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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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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.

Groups Reach Out to Help Syrian Refugees

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Tuesday, December 15, 2015   

INDIANA – Many states, including Indiana, are resistant to accepting Syrian refugees, but groups helping to resettle the refugees say they are trying to spread a message that these are families who need help and understanding.

Lina Sergie started the Karam Foundation in 2007. For the past few years, its focus has been on what she calls the largest humanitarian crisis in our lifetime.

Sergie says the media and rhetoric from political candidates would have people believe the refugees are terrorists, but she says they are just like anyone else – or at least, they were until they were uprooted because of violence.

"We have to imagine them as people who had full lives and communities, and schools and work – and they had stability in their lives, and that was completely turned upside down," she states.

About half of the country's governors have said they don't want Syrian refugees, and Indiana is included on that list. Some have come anyway through efforts of Catholic charities, and Gov. Mike Pence says he won't try to deny them social services such as Medicaid or food stamps.

Sergie points out many of the refugees are children, who have been torn from their homes and sent to unfamiliar places where they aren't welcome, but they haven't lost hope.

"Kids who want to learn English and Turkish, and kids who want to go to university, and they want to become something in life,” she stresses. “And they don't want this crisis and their status as refugees to define them. They're looking forward."

Sergie hopes Americans will volunteer through local Syrian organizations, or at least speak up at work or church in defense of refugee families in crisis.

In Arabic, karam means generosity, and Sergie says that's what it's all about – communities working together to help those in need.





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