DARI (Duxbury Afghan Resettlement Initiative) is a volunteer led organization, sponsored by Duxbury Rotary, that has been supporting an Afghan refugee family living in our community since December of 2021. The family is warm, charming, beautiful, and very grateful. They’re doing well and making progress on education, employment and language skills. “For most of us, this is one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.” says Karl Kunz, one of the volunteer leaders.

All the children are in school except for the 1year-old, but he has the benefit of being an American citizen and has received his passport. The kids are all doing well and are enjoying their studies.  The Duxbury Public School System has been fantastic in providing support for the children. 

With school done for the year the community is providing typical Duxbury experiences in camp, youth soccer, and other activities.   

Family members have been attending Friday prayers in Quincy and growing more comfortable in their new community.  

A dedicated group of volunteers has been providing ESL (English as a Second Language) classes at least 3 times per week to the adults since December of 2021.  They have made great progress and are able to perform many more routine tasks on their own.   

The father has been employed since December of 2021.We’re looking for additional work for Dad and hope to find jobs that provide for training on new skills with increases in salary.

Since the MA RMV recently added Pashto as a language that can be used to take the learner’s permit test, the Mom and Dad are working hard to get their permits and then their driver’s licenses.  Achieving that goal and getting a card will be a significant step in allowing them to function normally in Duxbury.  We will be looking for someone to donate or provide a nice discount on a car this fall. 

The immigration lawyers at our partner, Catholic Charities, are making progress and have not hit any roadblocks on the way to securing permanent status for the family.  We are expecting green cards for the family by the end of the year.  

We were concerned about housing, but learned recently that the First Parish Church will allow the family to stay in the parsonage for another full calendar year.  All of us in DARI are very excited about this as it allows us to continue to support the family here in Duxbury. We’re extremely grateful to First Parish for their generosity!  

We still need your help to enable our family to become fully independent.  To donate by credit card, click here. Your tax-deductible donation will be processed by our sponsor, Duxbury Rotary. To donate by check, make check payable to DARI and send to: DARI, PO Box 272, Duxbury MA 02332, or drop your donation check off at Eastern Bank, 19 Depot Street, Duxbury MA.

The Story of DARI

Duxbury for All, the Duxbury Rotary Club, and members of First Parish Church and the Duxbury Interfaith Council became interested in whether Duxbury could welcome and support an Afghan refugee program at the end of September 2021.  A small team was formed to investigate what was involved and whether it was feasible.  Within a short period of time the team understood the challenges and was fortunate to meet the biggest challenge, affordable housing, with a generous donation of a 4-bedroom home for the family. The team named itself the Duxbury Afghan Resettlement Initiative (DARI, which is also one of the major Afghan languages), chose to work with an official refugee resettlement agency, Catholic Charities, and started raising funds, soliciting volunteers, and asking the community to donate furniture, furnishings, goods, and services for their new home. Over the next few weeks, the community responded with over $50,000, 50 volunteers, and with donations to completely furnish and supply the home.  

With 80,000 Afghan refugees on military bases in late 2021 there was enormous pressure to move them into communities that could welcome them with a bare minimum of housing and support. Although not totally ready, DARI was called on Wednesday, December 1st, with the request to accept a large family that coming Monday.  DARI said yes!  

So, less than three months from the start of an investigation, the DARI teams and Catholic Charities welcomed our first Afghan family of seven late Monday night, December 6th, at Logan Airport.  The young mother (6 months’ pregnant) and father with children ages 8,5,4,3, and 2 had been traveling since 3:00 am that morning and still had the trip down 93 and 3 to Duxbury ahead of them. The family spoke only Pashto, so the welcoming team included a very capable translator who accompanied the group to Duxbury.  Although exhausted, the children were amazingly well behaved without parental admonishment. An Afghan-American Duxbury resident had purchased dinners at a Cambridge Afghan restaurant and despite arriving at their new house at 11:30 pm, everyone had a marvelous shoeless late-night feast on the living room carpet. The children, finishing dinner before the adults, managed to figure out how to work the TV to watch cartoons, even managing to eliminate the ads!  

The next 10 days exceeded everyone’s expectations as to what an inexperienced team of volunteers could do to get the family settled and involved in the community. Visits to doctors and dentists followed within the first few days. The Duxbury School administration went the extra mile to prepare for the family’s arrival. The two oldest children started school in December of 2021 and on the same day the parents attended the first of many English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) courses designed and taught by the DARI Education Team. Former Duxbury Rotary President, Razia Jan, was very helpful in enabling DARI volunteers to communicate with the family.