June 20 is World Refugee Day, an international day designated by the United Nations to honor refugees around the world, to honor the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution.
Niki G. of the Welcome to America Team talked with Lawson R., Refugee Youth Mentoring Liaison with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, and Farzad A., Youth Education Coordinator with International Rescue Committee, to talk about and share the highlights and challenges of serving refugee youth.
Interview with Lawson R.
Tell us about your role in serving refugee youth.
Lutheran Social Services (LSS) of the Southwest is a refugee resettlement agency here in Tucson and has different offices throughout the country. LSS is one of the remaining active local resettlement agencies in addition to IRC, the International Rescue Committee. Some agencies closed or ended their resettlement services due to cuts and restrictions under the Trump administration. I'm the Refugee Youth Mentoring Liaison and I run the Refugee Youth Mentoring Program. When volunteers are available, I try to match volunteers and refugee youth aged 15 to 24 together to have a one-on-one mentorship pairing. Those can be based on personality matches, career interests, shared hobbies, and each of the mentees make primary smart goals and work towards those goals. Unfortunately, not all my kids have mentors, because we always need more volunteers,
What kind of guidance do you provide?
It depends - while some of my kids have a very high level of English proficiency, others have specific goals they want to target in their English language learning. A lot of kids want to learn English better so they can get a job. A lot of refugee kids know what they want, but they don't always know what they need.
What's the age range for the youth?
Aged 15 to 24 and most of them are in high school. Out of the kids I currently work with, we have a couple who are a little bit older. Because of privacy reasons, I can't ask schools to give me confidential kids' personal information to identify ones who are refugees so a lot of times I meet the kids through friends in the community, and other refugee youth in the community who introduce them to me.
So outside of the mentorship program, because we don't have a lot of volunteers, I function as a mentor a lot of the time. For example, I take them to the library to get library cards, or to an event at the library, or I'll take them on fun social excursions and seasonal activities. I took them to the pumpkin patch, and earlier this year, we went to the aquarium. I'm taking them to an art class at the Drawing Studio. I like to take them to do fun social activities to socialize with their peers, to introduce them to culture, and to help them meet others from different cultures. I also help them make resumes and do employment workshops. I recently received some curriculumn from Junior Achievement of Arizona and I’m going to do a class with it this summer.
What are some examples of journeys that some of the kids have gone through to get here?
I never asked the kids explicitly what they've gone through, so as not to retraumatize them. One girl had shared her journey with me - she and her family were living a normal life, and her dad got a job in town, and there happened to be a rebel militia that targeted them for some reason, and so they had to move. There can be political or religious persecution and a lot of times, they can be in war-torn countries and have seen active war zones. I had another kid who was in a refugee camp for around nine years before he got here, so each story varies greatly. When you see an ad on TV about refugees, these are real people experiencing these things, and a lot of them are teenagers.
What do you think are the biggest challenges that refugee youth face transitioning here?
It’s like anyone who has experienced migrating or are children of immigrants. Often, my kids have a lot of adult responsibilities that a lot of American teens don't have. Sometimes I'll invite a kid to do something and then at the last minute he must help his mom or translate for her, and a lot of my kids also must help provide for their family. Everyone's in a different position, but I think the biggest thing is, on top of being a teenager, which is already hard, you have all these adults relying on you. Kids already face things that made them grow up too fast in different ways, but then they come here and continue to face challenges.
What are the highlights of your role? What do you find you enjoy the most about it?
I think teenagers are deeply misunderstood. Before I came into this role, I thought teenagers can be kind of scary, like they have so much going on, and that can present in aggressive or shut down ways. But when you take the time to get to know them, you'll really see how misunderstood they are, which doesn't make a lot of sense because everyone was a teenager at one time! I think people can forget that a teen’s inner world is so much deeper than they think and that impulsive behavior is because they're still not fully developed in that part of the brain, which makes more sense when we think, "Why don't they know better?". The highlight of my role is knowing the kids very personally, and I think a win for them is a win for me. Last week was graduation, I had six kids graduate. I've known them all for a little over a year, and seeing the ways they've grown, whether academically or socially, or their language skills, it's a joy to know them personally and watch them grow.
Do you have partnerships with post-secondary institutions?
I don't have any specific connections to universities or colleges in general, but The One Refugee Scholarship Program has been very helpful. The four that applied were accepted to the scholarship program. I think it’s relatively new to Arizona, and they have a supervisor who helps them through the process of working with their advisor.
Are there any takeaways you’d like the community to have about refugee youth?
Part of it is that literally refugee youth exist. I went to the high school graduations, and there were some refugee kids I didn't know. I think the beautiful thing about Tucson is that it is an incredibly diverse community. I think everyone right now needs more help, not just refugees, and this is kind of a personal philosophy, and it's something I learned at a yoga retreat I went to a couple years ago, but meeting people without fear is the most important thing you can do. I think what's important to remember is that these kids come here with their own ideas of culture, too, based on what they see on social media.
Were there any other thoughts or comments you wanted to make about serving refugee youth?
I find Tucson to be a pretty welcoming place, and I think there are many people, not just refugees, who need help. Refugee resettlement agencies like LSS always need volunteers but there are many different volunteering opportunities so if you have the capacity and have it in your heart to volunteer someplace, then you should.
I started off volunteering at Literacy Connects, and that changed my life. I got close with library staff, I met my partner, I really learned how to be a better teacher, and how to help people. Volunteering your time is such a great learning opportunity, and it also really expands your heart and your empathy.
Lawson also shared two refugee teens’ responses about their challenges and highlights of coming to America.
Youth #1: My journey to the United States was by plane from Costa Rica when I was 15 years old. Even though the trip itself was not very long, emotionally it was difficult because I was leaving behind my friends, my life, and everything I was used to.
One thing that surprised me about the U.S. was the heat in Tucson because I was not used to weather like that. I was also surprised by how kind and welcoming many people were to me when I arrived.
The biggest challenges for me were learning English, adapting to a completely different life, and missing my friends and my home in Costa Rica. At first, I wanted to go back because it was hard for me to adapt to life in the United States.
Even though it was difficult at first, living here has given me many opportunities. I have been able to do volunteer work and also find paid jobs. It has helped me learn new things, grow as a person, and continue building a better future for myself.
I would like the community to understand that moving to another country as a teenager is not easy. Many teens are trying their best to adapt while also missing their families, friends, language, and culture.
Youth #2: I went through a journey full of changes, especially because I've lived in three different countries (including my own). I was lucky to have my parents by my side through my whole journey, especially when I was younger and I couldn't adapt by myself. I was lucky enough to find friendships everywhere I've been and help from people around me, so I never actually felt out of place anywhere I've been.
The U.S. as a whole is very different than my country, but the most surprising thing would be the education system. School, college, admissions, and teachers are all very different than how they are in every country I've been in. I used to be scared of being able to follow a medicine career since in Ecuador (the country I was before coming here) there were placement tests for majors. Also, scholarships, although a big part of my life as a student now, didn't exist in either Venezuela or Ecuador.
One of the major challenges while adapting to this country was socializing since it's always been hard for me to make friends or just even talk to strangers, even if they're my age. Luckily, all the people I've met have been incredibly friendly in ways people from other countries never were. I think there are more positives that people don't mention such as the security, diversity, opportunities, and the sense of community that is everywhere.
I wish the community understood that it is important to accept and open spaces for refugee teens, most of these are kids that were forced to leave the country they know because of situations they couldn't control.
Interview with Farzad A.
Tell us about your role in serving refugee youth.
Previously, I was an English teacher and taught English as a foreign language in Iran and later with UNHCR, working with Afghan refugees. Many of the things I did in UNHCR were related to education. My brother and my mom have been living here in Tucson for years and I didn't know anything about International Rescue Committee (IRC) until I arrived in Tucson and I started looking for jobs, hoping that I would find one which would fit me in terms of my background as a teacher and also my experience in UNHCR, with a humanitarian context. I consider myself lucky because I can put my experience into action and learn a lot more about the refugee context here in the United States, and more specifically here in Tucson.
What we are doing here in Tucson as a small team is to make sure that we can support refugee families and their children with their academic endeavors and make sure that they are familiar with the U.S. school system and also prepare them for a more advanced education at college. Our program covers ages zero to 18 and includes early childhood support. If the mother is working or is a single mother and they need childcare, we help them to apply. We also hold early childhood development classes in different languages, so parents can become familiar with the developmental stages of their children.
When I joined the education team here in Tucson, the first project we started with was an after-school homework support program. We started with a couple of teenagers, and then little by little it grew and ended up with a dozen teenagers. The purpose was to help them with their high school academic studies. It has been a great opportunity for me to learn a lot about these kids, specifically about all the challenges that refugee kids are struggling with. They still need a lot of support when it comes to literacy skills so that they can be successful in school, and we need to support the schools to see how we can fill the gap. Collaboration among the schools and agencies is important.
What are other aspects of your program?
In addition to homework support, we have summer programs, early childhood development, and field trips. These field trips are for all the clients that we are serving in different ways, and we follow up so we can help those families and kids learn more about the resources. For example, with the homework support program, the follow-up could be a field trip to the library, like we did earlier, or if we have another program with a group of families and children, then we can follow it up with a field trip to the planetarium or to the children's museum, to the libraries, and in this way, we make sure that these families are familiar with the resources available.
What are some of the challenges that the families face?
We help support them with school enrollment because there can be communication and transportation challenges, especially with newcomers. We collaborate with TUSD because we want to know how to support students who are struggling because we have the capacity to work with that family one to one, because we have gained the family’s trust. We even give them a kind of orientation regarding what the school system is like, but it’s still hard for them to be involved with what's going on. It could be as simple as having access to online platforms like Parent View to see what's going on with their child, to be able to check their grades and their absences. Parents need to know what tools are available, and how they can use them to keep track of their progress. Some of these kids are living in a large family and their parents are working all the time.
Some of the older kids are looking after the smaller ones, and this may also hinder their academic studies. Teenagers often want to find a job as soon as possible but starting to work too early is not usually a good idea, because they need to develop academic skills before looking for a job. We understand that it's not easy to live in a new country with a totally new system, especially if the family is struggling with a lot of basic needs.
If we want to help them in any way, the very first thing is to make sure that we get them engaged in a very productive way and once they are engaged and they are enjoying that moment, we have their trust, and then little by little, we can also learn more about the emotions that they have. When people come to a class and sit together, like the ones that we had after school, they are bringing emotions with them to the class, if they've had any failure or success at school, or anything that they've been experiencing at home. So we need to create psychological space for them and we can learn what the problems are, and then we can also reflect on their emotions about it and how we can help them individually and collectively.
What is one of the most satisfying parts or highlights of your job?
For the after-school support program, every week we needed to pick up some of these kids, and some of the others who were living nearby would come by themselves. Because it was after school and they were tired, it was difficult to motivate them, but we took the time and we worked to keep them engaged in the classroom and little by little, they opened up. Then they start talking about what their interests are, and then they start bringing their friends with them. That was a very interesting moment because you're always kind of worried about these kids and how to keep them motivated because we are reaching out to them and we want them to come back. But we would talk about things that make sense to them and about the issues they are struggling with. We would also talk about their interests and personal passions, like soccer and their favorite team, or about their home country, showing the flag of their country, or learning a little bit more about the geography. And we reached a point where we felt that there was rapport and also trust between us and the kids, and then they brought their siblings and friends, asking us whether they could join the group. That was the most enjoyable moment for me.
What is something you would like the community to know?
One thing might be the fact that the refugee community needs time to integrate. They can read or write the language, shop, and do all the things that they need to survive, but in the back of their mind, either they are the refugee children or the parents and at any age, they are still struggling to integrate, because there is a lot of background information that they don't have. When you grow up in your home country, a lot of education takes place automatically, and people pick up information through different channels, it's not just the parents or the school who are teaching you, they are picking up a lot from TV, radio, and social media, the environment that you're living in, your peers, and so you have that background information that gives you confidence to move forward, to join, to integrate, to take action, to say no, to say yes. But when we don't have that background information, then you're struggling to communicate or worried about making a mistake and there are a lot of uncertainties in your mind. I think one of the things that the community should know is that it takes time for these people to integrate, they have a lot of uncertainties and they need support, and I think one of the things that libraries and agencies can do through any kind of collaboration is equipping children and teens with those strategies that they need to cope with those uncertainties.
It could be through reading, because reading books and learning about other people helps you see that it’s not just you who are struggling, even people here in the US might have the same problems you're having, so you’re not alone. As an immigrant here, I understand the challenges and my strength is that I can empathize and understand that these kids are struggling with uncertainties that we take for granted and we might never even notice them. We need to bring people together, giving them a chance to talk and share their stories.
World Refugee Day is June 20th. These are titles penned by authors who were born as or became refugees displaced from their homelands. From The UN Refugee Agency: "World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe. It falls each year on 20 June and shines a light on the rights, needs and dreams of those forced to flee.. This year, World Refugee Day focuses on the right to seek safety as a common safeguard for all of us. The right to seek safety was made for you and me. 75 years ago, after the Second World War, the world made a promise: people forced to flee have the right to seek safety and protection. It was never meant for a few. It was meant for all of us. No one is safe until the most vulnerable among us are. When people are forced to flee their homes, we all have a role to play. Ensuring protection for refugees strengthens communities, promotes stability, and saves lives. This World Refugee Day, help keep the promise of safety alive. Stand with refugees. Until everyone is safe, we show up. Until everyone is safe, the work is not done." https://www.unhcr.org/us/events/world-refugee-day-2026
