Afghan refugee families are making a new home in SLO County. Here’s how to help
As chaos unfolded this past summer when America ended its 20-year mission in Afghanistan, we could feel the desperation and terror of those thousands of families forced to leave their homeland. Many of those fleeing the Taliban have come to America, and they need and deserve our help to restart their lives in welcoming communities, including here on the Central Coast.
These families have urgent and varied needs, many having left relatively comfortable lives like our own with nothing more than what they could carry as they escaped. They worked as attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, educators and in the medical field.
Because of their commitment to making Afghanistan a better place, each one of these families is highly targeted by the Taliban. We are working to ensure SLO County warmly welcomes them and helps them regain their footing so they can add to the rich fabric of our community. That’s why we founded SLO4Home as a registered 501c3 nonprofit in October. In the best tradition of what America has offered all of us, our objective is to provide these families with a real opportunity to enjoy productive and vibrant lives. Our short-term goal is to raise $600,000 to help at least 10 newly arriving families connect with caring people and obtain basic necessities and services to ease the arduous process of starting over in a new land.
We expect the first two families to arrive this spring. Financial contributions and in-kind donations will be used for transportation, housing support and providing the basic necessities to start a new and thriving life here. Your contributions will augment what the U.S. government provides refugees in one-time funds — a meager $1,250. We are fortunate that so many caring groups have already signed up to partner with SLO4Home, including many members of diverse faith communities, volunteers and activists, and members of our U.S. military, including active duty and veterans who served in Afghanistan. Our immediate focus will be to make homes functional and comfortable for each arriving family, to connect them to healthcare and employment services, as well as to help enroll children in school as they begin to rebuild their lives.
We are working to deliver services through a grassroots network of 100 volunteers and leverage the help of various community groups and local government agencies. SLO4Home also is an official partner agency of Church World Service (CWS), which is a government-authorized agency that has been resettling refugees since World War II. Our collective efforts are motivated out of respect and compassion to support the thousands of Afghans who worked directly with the U.S. in military, diplomatic and many other supporting roles that made them eligible for U.S. visas, but, tragically, also put them in the Taliban’s crosshairs. Easing their transition is one small way to thank them for their service and sacrifice.
For more information we invite you to visit our website at www.SLO4Home.org, or contact us at info@SLO4Home.org. You can donate online or by check to SLO4Home, Inc., P.O. Box 1446, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406.
Lauren Brown is the co-founder of JBL Scientific (now Promega BioSciences) and is a former Peace Corps volunteer. Ermina Karim is a former CEO of the SLO Chamber of Commerce, the first-generation daughter of immigrants to America. Dr. Ahmad Nooristani is an Afghan physician and founder of the SLO Noor Foundation, which provides free, high quality health care. Dr. Vance Rodgers is a retired gastroenterologist. Hillary Trout is chief financial officer of iFixit.