As Refugees Resettle, Food and School Are Irresistible

The thousands of refugee children from Sudan who are resettling in the United States may suffer anxiety, depression and other adjustment problems because of hardships they have endured, but their age also makes them resilient, experts say.

The so-called Lost Boys have strong coping skills and “have been even more recharged to push forward,” says Kizombo Kalumbula, a therapist at Bethany Christian Services in Michigan, who has been working with many of the Sudanese.

“The first thing they ask is: ‘Where is the school, where are the classes, when do they start?’ ” he says.

Many of the children and teens have waited eight years or more in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

The decision to relocate them was made only after it became clear they probably were orphans, says Paul Stromberg, a Nairobi-based spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The younger children--those under 18--have been placed in foster homes in Boston; Fargo, N.D.; Grand Rapids and Lansing, Mich.; Jackson, Miss.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Richmond, Va.; Rochester, N.Y.; Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., and Washington, D.C.

The older ones--those from 18 to their early 20s--are being resettled this year in those areas as well as Atlanta; Chicago; Cleveland; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Denver; Des Moines; Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.; Kansas City, Kan.; Las Vegas; Lincoln, Neb.; Louisville, Ky.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; New Haven, Conn.; Pittsburgh; Salt Lake City; San Diego; San Jose; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Syracuse and Utica, N.Y.

Some will settle with foster parents, while others will be in group homes or live independently.

Julianne Duncan, an official of Lutheran Social Services of Washington and Idaho who recently spent a year at Kakuma, says when Sudanese children were deciding whether they wanted to come to the United States, they had one question: “Is there enough food there?”

“If there was going to be enough food,” she says, “they would take a chance.”