Son Tours Partners with Fugees Family to Extend Education Access to Resettled Refugees
At Son Tours we believe in the power of accessible education for children of all backgrounds. No child should be limited in their access to excellence education and sense of belonging due to language or monetary barriers.
That is why we have partnered with Fugees Family to raise money for programs that provide refugee children with valuable educational resources and extracurricular actives that help them develop and thrive in their new home country. Fugees Family has over 15 years of experience in revolutionizing refugee and immigrant education in the United States.
Chris Ledford, Son Tours’ operations manager, lives in Clarkston, Georgia, a town just outside of Atlanta that is often referred to as “the most diverse square mile in America” and “the Ellis Island of the South.” In the 1990s, non-profit organizations and government agencies identified Clarkston as an ideal refugee resettlement community. Today, over half of the city’s population are immigrants and refugees representing over 50 countries and 6 continents.
Over half of the city’s population are immigrants and refugees representing over 50 countries and 6 continents to groups like this. Clarkston has become a model for successful integration of asylum seekers–89 percent of whom are self-sufficient within six months of resettlement.
An exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History highlighted one of the organizations in the town whose mission is to help refugee families in their resettlement in Clarkston. In 2004, Luma Mufleh, the daughter and granddaughter of Syrian refugees, founded a soccer team for refugee children in Clarkston. The roster included kids from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burundi, Congo, Gambia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Somalia, and Sudan. They called themselves The Fugees, short for “refugees.” Luma and the Fugees’s story are featured in an exhibit currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and were the subject of the internationally acclaimed book Outcast United by Warren St. John.
Over the last two decades, the Fugees has grown into Fugees Family, a non-profit aimed at giving refugee youth the educational resources and sense of belonging required to succeed in their new home country. Refugees have experienced traumatic events and displacement from their home countries, and face numerous challenges during resettlement. Nationwide, refugee children are five times more likely to be out of school than their non-refugee peers. Obstacles like language barriers, cultural differences, and bullying add to the pressures these students face. Fugees Family provides rigorous year-round academics and athletics programs for refugee students. Their programs have a 92% graduation rate and 100% college acceptance rate.
To learn more about the Fugees Family and how you can get involved, visit their website here: https://fugeesfamily.org/why-fugees/