Immigrant foundation to host walk to celebrate American independence

The Global Immigrant Foundation is working to become part of the community and welcomes everyone to the celebration walk on Saturday.

A newly-formed foundation in Charleroi hopes to encourage a better quality of life for immigrants and refugees.

The Global Immigrant Foundation was established as a nonprofit in January and is preparing to introduce itself officially to the community this weekend.

Acting Executive Director Joelyn Kou Gbusseh said the group, which currently comprises 11 members and seven board members, has been meeting monthly at the First United Methodist Church on Lincoln Avenue.

On Saturday, G-Found will officially launch with a walk to celebrate American independence in Charleroi.

The walk will begin at the Mid Mon Valley Transit Center at 9 a.m. and end at the First United Methodist Church on Lincoln Avenue.

“We are confident it will go well, we have been reaching out to people to invite them but we hope the entire community comes,” she said. “We want to build a partnership within the local and global community here, and we are open to everyone. We decided to have a walk to have our own way of celebrating July 4. During the walk we will be displaying the American flag as our way of saying happy Independence Day and to show the community we want to celebrate with them.

“Since we are immigrants and living here, it’s best to practice the American culture and way of life and how they do things. So we started celebrating the holidays here, along with our own.”

Gbusseh said they are expecting between 150 to 200 people to participate, with everyone encouraged to wear red, white and blue.

On Sunday, a United in Diversity Service will be held 7 p.m. at the church, which she also encourages members of the community to attend.

“We just want people to know about us and start working together,” she said.

Gbusseh said the foundation’s vision is simple. It states: “The Global Refuge Foundation envisions a world where every immigrant/refuge, regardless of their country of origin, can have access to legal council and other services necessary to protect and fully exercise their human rights. G-Found will guide and help the immigrant/refuge to secure a better quality of life and a brighter future both for them as well as their community.”

Gbusseh said the foundation wanted to know the issues and challenges immigrants within the community are dealing with.

People told the group they are looking for access to health care and education and struggling with the language barrier, which is causing access to information and support to be more challenging.

They told the group about their frustrations obtaining needed legal documents including insurance and drivers licenses. She said it has also been difficult for immigrants in the community to find jobs, houses, clothes, food and transportation in some cases.

“They are also concerned about not being accepted by the local community,” she said. “After that meeting, we told everyone we would continue to meet as a team to see where as an organization we can fit in to table some of those issues.”

There are a lot of ideas flowing on how to do that.

“We have a good start, but we don’t have the funding or support right now so we decided to have an event to launch as an organization so we can start to implement some of the things we have talked about.”

The group would like to hold an informational fair, spread awareness about the immigrant community, create an advocacy program to link people to the support they need, hold charity events including food and clothing distribution and establish an immigrant database — to start.

Its goal is to build partnerships within both the global and local communities to offer solutions for struggles they may face as well as life enriching programs and activities, serving as a liaison between immigrants and refugees and the communities they now call home.

On Jan. 21, G-Found had its first meeting to brainstorm their goals, come up with ideas to plan activities within the community and help connect refugees and immigrants that now call the Mon Valley home with resources they need to help start their lives here.

“We had a retreat or meeting in January to talk about what some of the basic needs are,” she said. “In Charleroi, there are a lot of immigrants and they are all from different countries. Each country has their own activities and culture, and we want to be able to help.”

To learn more about the foundation, or to get involved call 857-856-0245 or email gfound982@gmail.com.

G-Found also has a Facebook page that can be found by searching Global Refuge Foundation.