“Doesn’t anyone care? That’s what I heard from the refugees,” said Kim Pozniak, a communications officer at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) who recently returned from Lebanon and Jordan, where she met with refugees from the conflict in Iraq and Syria.
“I wish I could go back and tell them: Yes. You care.”
The “you” Pozniak referenced was first-year Cabrini students from an Engagements with the Common Good (ECG) class, “Our Interdependent World.”
They gathered in the College’s Wolfington Center on Dec. 3 to hear Pozniak describe how CRS, the Caritas organization, and the Catholic Church are providing emergency support to hundreds of thousands of refugee families in a crisis affecting millions.
The Cabrini students provided some support of their own by presenting Pozniak with a check for $100 to further CRS’ work with refugees.
The class earned the funds by winning first prize in a social justice presentation competition held at the College during its annual Cabrini Day events in November.
ECG 100 class "Our Interdependent World" presenting their first-prize Cabrini Day check to Catholic Relief Services
L-R: Peggy Jean Craig, Kim Pozniak, Mackenzie Harris, Madison Worley, Emily Janny, Chris Fonte, Joe Finn, Anna Laquintano, Victoria Buckley, Tim Nugent, Mary Morris, Marissa Roberto, Katie Briante, Megan Shafer
The students—who are also members of a Communication Learning Community—created an engaged-learning simulation about the crisis of unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America, titled “Refugees Seeking Safety.”
Pozniak was grateful for the donation because there are not enough resources to support the 13 million displaced Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing violence, religious persecution, and hunger in those combat-ravaged countries.
“Starvation is being used as a weapon of war now,” Pozniak said. “There are people in Syria living on grass and berries, which are also running out.”
While showing familiar photos from the media of men with guns on dusty streets, Pozniak said the truth is that 70 to 80 percent of Syrian and Iraqi refugees are women. “We see men with guns,” she said. “We never see the women and children.”
This group of Cabrini students knows too well about children being forgotten in larger cultural conversations around refugees.
Their November simulation aimed to raise awareness about the 57,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America who last year made the perilous journey to America to escape overwhelming gang violence.
Simulation participants assumed one-of-six identities of unaccompanied minors and after being given a few faux dollars, participants moved from station to station, each simulating a roadblock that young people face when trying to reach safety in America, from encountering gang members to spending time in overcrowded detention centers.
At the end, participants debriefed the experience and learned what they can do to help.
“A lot of participants were shocked,” said Cabrini student Katie Briante ’18 about the simulation.
“They were shocked that these things were actually happening to kids who were 9 and 10 years old. It really made an impression on people who went through the simulation,” Briante said.