Refugees Start New Lives in America

Refugees Start New Lives in America
https://preview.archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/browse/?cuecard=62502
General Information
Source:
Resource Type:
Video News Report
Creator:
NBC News Web
Exclusive
Diana Alvear
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
01/07/2013
01/07/2013
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2013
00:02:00
Description
The International Rescue Committee helps refugees connect with their past and begin building a future in
the United States with a program called New Roots, which provides refugees with a plot of land on which
to grow crops from their native land, providing them with a means to feed their families and to make
money.
Keywords
Refugees, Food, Garden, Land, Farm, Farming, Agriculture, Heritage, International Rescue Committee,
IRC, America, American, United States, Somalia, Gardening, Families, Cambodia, Burma, Immigration,
Skills, Health and Wellness, Feed, Camp
Transcript
Refugees Start New Lives in America
DIANA ALVEAR, reporting:
It’s daybreak at the weekly farmer’s market and Luchea Loconian is arranging the fruits of her labor.
© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 2
LUCHEA LOCONIAN: Thank you.
Unidentified Man: Thank you.
Unidentified Woman: Thank you, too. Have a beautiful day.
ALVEAR: Those are special words for Luchea. She arrived in San Diego four years ago, not speaking a
word of English.
LOCONIAN: Yeah, this is water spinach. Yeah.
ALVEAR: Force to flee her native Uganda, Luchea spent fifteen years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Her
husband was murdered there leaving her a single mother of five.
LOCONIAN: We run. We go to see the people kill rather and then we run away.
ALVEAR: Now Luchea heals by harvesting kale. She farms six-hundred-square-feet, her little piece of
America alongside eighty-five other families, refugees from places such as Cambodia, Burma and
Somalia like Bilal Muya.
BILAL MUYA: We could have been different country, different looking, but we are common in food.
Unidentified Man: Do you remember what we call that?
ALVEAR: They are helped by the New Roots Program created by the International Rescue Committee.
ALLIE EIGO: We went to them and we said what can we do, how can we-- how can we help? And they
said, we want access to land so that we can grow our own food.
ALVEAR: The IRC’s Allie Eigo was able to secure a land for the New Roots families to farm and feed
their loved ones. In just five years, the program has taken root in eleven cities nationwide.
Not only does farming help them preserve their heritage, it also provides them a way to make a living in
their new home.
The seeds of its success lie in empowering refugees.
MUYA: Going back to the land, taking care of the land… that’s our heritage. That’s our history.
ALVEAR: With the earnings Luchea makes at the market, she dreams the American Dream of buying her
own plot of land and perhaps, someday a home for her family.
LUCHEA: When I’m here in the garden, I-- I feel like I am home.
ALVEAR: In a place of peace, planting new roots.
Diana Alvear, NBC News, San Diego.
© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 2 of 2