My name is Dylan. I am a student at BYU and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These blog entries are posted weekly as a project in my Writing and Rhetoric course at school. They are posted with the hopes that the reader might be made more aware of these people and their unfortunate circumstances. If you wish to do your part to help, please visit this site: www.ldsphilanthropies.org
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Struggle For Employment
Photograph by Sebastião Salgado
This is a photograph of a refugee working at a construction site in São Paulo, Brazil. Here refugees are greatly blessed with the opportunity of finding jobs even when these men are without education or proper qualification. But, unfortunately, the rest of the world is not as gracious as São Paulo’s construction industry. Throughout the world, refugees struggle to find jobs and earn a sufficient amount of money. This problem becomes even more serious when you consider how refugees have given up basically everything and left their homes, sacrificing so much, with hopes of finding better opportunities elsewhere – without some sort of job they will find themselves with nothing and no way of getting anything.
This all made me think back to my first job. I was job hunting in the middle of the economic troubles facing the US about a year ago, which was no easy task. I remember applying at a countless number of places and competing with not only teenagers, but also with experienced adults who were recently laid off of work. If it was such a struggle for the average US citizen to get hired at a minimum-wage, basic-difficulty level job, then I can’t even begin to perceive just how near impossible it must have been for refugees trying to compete. An article on syracuse.com shares some insight into the mind of Maria Sanchez, a 48 year old woman who was employed ever since leaving Cuba for the US in 2005 but was laid off last year due to the economic troubles: “‘It's a difficult situation,’ Sanchez said in Spanish. ‘We left Cuba because of the economic problems and to find better life for my children. If we don't find job, it's going to be bad for us’” (Thompson). Despite how much effort and sacrifice these people put in towards fixing their lives, so much of the process is out of their hands. All they can do is put forth their effort and hope.
Works Cited
Salgado, Sebastião. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. 317.
Awesome post. Searching for and finding employment these days certainly is quite a challenge. I can't even find a job; I can't imagine how hard it is for a refugee. Thankfully there are organizations such as the Sao Paulo Brazil construction industry. The more people come together, the more people we can help. That is why it is so important for us to serve one and love one another. Without selflessness, although it is often hard to come by, the world would be so much worse off.
Photograph by Sebastião Salgado
Awesome post. Searching for and finding employment these days certainly is quite a challenge. I can't even find a job; I can't imagine how hard it is for a refugee. Thankfully there are organizations such as the Sao Paulo Brazil construction industry. The more people come together, the more people we can help. That is why it is so important for us to serve one and love one another. Without selflessness, although it is often hard to come by, the world would be so much worse off.
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