Page 22 - Our Hands SPRING 2019

GRANTS

GRANT NEWS

Thank you, Flinn Foundation!

We received a $112K grant from the Ethel & James Flinn Foundation
to provide mental health screening, assessment, support, and therapy
for children at the Samaritas Family Center. This 2-year grant funding
is a compliment to the behavior therapy that BCBS grant enabled us to
provide for the adults at the family center. We will now have a therapist
at the Family Center five full days a week. We are so grateful to the
Flinn Foundation for helping us provide this much needed services to
our families to promote mental health and well being.

Helping Refugees Navigate to Better Health

In 2017, through a $45,000 grant from the Wege
Foundation, Samaritas created the Refugee Health
Navigation and Education Program (RHNEP) in West
Michigan. This program extended services past the
contracted time period, enabling Samaritas to use
education and immersion to increase refugee health literacy, improve
medical outcomes, and educate the medical community. The RHNEP
was highly successful in the first year, helping nearly 60 refugees overcome
barriers to health through several initiatives, including educating the
medical community on cultural competencies. Recently, Samaritas
received an additional $85,000 grant to enhance this program to
collaboratively support refugees and the medical professionals who care
for them. This funding allows Samaritas to advance cultural diversity
Welcome the Stranger education with our medical partners through a patient-based learning
approach, creating opportunities for increased cultural sensitivity and
In February, Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park and Detroit Interfaith competency. We are incredibly grateful to the Wege Foundation!
Outreach Network hosted Samaritas for a Welcome the Stranger
presentation. The Amani family shared a powerful story of their seven In March, the Synod of the Covenant, a
year long journey from the Congo to the United States, and spoke judicatory body of the Presbyterian Church USA
about how Samaritas is assisting them in resettling in metro Detroit. (PCUSA), approved a covenant relationship
Sixty people including religious leaders with Samaritas naming Samaritas as the official
85 Years of History and community members attended refugee resettlement agency of the PCUSA in
the multi-faith presentation about Michigan for the next five years. This is the first
The first full time social Samaritas’ great work. official relationship between Samaritas and the PCUSA, and it will be
worker for child welfare
services was hired in 1935. the first time that the Synod of the Covenant has established a covenant
agreement with a body outside of the PCUSA. We are excited by the
possibilities that this relationship hold for serving more people in need.

Vesna and Edin

Vesna and Edin's journey with Samaritas began in 1995 when they resettled from Bosnia
and Herzegovina as refugees through Samaritas. One year later, they were given the
opportunity to help other immigrants through Samaritas’ refugee program. Edin's
computer skills were recognized by the IT director, who gave him a job. Vesna’s passion
to help make a difference for immigrants grew. As a manager in the refugee program and
an immigrant herself, Vesna finds no better feeling than that of helping people facing
similar struggles that she had previously faced.

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