What You Don't Read in the News

Whenever I begin to lose faith in the world, in people, I (CRIS intern Mal Mrozek) stop and I think about CRIS. It seems that we cannot turn on the news, open a newspaper (or more accurately for my generation, read it online), or go to Yahoo!’s home page without seeing headlines about oppression, human rights violations, legislative grid-lock and just a general lack of concern for our fellow man. It feels, sometimes, that goodness is fundamentally lacking in this world.Yet it isn’t.I know that on any given day, dozens of CRIS employees, interns, and volunteers are working across the city to help our refugee and immigrant clients. I know that we have teachers helping adults learn English, in the hopes of improving their new lives here in America. I know we have attorneys filing documents for families to be reunited, citizenships to be obtained. I know that we have translators helping bridge language gaps. I know that we have employment counselors helping our clients find jobs. I know we have caseworkers working tirelessly to make arrival of newly resettled refugees as smooth as possible. I know Chris is teaching the JRA class at the North Office (and I secretly hope he is making another intern pretend to be his or her own identical twin in an attempt to simulate a real job interview for the class, and that the intern is a better actress than I). I know that there are interns and volunteers who are helping and welcoming our clients with their time, their intelligence and their generosity.But it is not only the incredible staff and volunteers at CRIS that make me believe that good still exists in this world; it is our clients too. I am constantly amazed by the resilience and the hope of our clients. I think about Mohammad, a young father who I helped tutor for the GED. As a writing practice I assigned him an essay describing his hopes for the future. I expected him to write about wanting to go to college, get a job and settle his family into the American dream. Instead, Mohammad wrote about his desire to become a doctor, and travel back to the refugee camp where he had lived for almost two decades. He said that the refugees in the camp did not have access to proper medical care; he hoped to change that.You won’t read about Mohammad, or Chris, or Ahmed, or Abdi-Hakim, or Charis, or Karina, or Allison, or the other incredible people involved with CRIS on the news. Dedication and hard work don’t make headlines. But I’m telling you now. Hopefully, next time you think the world is slowly imploding in on itself know that there are people already working to build it back up, and make it better than it was.Mal Mrozek is a senior at Ohio State majoring in History and Political Science. She plans on pursuing a law degree with a focus in human right and refugee law. Mal has been involved with CRIS in several capacities, as an intern and volunteer. She currently runs the Citizenship Tutoring classes Sunday afternoons at the CRIS North Office.