Refugees, according to the United States Department of State, are persons of special humanitarian concern who can establish persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Each year, the President of the United States, after consulting with Congress and appropriate agencies, determines the designated nationalities and processing priorities for refugee processing for the upcoming year. The President also sets annual ceilings on the total number of refugees who may enter the U.S. from each region of the world.
There are millions of refugees in the world who meet the refugee definition. Refugees are accepted or rejected after an interview with an officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and several security clearances. If they are accepted, their information is sent to the U.S. Refugee Processing Center (RPC) which distributes the refugee cases to the resettlement agencies.
In Pittsburgh, the two resettlement agencies are Catholic Charities and Jewish Family and Children’s Service. The resettlement agencies provide refugees them with housing assistance, case management, acculturation and job placement services.
The Prospect Park Family Center was established in February 2007 through funding from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services and oversight from South Hills Interfaith Ministries (SHIM). Catholic Charities and Jewish Family and Children’s Service began resettling refugees in Prospect Park over a decade ago. Since then there have been a large number of refugees resettled here including Bosnians, Meskhetian Turks, Iraqis, Afghanis, Burmese, Burundians, Bhutanese, Sudanese, and Congolese. Prospect Park has also become home to immigrant families.
Nestled in the South Hills of Pittsburgh in Whitehall Borough, Prospect Park is a large apartment community of about 1,200 units. Among the apartments sit the Prospect Park Family Center, the Early Childhood Education Program directed by SHIM and the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council which offers English as a Second Language classes.
The Prospect Park Family Center is free to all families living in Prospect Park and focuses primarily on families with children ages 0 – 5 years. All programs intend to provide needed services as families adjust to life in the United States. The programs also promote self sufficiency through education and enable children to excel in the local school system.
The PPFC is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm with some evening and weekend activities. |
