The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

October 25, 2009

Refugee aid group folds

MRCI picks up some of CAR's services

By Dan Linehan

MANKATO — Community Assistance for Refugees, which helped immigrants resettle in Mankato since 1992, has disbanded after struggling for years to find funding.

The nonprofit lost a major state grant in 2002, said Kent Cova-Suarez, CAR’s former executive director.

“From that point on, it was difficult to regain stability,” he said.

On Feb. 24, 2009, CAR’s board of directors voted to dissolve the group.

MRCI will work to fill some of the gap left by CAR, Cova-Suarez said.

Even if MRCI can’t do everything CAR did, “I’m sure they’ll come up with a formula that’ll work,” he said.

Their focus was on refugees, many of whom came from Africa, but CAR ended up helping immigrants from countries like Canada, Japan and Mexico, too, he said.

He said CAR didn’t provide services directly but helped direct immigrants to the right places, he said.

Often, immigrant families would show up in Mankato with no job, place to live or connections, he said. That was just how moving was done in their home countries.

In past years, five or more families a week would show up in Mankato. Recently that has declined to two or three a month, he said.

“People have come to realize moving that way is not going to be pleasant,” Cova-Suarez said.

Even so, the families who do come are less likely to find open shelter space and are taken in by settled families instead.

Cova-Suarez is now dividing his time between a pair of relief organizations organized by African immigrants themselves.

That will pose some problems as these new nonprofits navigate the many ethnicities and tribal affiliations of their clientele.

Cova-Suarez, whose family was exiled from Venezuela in 1959 when a dictator fell, is unlikely to be accused of racial bias by African clients. But, for example, the same cannot be said of a Sudanese provider of the Anuak tribe who is unable to help a client of the Nuer tribe.

Despite losing a job, Cova-Suarez isn’t devastated by the loss of CAR.

“I always saw CAR at some point disappearing,” he said. Existing agencies should eventually be able to handle their clients, he said.

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