating social services and supports became even harder. Meeting basic needs like applying for medical care, food benefits, and tracking asylum cases was put in jeopardy for many. Fortunately, we have been able to support each other through the strength of our community. Thanks to years of organizing together as well as new state funding, we initiated an outreach support program (CalHOPE) that brought new communities to CERI, some of whom are new refugees. With the support of the CERI CalHOPE team we have provided services to Indonesian, Afghan, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Tibetan, and Nepalese communities, in 6 different languages and dialects. We have worked to initiate asylum cases, apply for travel documents, green cards, and citizenship, and connect folks to medical care. After meeting and connecting heart-to-heart with refugee families, they would often open up about their life’s challenges and struggles, sharing experiences that are not easy to talk about. By building trusting relationships, they would also get encouraged to participate in our support groups, or work with a therapist - many of them for the first time. This year, we’ve held 1,158 sessions through CalHOPE! Many more people have also become connected to resources that help them access a needed surgery; make new friends at a women’s group; and more. The grant that supported us with our CalHOPE program ends this month. We were adamant not to stop our services nor close our doors to these new communities with the end of funding. We were also determined not to lay off our dedicated staff, even if we didn’t have replacement funding immediately in January. We knew that with support from our donors and funders, we would soon secure a new grant to continue this program. And fortunately, we did! The Public Health Institute is generously supporting this program for another year. With this new funding, we are also going to serve Iranian refugees and immigrants. We are grateful to the CalHOPE team who have dedicated so much time and heart, day in and day out, to this vital community work.
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