Clarkston list of interviews

Interviews

People directly involved
- Head coach Wesley Etienne – have talked to him multiple times, but not in an interview
- Assistant coach Ayodeji Arise
- Assistant coach Dione Hester
- Muhozi Aimable, the UGA runner who I profiled last year and was on the Clarkston team a few years ago
- Three senior male cross country runners who are all refugees – have talked to them conversationally, but not in an interview
  - Kon Kon
  - Suheib Mohamed
  - Bineyam Tumbo
- A non-senior male cross country runner (either Awet Fitwi, Nzitunga Gile)
- Parents and siblings of runners mentioned above
Local experts
- Mayor Ted Terry – interview completed
- Principal Dr. Michelle Jones – have talked to her in-depth in a non-interview setting
- Bridget Ware – 12^th grade guidance counselor
National experts
- IRC – International Rescue Committee, based on Atlanta – JD McCrary (director)
Those affected
- Leonie Parkinson – senior cross country runner who is not a refugee
- Zyikeirra Robinson – sophomore cross country runner who is not a refugee
Man on the street
- Maybe interview citizens in the town, shop owners?

Revised story memo – Clarkson High School cross country

I spoke with the head coach of the Clarkson High School cross country team, and after that, I feel confident that is the team I want to dive into as I tell the story about refugee resettlement in Clarkston, Georgia. It sounds like access is not going to be an issue. This is a coach who I’ve interviewed before for a previous story, and he said I would be welcome to come for any practices or meets I need. I’m also planning to reach out to the school’s principal to talk about what I’m doing and to make sure I won’t run into any issues. I also want to take some time exploring the Clarkston to get a feel for the community.

I gravitated toward a team at a public high school because it seems like the concept of refugees assimilating to a high school’s culture and routine can be used as a microcosm of immigrants coming into a new country.

I also think I need to find one or a few personal stories from athletes on the team to use in my story. Focusing on the lives of an athlete, his siblings and his parents will be an effective way to tell the story.

Below is my original story memo with changes and additions now that I have determined the route I hope to take.

Topic: The intersection between sports and refugee resettlement, using Clarkston High School’s cross country team as a lens

Key questions to consider and how to answer them:

What is it like to immigrate to a new country as a refugee child?
- Talk to high-school aged students and their families
- Ask athletic coaches how sports affect the process of a student adjusting to a new place
- What is it like to become a part of a public high school? Is it comforting to be at a high school that has a high population of refugees?
How do refugee children get involved with sports?
- Do parents see it as something that will help them be part of the community? Is it the child that initiates the desire to play?
- What challenges arise if the sport the child plays is not a sport that was present in their home country? Based on the story I did last year, it sounded like most of these runners come to America with a lot of experience in soccer, but they’ve never heard of cross country.
- How much does it cost a family to pay for a kid to be involved with sports? Are refugee children ever kept from sports due to the financial burden? Are there any costs to be a part of a public high school cross country team?
What is the team dynamic like and what messages does it send to the athletes and observers?
- How many different home countries are represented on the team?
- Are there ever language barriers?
- Were the coaches refugees or immigrants? How do they lead a diverse team of students adjusting to a new life?
- How do coaches and teammates help throughout the adjustment process in ways apart from sports?
- What lessons do the coaches hope to teach through sports?
What makes the cross country team successful, especially since many might not have run cross country prior to moving to the U.S.?
What struggles have the athletes faced? Xenophobia?
How did Clarkston become a hub for refugee resettlement?
- What are other similar refugee resettlement towns in the United States?
- What made Clarkston a good fit for immigrants?

Sources:

Coaches – Wesley Etienne, cross country head coach
Athletes
Families (Etienne said it might be hard to get parents. Most don’t speak English. But he said older siblings could work as good sources too.)
Teachers who have knowledge of the adjusting process outside of sports
Dr. Michelle Jones, Clarkston High School principal
Someone unaffiliated with the team or school who has knowledge of Clarkston’s history as a refugee resettlement town

Possible multimedia ideas:

Maybe a graph that shows the demographic makeup of Clarkson High School
Timeline or maps that show where the athletes come from and how and when they got to the U.S.

Refugee resettlement and sports personal story memo

I tried to write this memo in a way that it could be applied for either Fugees Family or Clarkson High School cross country team. I will settle on one of those routes next week after I talk to the coaches and see what type of access I could get.

Broad topic: The intersection between sports and refugee resettlement

Key questions to consider and how to answer them:

What is it like to acclimate to a new country as a refugee child?
- Talk to high-school aged students and their families
- Ask athletic coaches how sports affect the process of a student adjusting to a new place
- What is it like to become a part of a public high school? Is it comforting to be at a high school that has a high population of refugees?
How do refugee children get involved with sports?
- Do parents see it as something that will help them be part of the community? Is it the child that initiates the desire to play?
- What challenges arise if the sport the child plays is not a sport that was present in their home country?
- How much does it cost a family to pay for a kid to be involved with sports? Are refugee children ever kept from sports due to the financial burden?
What is the team dynamic like and what messages does it send to the athletes and observers?
- How many different home countries are represented on the team?
- Are there ever language barriers?
- Were the coaches refugees or immigrants? How do they lead a diverse team of students adjusting to a new life?
- How do coaches and teammates help throughout the acclimating process in ways apart from sports?
What makes the cross country team successful, especially since many might not have run cross country prior to moving to the U.S.?
How did Clarkston become a hub for refugee resettlement?
- What are other similar refugee resettlement towns in the United States?
- What made Clarkston a good fit for immigrants?

Sources:

Coaches
Athletes
Families
Teachers who have knowledge of the adjusting process outside of sports
Someone unaffiliated with the team or school who has knowledge of Clarkston’s history as a refugee resettlement town

Possible multimedia ideas:

Maybe a graph that shows the demographic makeup of Clarkson High School
Timeline or maps that show where the athletes come from and how and when they got to the U.S.

Various story ideas to explore refugees in Clarkston

Since I feel pretty confident that I’ll my individual project will center around refugees in Clarkston, Georgia, and how their lives are affected by sports, these are five variations of how that could play out.

As of now, my top choice for a story would focus on the children and their families who are part of the Fugees Family soccer team. I’d like to look at what motivated their parents to have them join a sports team and whether that has helped the children acclimate to the community. I would explore what type environment this soccer team provides and the challenges they have faced since arriving in the United States. For this angle, the emphasis would be on the families’ adjustment in the new area and how soccer has benefited their kids.
Another angle for a story about Fugees Family centers around the founder, Luma Mufleh. She has an interesting background, as she grew up in a wealthy family in Jordan. She noticed that she grew up being handed anything she wanted while other children were far less fortunate. That motivated her to found Fugees Family in 2004. This is the angle that has been primarily covered by other news outlets, which makes it less attractive for me to write. I think an angle that focuses on the players and their families would be more compelling, even if it is more difficult to reach the sources.
Finally, a story could focus on the combination of Fugees Family and Fugees Academy, the academic component of the soccer program that was added in 2008. In 2016, the school graduated its first senior class and 86 students are currently enrolled. This story would look at how a soccer team grew into something that affects the children on a larger scale. It would be very interesting to dive into the dynamic of an all-refugee school. That being said, this could be a small piece of any Fugees Family story and might not warrant an entire story.
As a solid backup plan, there are other routes I could go to explore the intersection between refugees and sports in Clarkston, Georgia. During my reporting for the story I wrote last year, I found out that refuges made up about 90 percent of Clarkston High School’s cross country team. The concept of working with a team from a public high school would be interesting since it directly displays how these children are becoming part of a new community. The boys’ cross country team won the Georgia 5A state title in both 2014 and 2015, so that would add a strong athletic component to the story.
Even though the cross country team has been successful at the state level, another similar story would be to look into the environment at Clarkston High School, using the football team as a lens. I’d assume that the makeup of the football team is somewhat similar to that of cross country since the percentage of students who are refugees at Clarkston is very high. In the last two seasons, Clarkston only won one game and it is off to an 0-2 start this year. Therefore, there wouldn’t be the draw of having athletic accomplishments like the cross country team, but in general people are more interested in football. I don’t know how reliable some of these sites are, but a few places show the football roster only having 12 players. That could make this an interesting story.

Refugees in Clarkston, Fugees Family background reading

I’m hoping to look into refugee resettlement, particularly in Clarkson, Georgia. Through that I want to explore how sports play a role in the lives of refugee children. I also want to see how being on a team like Fugees Family affects the lives of the players, parents and coaches. In addition, I want to do broad research about the city of Clarkston, how it became a refugee town and what it is like to be apart of that community.

I first started my story search with the broad topic by looking for articles about refugees in Clarkson without the sports component. I found this story about a Syrian family that was part of the first group of Syrian refugees to come to Georgia. It also said that “Gov. Nathan Deal has vowed to block other Syrian refugees from coming into the state,” which is important background. About 3,000 refugees move to Clarkson a year, but widespread acceptance across Georgia isn’t typical. I then read this article that details that “Georgia cannot exclude Syrian refugees from resettlement in the state or deny them federally funded benefits,” as attorney general Sam Olens wrote in an official opinion last year. Some of the fear of refugee resettlement stems from acts of terrorism around the world. In 2016, Deal withdrew the order stopping Syrian refugees from resettling in Georgia.

I found this article about Luma Mufleh, who is the founder of Fugees Family. Mufleh spoke at a high school in Virginia and she explained some of the roots of Fugees Family. She grew up in a wealthy family in Jordan and said, “Everything I wanted was handed to me.” Similarly, this is a story written when Mufleh spoke at Illinois Wesleyan University. When she saw kids playing soccer in Clarkston without shoes, she felt motivated to begin a program that could help.

Looking on a worldwide scope, I read this story about refugee athletes competing in the 2016 Olympics. A year prior, IOC president Thomas Bach said at the UN General Assembly that “these refugee athletes will be welcomed to the Olympic Games.”

Questions about Fugees Family

Topic: Fugees Family soccer program

These are the questions I would use to guide my search as to why Clarkson is a refugee resettlement town and how Fugees Family affects those in the community.

Why Clarkson? What made this city become a hub for refugee resettlement?
What are other similar refugee resettlement towns in the United States?
How many children participate in sports in Clarkston? More, less or about the same as comparable Georgia towns? (This might be hard to quantify.)
What value do the parents see in having their children play on a sports team?
When was Fugees Family created?
Why was Fugees Family created?
How many different home nations are represented on Fugees Family team?
Are the coaches also refugees? If not, how did they get involved with this program?
What led to Fugees Family expansion into academic programs?
Are there negative or positive effects of students attending school only with refugees?
What are the guidelines for being a member of Fugees Family team?
How do sports play a role in refugee resettlement?
Are there similar teams in other parts of the United States?
How many of the athletes have played soccer prior to Fugees Family?
What are the benefit of having all coed teams?
What are the time and financial requirements involved with being on the Fugees Family team?
What was the impact of having a refugee Olympic time this year in Rio?