An Outing among the Roses

An article by Sarah Taylor, summer communications intern with CRISOn a sunny afternoon in June, CRIS’s health caseworker for its new Refugee Health and Wellness Program, Sarah Miller, and a group of elderly Nepali-Bhutanese women explored Clintonville’s Park of Roses. With the bright summer sunshine streaming through the trees, the women strolled, laughed, and sang their favorite songs together.According to Sarah the program works to “meet the health and wellness needs of newly arriving refugees in the Central Ohio area and assist in their successful adjustment and integration into the local community. We provide mental health screenings and referrals to services, alternative wellness activities such as dance and yoga, and outreach and advocacy with service providers.”“Refugee clients are often not familiar or comfortable with Western approaches to addressing mental health such as therapy and counseling, so we have found it more effective to address these needs through different types of wellness activities. This has included yoga classes, music, community adjustment support groups, and outings such as our recent trip to Park of Roses. These activities give clients the chance to connect with themselves and each other, explore their local community, and have fun, all of which have been demonstrated both through research and reports from our clients to reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and isolation that many refugees (especially seniors) often feel during the initial stages of resettlement.”A climb up the wrought iron gazebo brought more dancing and singing for the whole park to see. The women wore their vibrant saris and best jewelry for the event, and they particularly enjoyed their time spent meandering through the trees in the adjoining forest, foraging for leaves, skipping rocks, and leaping across fallen tree trunks. One woman, Kileshshwari, informed me that the leaves would make for delicious curry.Particularly exciting was the discovery of the deep purple, edible berries growing on mulberry trees beside the stream. The women ate all the berries they could reach before walking back toward the CRIS van and heading home.