Page 17 - Our Hands Spring Summer2022

e’re delighted to share the work of talented Keepsakes Available
young refugee artists in our 2022 Refugee
WYouth Art Show. This year’s collection, titled Starting in June, the Samaritas
“Colorful Journeys,” is presented by Delta Dental of Youth Art Shop will include
Michigan, will open virtually to the public the week of new items from the 2022
June 19 during World Refugee Awareness Week. The collection. Sales will help fund
collection will include paintings and other art pieces Samaritas Refugee Youth
from past and present Samaritas Refugee Foster Care enrichment programs and
participants. Many items will illustrate the personal group activities managed by
experiences of young refugees in our care. their Youth Advocacy Board.
Check it out at Samaritas.co/
Throughout the year, you can admire select items
from this and previous collections at in-person YouthArtShop.
events hosted by churches, community centers, and
businesses around the state. Visit Samaritas.org/
YouthArtShow to see the schedule. And contact
organizers at marketing@samaritas.org to learn how
your organization can host the traveling exhibit.

Meet Sulma
Featured Artist and Former Samaritas Client

Sulma Vasquez Gamez
came from Honduras
at age 16 in January
2017. Refugees, like
Gamez, differ from other
immigrants because
they are fleeing natural
disasters, war, or Since she left the program in January 2021, Gamez was
persecution in their inspired to give back and continue the cycle of helping
homeland. Returning to others by volunteering at Samaritas. She continues
a safe home is not an that tradition since the people she has met through the
option. organization have become like family to her.

When she arrived, a social worker “If we don’t have a family, this place becomes like a
from Southwest Key, which provides shelters for family,” Gamez says, who credits her Samaritas mentor
The Help Tree with her family. However, her father and uncles - the While she has helped instruct in the art program, she
with helping her navigate her new life.
immigrant children, tried to find her support, starting
only family she had - were uninterested in helping.
says what is most important is to help the new arrivals
The organization then began looking for other
options, eventually landing on Samaritas, which is develop a sense of community.
by Sulma one of only 28 organizations with a program to help This is an excerpt taken from The Hub, an online news and
unaccompanied minor refugees.
blog site. Read more.

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