Karen Refugees

This summer we've gotten very involved with the Karen refugee community in Dallas. We first found out about these refugees from Burma through our work with Agape clinic, and have since engaged in a good deal of outreach in getting to know the community and helping out where we can. The Karen are an ethnic group that has suffered tremendous persecution from the Burmese army, and those who are able to escape to Thailand usually spend years waiting in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border to be granted asylum to the US. Several hundred have ended up in Dallas over the past few years. Most have very limited English skills, and are completely overwhelmed with the prospect of living in an apartment in the middle of Dallas and trying to find a job and cope with stressors that come with living in a new country.

One of the people we've been working with is PuLu, who is an incredible furniture craftsman. We've added a few pages to our website to promote his work--just go to our homepage--www.oneworldfarm.com and click on the link that says "Hand-Crafted Furniture." Please check it out and help us spread the word if you can. We also created a pdf brochure on the same page that can be printed and distributed if you'd like to help. He's a talented artist and really wants to be able to support his family doing what he loves to do--creating beautiful hand made furniture. We're trying to find ways to build up a customer base or to find stores that would sell his furniture on consignment, so if you have ideas, please let us know. We're also looking for a space that he could use to build larger pieces, as right now he's having to build the furniture in the living room of his family's one bedroom apartment--not an ideal situation!

Another family we've been working with consists of several generations living in an apartment in Garland (east of Dallas). The grandfather ("PuPu") was a farmer back in Burma, and for the past few months has been asking if he could grow vegetables here in Dallas. After a lot of asking and convincing, the apartment complex agreed to allow PuPu and his family to grow vegetables on an unused porton of land at the apartment complex. We loaded up soil, compost, shovels, and landscape timbers, and got to work. Here are some pictures of the inital garden work last Friday.

Some of the kids found a garden snake and were enthralled:

Helping to transplant the grass to another area of the complex:

Pupu and his son in law, Taw Paw, digging the garden bed:

After our hard work in the garden , we took some of the kids (and adults) to the circus. It was quite a challenge trying to explain what a "circus" was before we went--but everyone had a blast. Here are a few pics:

If you would like to help improve the Karen refugees' lives in America, there are lots of things to do! You can volunteer your time or donate money to help with the purchase of materials for the garden or for wood for PuLu's furniture. You can order furniture, or donate space for a makeshift workshop. You can donate seeds, shovels, soil, compost, etc. for the garden. You can provide transportation to take a refugee to see a health care provider, or donate a car to be used to transport several people to work. You could help find jobs, school clothes, and English classes. The possibilities are really limitless. Please let us know if you want to help--they (and we) need you!!!