Heartland Alliance – Healing and Justice

This blog is the final installment in a series of posts by our Social Media Coordinator, Rivka Yeker who sat down with Cassidy Rappaport, Refugee Matching Grant Systems Coordinator – Refugee & Immigrant Community Services (RICS), Heartland Human Care Services, Inc. A Partner of Heartland Alliance.

I like the phrasing “We believe that there can be no healing without justice, and no justice without healing.” How does Heartland provide the process of healing?

Here at Refugee and Immigrant Community Services (RICS), healing is core to our work. Our participants have fled war and genocide, seeing and experiencing unspeakable atrocities. When they arrive at O’Hare Airport, they are whisked into a journey of a new life, here in Chicago. This process includes getting an ID, learning their way on public transportation, and getting their first jobs here. Throughout this journey, there is healing. For many of our participants they have never had the opportunity to be self-sufficient or attend school or go to a job every day. In these basic experiences, that most of us take for granted, they come to gain confidence and a sense of purpose, whereas, before, they were waiting in limbo, unsure of what the next day would bring.

Additionally, here at RICS, we have a clinical case manager that runs groups and holds one-on-one sessions for folks to receive therapy and work through some of the trauma they have faced. We also provide activities, events, English classes, and a safe space to build friendships across nationalities, all here at our office. We have seen folks that arrive and tell us there is no way they can work due to their health issues (both mental and physical) and begin to fall behind in bills and rent, adding to their stress and anxiety. However, after a few months of going to job class and therapy, making friends with other refugees, learning English, and working in a steady job, their cocoon has shed and they are soaring, all on their own.