Correction: An original version of the story misidentified the position of Nazanin Ash.
A group of Fort Wayne residents has spent the last nine months helping a refugee family settle into the city, through a national program that helps average Americans support incoming refugee families.
Meshack Asende first arrived at a refugee camp in Tanzania when he was two-years-old. His family fled the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 6.1 million people have been displaced within the country and a million more have had to seek asylum across Africa.
Asende and his wife met in the camp, where they had both spent more than 20 years of their lives. While there, they had two children.
In September, they migrated to Fort Wayne where the Beacon Heights Welcoming Group had prepared them a spot in the city.
Leslie Sperry approached members of her church, Beacon Heights Church of the Brethren, about sponsoring a family from a refugee camp and the response was immediately supportive.
Sperry said the church began reaching out to friends and family in the community to let them know they were planning to sponsor a refugee family, but needed to raise money to help support them during the transition. In the end, Sperry says they raised almost $17,000.
"We have found Fort Wayne to be a very generous and caring community and I guess we already knew that," she said.
They were able to find temporary housing at an AirBnB for the family and, knowing they would be coming with a baby, also received donations of furniture and baby items.
Sperry said it hasn’t just been the group that’s been able to help Asende and his family integrate into the community, but other refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been in the area longer.
"They have been very supportive of the family," she said. "Helping to translate, helping with transportation and just lots of different things."
Asende said many of those refugees are from the same camp in Tanzania as his family.
"So, when I was here I was very happy because I met these people that we were together in the same camp," he said.
At the end of June 2023, the United Nations estimated there were 36.4 million refugees around the world, spread throughout camps in various welcoming countries. But those camps aren’t permanent homes for people in them, as they bring their own problems and trials, according to Asende.
"The food was very not enough," he said. "They would not allow us to go outside the camp without the permission of the government. Psychologically, it's not good."
The Beacon Heights group is supported by Welcome Corps, which helps support private sponsor groups of five people or more and matches them with a refugee family.
Nazanin Ash is the CEO of Welcome.US., one of the member organizations part of the consortium implementing the Welcome Corps. She said it’s important for refugees to have groups like these to help them integrate into their new communities and support them during the transition.
It's not just material support, but also providing a new community to help navigate a new culture and a new country.
"You know, what refugees have left behind is not only their possessions and their businesses," Ash said. "They've left behind their friends and their families and their social networks."
Ash said there's no specific background or experience a sponsor needs, but it is dependent on their time and compassion. Sponsors have to complete background checks, a sponsorship training program and a welcome plan, which helps familiarize them with programming in their community that they can provide to refugees. Ash said there's a network of more than 25 organizations on call to help support sponsors throughout the application process and the first few months as refugees are getting settled.
Ash said Welcome Corps started because Americans were looking for a way to help.
"This innovation is really about providing Americans that service opportunity because it's the best of who we are," she said.
Asende, who came to the country speaking very strong English, currently works at Parkview Health and his wife is taking English classes. Their oldest child is enrolled in preschool. Asende has a very positive outlook on his future in Fort Wayne.
"So I can say maybe everything is good and I have received all of the assistance as I hoped to receive from them," he said.
During his time in the camp in Tanzania, Asende became a leader there. Sperry boasted he even got to show Melinda Gates around the camp when she visited years ago.
"If there were disputes or anything like that, he helped arbitrate them," she said. "When people from the UN or missions would come to the camp, Meshack would show them around."
Asende said being helped by so many people during his time in the refugee camp has inspired him to want to help others, as well. He hopes to study information technology and human resources, in order to be helpful to as many people as he can.
Asende hopes learning more about the Beacon Heights Welcoming Group will help inspire others to start welcoming groups within their own communities.
"I think maybe through this we can go to inspire many of American people to see how the life (is) for refugees and how they can help them," he said.
He’s looking forward to the future and continuing to build his and his family’s home here.
"Home is somewhere you can live safe," Asende said. "So, here in the United States, I can say it's my home."
As the months have passed, the Beacon Heights group has slowly decreased their financial support, allowing the family to stand on their own. Sperry said the group considers themselves lucky to have gotten to help Asende and his family.
She hopes their story will inspire other people in Fort Wayne to create their own welcoming group.
"When we decided we wanted to sponsor a refugee, we had no idea who would come and we ended up with this delightful family and they have just really made our life a joy," Sperry said.
The Beacon Heights group is already considering sponsoring another family.
Below is a video produced by the Beacon Heights Welcoming Group highlighting their work with the family:
