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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

War Refugees Find Opportunity in Arizona Sun

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Monday, November 17, 2008   

Phoenix, AZ – The refugees come from Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea, places of conflict and despair. In the U.S. their futures are brighter, but they need skills to find work. The start of Arizona's peak tourism season increases chances for hotel jobs. Irene Wharry, English Language Training Coordinator for Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, teaches two-week classes for job seekers in Arizona’s major industry, hospitality.

"Their background is in farming or their background is staying at home on a very small village. And a lot of them don't even know how to write in their own language."

Lutheran Social Services has other classes for the state's three-thousand refugees, including four levels of English, how to use the bus to get to work and how to apply for citizenship. Wharry says her classes help the refugees overcome their fear of the unknown. In many cases, they have never seen a hotel before, and don't know what a sheet is.

"First they have to knock on the door and say 'I'm here for housekeeping' three times. They have to go to the bed. They have to go ahead and make the hotel corner that they do. We also teach them how to recognize the cleaning products that they have to use."

Wharry says the refugees are motivated workers from all walks of life who are essentially starting their lives over.

"We have people that have come with higher degrees and I think it is difficult for them sometimes to take a job that maybe is not their dream job yet, or the job that they had in their previous country. But they are very grateful and they work very hard."

Because of the success of the hospitality training, a class was recently added to train workers for retail stores.





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