Agency helps refugees feel at home
World Relief opens city office to resettle Burmese
The colorful stained-glass windows might be all that redeem the room at the head of the stairs in Simpson United Methodist Church.
Office chairs with stained upholstery sit on dingy brown carpet. A scarred wooden table is the drafty room’s centerpiece.
Jeff Keplar knows he has work to do before February.
Keplar, the newly hired director of Fort Wayne’s second refugee resettlement office, has about a month left to staff and furnish the office before he starts to welcome Burmese refugees. He estimates that his office will work with 100 refugees during 2009.
Resettlement of refugees typically has been the work of Catholic Charities in Fort Wayne, which helped bring more than 600 to the city last year.
But World Relief, a faith-based international humanitarian aid organization, announced this year that it would open an office in Fort Wayne, in large part because of the frequent request for placements by refugees with family members in the city.
Keplar is tasked with getting the office in the church at 2501 S. Harrison St. off the ground – the next step in a career that has taken him from decades in the private sector to non-profit work.
He had a 20-year career in marketing communications before joining the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission as vice president for community relations, where he worked for six years.
When someone asked Keplar whether he was interested in working with the Burmese refugee community, it was an easy decision: In a way, he already was.
At the Rescue Mission, he met a Burmese refugee who was an alcoholic. Long conversations with the refugee – now four years sober – led to helping the man adapt to the Fort Wayne community.
Over time, a friendship developed, and Keplar now calls the man one of his closest friends.
“I like to get involved in the lives of people who want to make a change,” Keplar said. “I love to be an encourager.”
Encouraging and running a resettlement office are two different things, and Keplar will be the first to admit he didn’t know much about the later when he first heard of the job.
But the basic principles – offering food, housing, moral support – are the same things that concerned him when he worked at the Rescue Mission.
“I don’t see this as a lot different,” he said. “I think this is a good fit for me.”
Keplar – so far World Relief’s only Fort Wayne staff – plans to hire a caseworker fluent in Burmese who will work in the Fort Wayne office and has been reviewing applications.
After that, he’ll look to hire a coordinator to work with churches and volunteers, and possibly a second caseworker.
About 5,000 Burmese refugees call Fort Wayne home now, with as many as 1,600 more expected to be resettled in the city over the next two years.
The influx has strained some non-profits and social-services agencies, but the community has continued to show support.
Tuesday, the Anthony Wayne Rotary Club presented Sammy Mah, World Relief’s president and CEO, with a $2,500 donation.
Mah, a board member at Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co., was in Fort Wayne for a board meeting Tuesday.
Most of the jobs that refugees take upon their arrival in the U.S. are in light manufacturing and service industries, Mah said.
“We’re very concerned about that,” he said.
The economic downturn, of course, isn’t unique to Fort Wayne – World Relief has two dozen offices nationwide. Mah said the federal government tries to take local economic conditions into account when placing refugees.
Representatives of the 10 voluntary agencies responsible for resettling refugees, including World Relief and Catholic Charities, meet weekly to discuss incoming cases.
They place cases with a local resettlement office based on criteria such as community resources, refugees’ geographic preferences and reunifications of families.
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