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Orange County responds to health barriers for refugees - The Daily Tar Heel <br />http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2018/04/refugees-0410[4/17/2018 11:58:43 AM] <br />125 Years of Editorial Freedom <br />  <br />4/10/2018, 7:35PM <br />Orange County responds to health barriers for refugees <br />BY MICHAEL TAFFE <br />Correction: This article previously mistook the Refugee Support Center for the Refugee Community <br />Partnership, for their services in providing tutorials on how to use public transit, preparation for <br />citizenship exams, and educational tutoring. In addition, doctor providers, not telephonic interpreters, that <br />will mistake Karen for the Korean language. The article has been updated online, and displays the correct <br />information in print. <br />There are over around 1,200 refugees living and working in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and the community <br />has seen a concerted effort and response to the needs of recently resettled refugees. <br />“Around 100 (Orange County refugees) from the (Democratic Republic of Congo), around 40 from Syria, <br />and the rest are from Burma,” said Flicka Bateman, director of the non-profit Refugee Support Center. <br />The Refugee Support Center is just one of the organizations created in response to barriers to health care <br />access and a need to familiarize recently resettled refugees with public services. Bateman founded the <br />center when a family of five refugees, three of them adolescents, moved in across the street from her. <br />“One of those adolescents now works at the Lineberger Cancer Center, one graduated with a degree in IT <br />and one got a degree in Chemistry from UNC and is now a researcher there,” said Bateman. “When they <br />got here they were saying that they weren’t going to go to college. I told them that it wasn’t a matter of if, <br />but where, and where they could get the money.”