New Haven Independent

Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, was formerly called Interfaith Refugee Ministries. The board recently agreed to a name change that more accurately reflects the organization’s expanded mission, explained Executive Director Chris George.

The mission is to provide housing, employment and educational services not just to refugees — those immigrants with a well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries who are invited to come to the U.S. as legal residents — but to other immigrants as well, both documented and undocumented. (That’s George pictured visiting a summer English as a Second Language class held at East Rock School, around the corner from the agency’s office at Willow and Nicoll streets.)

IRIS received a three-year, $150,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to set up a tutoring program for immigrant children

“We don’t know what their immigration status is,” George says. “We know they’ve been identified by their teachers as kids who don’t speak English in their family. They’re bright, but they need additional help.” Click here to learn more about who these kids are.

IRIS’s new name goes with its new space, which is three times larger than its old, cramped offices in Wooster Square. George, who took over as executive director two years ago, is fond of saying how the Refugee Ministry was the best-kept secret in town. He said many such programs around the country like to stay under the radar, perhaps because they fear a backlash from their neighbors, especially post-September 11. He has the opposite philosophy, which is to metaphorically shout from the rooftops that these newest Americans-in-training deserve a helping hand so they can take their place as self-supporting members of society. Click here to hear his explanation of why the iris flower is an appropriate name for the group; it has to do with peace, hope and the rainbow.

On a visit Thursday morning, all the rooms were buzzing with activity.

In a big classroom, adult ed teacher Erica Gordon (pictured) stood at a blackboard with eight or ten people from a host of countries, including Sudan, Congo and Afghanistan. She was teaching them a very practical kind of English, such as where to get a driver’s license (“the DMV”) and where to buy an air-conditioner (“Wal-Mart”). Click here for a sample.

While their parents are in class, the children of many of these adults are cared for by a teenage volunteer in another room (like these two Afghan toddlers), while other parents keep their little ones close by, like the woman in the photo above, who is getting one-on-one tutoring.

Carlos Oquendo (pictured with his volunteer tutor, learning the past tense of verbs), arrived last month as a refugee from Cuba, joining his father who now lives in West Haven and was an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro.

“This is a good program; they are helping a lot of people,” he said in Spanish, to a reporter who felt a little guilty for taking him away from his studies. “I’m making good progress,” he added, an evaluation confirmed by his tutor.

Children from first to eighth grade take their own English lessons at East Rock School around the corner. In a packed and energetic classroom, kids from Afghanistan, Guinea, Somalia, Vietnam, Congo and Ethiopia are studying - and seemingly having a lot of fun - with volunteer tutors, mostly high school students.

IRIS staffer Folly Delgado (pictured with an enthusiastic young reader) said she plans to get the parents involved starting in September, “to come in and maybe do craft days with the kids, maybe tell us about recipes, traditions, games — just sharing the culture, and also they can share in some of the things their children are learning about the American culture.”