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Show 10 WORLD REFUGEE DAY Utah celebrates thriving cultures on World Refugee Day SMYTHE EDDY EDITOR-IN-CHIE- F BY OF be attending the celebration this Refugees in Salt Lake wave the flags of their countries during one of Salt Lake Citys World Refugee Days. Solomon Awan, Westminster alumnus, is a refugee from South Sudan and will to year on June 6 in Liberty Park from 10 a.m. 4 p.m. Snow. This was the hardest thing for Solomon to get used to. The cold, the way he thought his toe would get stiff and break off when he had to walk through it. Before coming to the United States, they gave Solomon and the others a bowl of ice and told them this is what snow was like. Instead of easing their fears, it made them nervous. How did people survive, they wondered. Survival. An instinct many of them are familiar with. In 1975, 1.4 million refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos resettled in the U.S. In the 1990s, they were joined by 150,000 more refugees from the Soviet Union, Armenia and Ukraine and over 140,000 from the Balkan region, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Since then, these displaced peoples have been joined by tens of thousands of refugees from Africa including Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. According to the Utah Refugee Center, Utah is home to refugee communities specifically from Burundi, Bhutan, Burma (Myanmar), Karen, Chin, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Somalia Bantu and Sudan. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, since 1996, Utah has accepted 15,683 refugees and 942 in 2012 alone. Solomon Awan, Westminster alumnus, is one of these thousands who fled his homeland of South Sudan in 1987 when he was eight years old. He lived in Ethiopia three years accompanied by other men, women and children who had been displaced by a civil war between north and south Sudan. Some fled to Uganda, Kenya or Egypt or some were displaced internally within Sudan. In 1991, Solomon left Ethiopia and arrived at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya a year later. Its 742 miles from Sudan to Ethiopia and 58 from Ethiopia to Kenya. Thats a total of 800 as a refugee for miles. No food. No water. No shoes. Barefoot. Solomon is calm and composed in a smart gray suit and striped purple and gray tie. Around his wrist he sports a gold watch. The time reads 4:15 p.m. Its difficult. You dont have but you have to do it, said Solomon of his experience as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. You expect to be exhausted. Solomons childhood was shadowed by civil war caused over a divide between the Arab Muslims in the North and Christians and Animists in the South. For about ten years between 1970 and 1980, the country experienced temporary peace until 1983 when the a choice conflict ignited once again between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. Conflict between tribes in the south was frequent and fueled by weapon supplies from the north. Practices such as child soldiers, raiding and attacking of civilians was a common occurrence. Solomons escape from the shadow was his grandpa, Duop, mother an ox named Mading meaning The Road or pathways. to determine resettlement as bride wealth. In order to of Solomons was the father Duop eligibility. mother and didnt end up making remember this symbolic animal, Refugees are then Solomon was named after him. it out of the civil war in Sudan. distributed to a domestic So his first name is Mading. I ate with him, slept with resettlement agency such as Now, the last name of Solomons him, led him, walked with him. the U.S. Conference of Catholic chief a was Kuol, He was blind. We became very grandfather Bishops or the International and warrior in Sudan who passed close, Solomon said. Whatever Rescue Committee. These I will do in my life I will credit it away before Solomon was bom. agencies place them at Kuol is Solomons last name. to him. resettlement sites such as the Solomons middle name is Duop was respected in the Catholic Community Services of his fathers name. Awan. The village and many people would Utah or the International Rescue is so in Solomon advice. him for to place naming system go Committee Salt Lake Regional that every male has a chance to would sit next to him as Duop Office. Solomon a last and listened become elders to the name, Once these resettlement spoke to other community members. explained. This is how they trace sites are determined, refugees He learned from his grandfather lineage. are notified and must undergo the importance of being a Mading Awan Kuol. medical exams and other Solomon has considered clearance procedures before community man. He continued to talk about taking his current name away being flown to the U.S. to back and Solomon a that name Mading, yet reverting Duop, Flights are booked and this is difficult as his Christian guessed was passed down from resettlement agencies are notified name is on all of his documents. his great grandfather as is typical of the arrival date usually one to Documents that he has acquired of many Sudanese. History is two weeks prior. upon arriving in the U.S. as a Caseworkers assigned to the passed orally therefore one has to know descendants from fifteen refugee. refugees prepare for their arrival leaves When a a back. refugee generations by making housing arrangements Solomon described his homeland, one of three things and organizing furniture and name as a Christian name from occurs, according to the Utah food. In addition to caseworkers the Bible and one he was given Refugee Center. Refugees can providing support, mentors are go through repatriation, which upon his baptism at one of the assigned to each family to assist after home sent are when is Solomon ever If they refugee camps. with acclimation. the situation that caused them returned to South Sudan, his When the refugees arrive in name wouldnt be Solomon. They to flee in the first place is under their resettlement locations, they control. would call him Mading. - are greeted by caseworkers who Second, they can undergo My dad had an ox, Mading, take them to their new homes a big ox and my dad used to nationalization, which is when and assist with applying for social the in remain Solomon refugees country compose songs, security cards, food stamps and to which they escaped. Third, explained. A lifestyle based on other benefits. refugees can be granted country cattle, Solomon said, measures For the first three months, a persons wellness by the asylum or resettlement, which capable family members begin makes up less than one percent number of cows he or she has. work and slowly start to become of the refugee population. If . Cattle equate to livelihood and In Utah after were similar to currency. If one refugees are resettled in the U.S., six months, case management the Department of State and wants to purchase grain, he or and other services are provided she would have to trade a cow. Immigration and Naturalization to refugee families through Services interview refugees at When Solomons father married, the Refugee Employment and a Migration Processing Center he gave the family of Solomons Community Center and the Asian self-sufficie- nt. |