Maine’s refugees shine in celebration of World Refugee Day

PORTLAND, Maine — Globe Refugee Day has hundreds of Mainers studying about the various immigrant communities that simply call Maine house Monday.

Celebrations in Portland and Lewiston drew hundreds Monday night, with Portland’s hosted by the Increased Portland Immigrant Welcome Middle for the initially time at Congress Sq. Park.

For Govt Director Reza Jalali, who is initially from Iran but now works out of downtown Portland, it can be a labor of love.

“We have a expanding inhabitants of immigrant refugees. We phone them new Mainers. [They] have arrive from all above the world to begin new lives below, and at moments, they are invisible to us,” Jalali stated. “And at the similar [time], we have to be conscious to the contributions they have manufactured to the condition we really like so much.”

Jalali and his workers had been making ready for this evening all day.

Rita Welcih, a local community navigator with the Immigrant Welcome Center who at first arrived from Colombia two years ago, claimed staying able to host Entire world Refugee Day allows her to assist people today who have just arrived to Maine from other nations.

“I actually want immigrants to be a section of Maine and Portland, the community, and that personally is quite essential to me… We want men and women who occur to Maine to feel like they are component of the community. We want them to come to feel like a section of Maine,” Welcih explained.

The Immigrant Welcome Center estimates there are all-around 50,000 immigrants and asylum seekers residing in Maine, with a lot of coming from Somalia and Afghanistan.

Jalali claimed Ukrainians will before long make up a large part of the population as very well.

“We hope that lots of Mainers be a part of us today to celebrate Earth Refugee Day and fulfill a refugee, an immigrant, an asylum seeker. To hug them and to welcome them, and shake their hand,” Jalali said. “We do that due to the fact Maine is a wonderful state, it really is what we do.”

For Lewiston, the occasion is in its 20th calendar year of observance. 

Fatuma Hussein with the Immigrant Source Center of Maine explained 11 cultures had been represented at Monday’s celebration for Globe Refugee Working day.

“What we want persons to know and to be component of is embracing diversity, embracing neighborhood, and collectively stating that we are a single Maine,” Hussein said. “At the conclude of the working day, the state of Maine has so many backgrounds and so numerous persons, yet we signify the condition of Maine.”

Asylum seekers on the lookout for help in the state of Maine can access it through Maine Equivalent Justice.

These on the lookout to help refugees can access the Bigger Portland Immigrant Welcome Center’s volunteer system.

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