Bridging the gaps: NH Afghan Support Group helps refugees navigate new life in Manchester

MANCHESTER, NH – A number of Afghans were resettled three years ago in the city of Manchester. As newcomers to America they say that in the past three years, their lives have been faced with many opportunities and tests.

Making the cultural transition easier has been the assistance of volunteers who have been active in bringing the communities of newly arrived Afghan immigrants closer, and adapting them to the new living environment by establishing various programs.

After the withdrawal of American and NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban’s domination of Afghanistan twice, thousands of Afghans were transferred to the United States, and the majority of them were in the SiV, p2 ,p1, case, and for the past three and a half years, in the framework of residence. They live temporarily in America.

Karen Montague, the founder of NH Afghan Support Group in Manchester, says that when the news reports started coming out of Afghanistan of refugees coming to the U.S., she felt called to action.

“When the Taliban was taking over in Afghanistan the way our government handled the withdrawal really upset a lot of people, including me, and I wanted to do something. I just felt like we had betrayed the people who had helped us in the war and we  had to, as citizens, help,” said Montague.

The problems of newly-arrived Afghan immigrants in the United States in various areas include cultural-social adaptation, employment, education, and for many families, the difficulty of speaking English.

“We show them how to use EBT cards, we started a sewing program and the donation of sewing supplies and also the donation of household items, clothes, etc. to Afghans,” said Montague.

There are about 200 people in the Afghan community, which is gathered by the volunteers at Brookside Church on Saturdays, one group for men and one for women, where they share the experiences of working, studying, and living with the new environment and culture and the volunteer assistance covers all the above.

“There’s an incredible network of volunteers – probably I’d say 12 of us that are the closest and spend the most amount of time together, but there’s another 10 or 15 volunteers that help drive, help here, help there. So I’d say between 20 and 25 almost 30 volunteers in Manchester,” says Montague.

“We realized very quickly when the families first came that the women especially felt very isolated they were in their apartments, apart from their families, and they were used to more communal living in Afghanistan so we decided to try to get the women

together once a week at Brookside Church, who very kindly allowed us to use their facilities and so we started with getting the women together once a week on Tuesday

and they called it ‘a break from their tears.’ They really looked forward to seeing one another and that kind of started everything,” Montague said.

“We drive people places and we try to help them find things they need that they don’t get when they first arrive in the U.S., so that they feel more comfortable. We try to provide clothing so that they can spend their money on other things and not have to worry about clothes. We take them to appointments, we help them with their resumes, we do a lot of different  things,” Montague said.

“There is one volunteer in particular, she’s amazing because she’s taking care of everybody’s dental needs and driving people to appointments and there’s another woman who helps with a lot of the single men with their English, and there’s a guy that is helping everybody get their license.So everybody has their own ways of helping and it is pretty much whatever anybody needs we try to fill the gaps,” she said.

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