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Arab Community Center in Sterling Heights Gives Iraqi Refugees a New Start
The threat hung over Ekhlas Naeem, 50, and her family, the sole Christians in their neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq. Muslim extremists harassed her sons at work and school, kidnapping and beating her eldest. Masked militia members robbed her father and sisters.
Naeem and her family fled to Syria in 2007 and came to Warren in 2009. She is among hundreds of Chaldean refugees seeking emotional and social services from the new ACCESS center — the only such facility in Macomb County.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday. The Dearborn-based agency came to Sterling Heights in May to accommodate the growing population of Iraqi refugees and a shifting population of Arab Americans into Oakland and Macomb counties.
Place for health care, more.
At the clinic, at 14 Mile and Ryan in Sterling Heights, the staff treats about 100 refugees per week, said Abdallah Boumediene, ACCESS director of operations. Clients receive physical and mental health care. A collaboration with Lutheran Social Services allows refugees to look for jobs.
“They want to be a productive part of society,” Boumediene said, but “they come with a number of issues.”
Since the start of the Iraq war, the U.S. Department of State has sent tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees to metro Detroit. More than half of the 2,200 who came to Michigan in 2009 settled in Macomb County. Through August 2010, 60% of 1,560 Iraqi refugees had settled in Oakland County. Refugees have moved mainly to Sterling Heights, Warren and Madison Heights, said Al Horn, director of refugee services for the Michigan Department of Human Services.
Challenges refugees face.
“We were always scared,” Naeem said through her therapist. She said she forgets where she puts things and repeats herself, which is common in post-traumatic stress disorder, said Haitham Safo, her therapist. People who suffer from PTSD have short-term memories bombarded with trauma, leaving room for little else.
“They learn today and forget it,” Safo said of refugees trying to work, study and live with flashbacks and nightmares of traumatic events.
One of Naeem’s sons is in high school. The other two work. She said her eldest struggles with anger after his kidnapping and beating in 2007 and works at a liquor store. She cares for her twin grandsons with her daughter-in-law, Sally Yousuf, 23. They are still homebound, but for the first time in years, Naeem said, she can watch her son leave for work without anxiously watching for his return.
“Before, if he was 10 minutes late, I feel panic,” she said.
Megha Satyanarayana
Detroit Free Press