On a warm summer morning, in their apartment in Nottingham Green community off Quioccasin Road in Henrico's Near West End, 18-year-old Sona Safi translated for her father, 53-year-old Hamayoun Nazari, to help him express his experiences settling in Henrico County as refugees fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Like other refugees who are escaping war, famine, and unrest who arrive at Richmond International airport, the Safi Nazari family were met there upon their arrival by staffers from Commonwealth Catholic Charities, a Henrico County nonprofit that provides a furnished home, three-months help with rent, health care and food.

Since arriving here less than a year ago to reunite with their teenage son, who was able to escape on the 2021 Operation Allies Welcome airlift as the U.S. military exited and the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the family received help enrolling Safi and her siblings in school, got medical care, enrolled in English language classes, and learned job skills.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees defines refugees as people fleeing conflict, persecution and human rights abuses, and those who have crossed a border into another country. The UNHCR’s most recent report counted 117.31 million people worldwide as refugees – a number that has more than doubled during the past decade.

During the past five years, official resettlement agencies locally – the CCC and the International Rescue Committee – and Jewish Family Services have resettled 2,200 refugees from places of conflict around the world to Henrico County.

In co-operation with the U.S. State Department’s extensive vetting programs, the CCC and the IRC act as approved settlement agencies, providing the initial settlement assistance and orientation to refugees coming from almost a dozen different nationalities – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central American countries, South Sudan and Syria – with the majority being people from Afghanistan.

Both agencies also assist unaccompanied minors and people who are victims of sex and labor trafficking.

JFS has focused on assisting people from Ukraine resettle in the area.

Henrico has been identified as a welcoming place for these newcomers. After the initial brief and intense services offered by these three nonprofits, these and about a dozen other organizations in Henrico are stepping up to help refugees thrive – offering job coaching, education mapping, English language instruction and affordable health care.

But, even with help, the transition to life here can be bumpy and challenging.

While Nazari ran a small shop in Kandahar, Afghanistan, here he struggles to find a job with his limited English proficiency and a painful back condition.

“I'm not working,” said Nazari. “I’m trying to learn English, but it's so hard for me. Before I came here, I did not even know A-B-C.”

Safi and her siblings work at a supermarket on weekends and after their weekday classes at Freeman High School.

The family’s transition continues to pose many challenges. While they have moved beyond the three-month assistance period provided to refugees by the CCC, the adjustment in a completely new country, language and culture as asylum seekers continues to be difficult. And family members struggle to understand the systems in place here, such as Henrico Social Services’ many resources, that can help them with basic needs.

Nazari said after the three-month support period, when he asked for more help, his social worker told him to look into other government support, but he took that to mean that he should go to the police.

CCC staffers acknowledge three months is a short and intense period of support, due to funding limitations, and point to other ways they continue to help refugees beyond the initial settlement period, such as English classes and meetings with employment navigators.

“We are new here. We need for someone to help us in paying the house, the rent, the bills and applying for green card. We don't know how to do this process,” Safi said, translating for her father.

This summer, by emailing the CCC’s immigration legal assistance services, the Safi Nazari family was added to the long list of clients who will access that help to stabilize their status here.

And Safi intends to fill out a form putting her parents on a list to become clients of ReEstablish Richmond to access the small non-profit organization’s employment navigator assistance for Nazari, and driver’s license and sewing classes and other support services for her mother, Fauzia.

Read the full article about refugee assistance from local nonprofits by Dina Weinstein at Henrico Citizen.