Contributed by Jane Kinity
World Refugee Day picnic.
College Woods Park came alive with dance, food, and community last weekend as New Haveners gathered to celebrate World Refugee Day.
The fifth annual picnic in honor of New Haven’s growing refugee community took place on the Saturday after World Refugee Day, which occurs every year on June 20.
It was organized by Jane Kinity, who herself came to New Haven with her family in 2000 as a refugee from Kenya. Now a longtime resident of the Dwight neighborhood, Kinity is the founder of New International Hope For Refugees and Immigrants and a frequent convener of refugees based in New Haven.
Kinity reflected on the picnic’s meaning in an interview with the Independent.
According to Kinity, 80 people attended. The crowd spanned multiple generations and represented a multitude of home countries. A number of politicians were present, including Dwight Alder Frank Douglass and Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton.
Attendees danced traditional African dances and feasted on homemade foo foo.
Kinity especially appreciated that refugees could connect with lifelong Americans at the picnic, and vice versa.
She said that some of her neighbors met refugees for the first time at the celebration. “They never mixed with refugee people. … To hear their stories, they never had that.”
Meanwhile, “People in the community, they are a resource. They can give refugees direction, because they have been here for a long time.”
“I wanted people to know them, and I wanted people to hear their stories,” said Kinity. “This is our day to celebrate.”
Attendees arrived at noon and stayed for most of the day, Kinity said. “The people were there, dancing and happy, until we finished almost at 6.”