A local nonprofit has launched a new summer program to sew and distribute waterproof pillows and bags for homeless individuals in Albuquerque.
“I’m just hoping that this will make the community a better place, and even though, there’s still maybe homeless people, at least they’re more comfortable in their surroundings and not just lying on the floor,” Khazimla Sinandile, a sixth grader who is helping to coordinate the program through the Immigrant and Refugee Resource Village of Albuquerque (IRRVA), told KRQE recently.
Khazimla is the granddaughter of Nkazi Sinandile, IRRVA’s program director and an immigrant from South Africa.
“I’ve always loved just the idea of helping people,” Khazimla told KRQE.
The program is being funded by a $20,000 grant from the City’s Culture and Arts Department, the KRQE report said.
Thirteen volunteers, ranging in ages from middle school to college, plan to create 60 pillows and bags, with the latter to be filled with a variety of items including food and toiletries, the report said. The pillows and bags with be distributed on June 20, World Refugee Day, to individuals located within the International District.
IRRVA and its educational program—known as New Mexico Women's Global Pathways (NMWGP)—are both committed to serving the social, emotional, physical, educational and financial needs of low/no income refugees, immigrants and asylee families from numerous parts of the world including Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the United States; the Share New Mexico website said.
The resource village’s mission is “to promote empowerment and provide support to the most vulnerable immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and other vulnerable under-served local people in Bernalillo New Mexico, in order to build healthy and productive children and their families, and will promote community involvement in supporting the needs of the families,” Share New Mexico said.
Among programs offered by IRRVA are emergency food assistance, youth and women mentoring, eviction and utility assistance, early childhood education, ESL (English as a Second Language) tutoring, case management, advocacy and micro-enterprise training.