Residents Learn How to Help Refugees Coming to the Eau Claire Area

Friday, May 10th, 2024 -- 8:00 AM

(Rich Kremer, Wisconsin Public Radio) Inside a nondescript building near downtown Eau Claire, seven residents sat around a large table at nonprofit resettlement agency World Relief’s newest office.

According to Rich Kremer with Wisconsin Public Radio, they came to the March meeting to learn how they might be able to help refugees who have fled their countries due to war or persecution adjust to life in the region.

“These people have fled their homes and suffered unimaginable loss,” World Relief staffer Jodi Jewell told her fellow residents. “They’ve had to leave behind careers, cultural norms, homes, family members. However, their past difficulties are not what define them. They are some of the most resilient, driven and joy-filled people that you’ll ever meet.”

Globally, the numbers are staggering. In 2022, more than 108 million people around the world were forcibly displaced according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Just 10 years earlier, it was less than half of that.

Around 16,700 refugees have resettled in Wisconsin since 2001. They’ve come from countries like Laos, Iraq, Somalia, Burma, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.

The Eau Claire resettlement plan aims to bring 75 refugees to the Eau Claire area by September. So far, 24 individuals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have arrived. But in some cases, resettlement plans in Wisconsin have faced a backlash from local citizens and Republican lawmakers.

In 2017, a plan to bring in 26 Syrian refugees to St. Croix County in far western Wisconsin was met with strong opposition and led to Republican former Gov. Scott Walker asking former President Donald Trump for the authority to set limits on refugees and where they come from.

In Eau Claire, critics of the refugee resettlement claimed a city manager made an agreement with World Relief in secret months before the public knew. This spurred Republican lawmakers to introduce state and federal legislation, with one bill aimed at requiring more buy-in from local officials and the other giving the state and local governments the ability to reject new refugees.

At the volunteer training, Jewell has the group write down the most important people and things in their lives on small white cards. After sharing first-person accounts of the tragedy and loss suffered by refugees, the volunteers have to make a choice.

“You will have 10 seconds to choose one paper from your people category to lose,” Jewell said in a somber tone. “When you have decided, remove that selected paper into a discard pile.” When asked how they felt about picking a person to leave behind, one volunteer said it felt “like I betrayed them.”

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