By Nick Lippa, WBFO, May 7, 2020
Diverse communities across the globe face many of the same challenges when battling COVID-19. But for refugee and immigrant populations who are adapting to Western New York, a language barrier can make a pandemic that much harder to deal with. WBFO’s Nick Lippa spoke with Ali Kadhum, Chair of the Iraqi American Society, about how he and other community leaders are stepping up to keep everyone informed and safe.
Nick Lippa: Our immigrant population includes many people who have suffered trauma and torture. How does that kind of past experience have an impact on someone's mental health during a pandemic?
Ali: Yeah, most people as you said, they came from different backgrounds because of the warzone or the fear they live in their life. So this is really, really traumatizing to them staying home, probably thinking they will be starving in a (while)...So the entire situation right now has really increased anxiety for people on this and probably caused fear in the community. We try to keep everyone busy. One of our goals is to provide an education, like real information about COVID-19. Translated to different languages. Or using the website. It's part of the Department of Health. So to share it with the community to make sure that they got the correct information on how to keep themselves and their family safe and healthy. So this is our main goal. They suggest supporting hospitals, local hospital staff who are working on the frontline. With COVID-19 we are going to prepare food as Middle Eastern food from our local restaurants. Sponsored by family, I have some family, they donated $5. Some people $20. It's kind of an appreciation for the medical staff who risked their family and their lives to save people who are infected with COVID-19. So this is one of them, helping the community feel they are participating in a society they are not watching everything. And also we are organizing the blood donation from the community This is going to be (this month) be I spoke with Red Cross. They said they do have a lot of blood (in April), but they prefer May. So we are organizing with the community to have appointments for the community to go on do a blood donation to to support the community in general.
[Please click here to read the transcript or listen to the interview.]
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