Making Buffalo Home

With Western New York still in the grasp of the coronavirus pandemic, a newly-resettled refugee family is getting into the spirit of the City of Good Neighbors. For Buffalo Toronto Public Media’s Making Buffalo Home initiative, WBFO’s Kyle Mackie reports on how an Afghan couple sparked a business venture that’s making face masks and generating income for refugee women.

"Making Buffalo Home: A Refugee's First Year" airs tonight at 9 on WNED-TV. Part of the Making Buffalo Home initiative, the show looks at the challenges refugees face upon relocating to Buffalo. As Senior Producer Lynne Bader points out, nearly 16,000 refugees have called Buffalo home since the early 2000's. In order to make lives here, they needed to overcome two major challenges: finding a job and learning the language.

On Saturday night, Nusantara Arts, formerly known as the Buffalo Gamelan Club, will be performing a show at the Buffalo Museum of Science in front of Indonesian artifacts and artwork. The one-night exhibit is a product of a growing gamelan scene in Buffalo and desire on the museum’s behalf to work with more local organizations.

From cutting the number of refugee admissions to “Remain in Mexico,” the Trump administration enacted several new immigration policies in 2019. For Making Buffalo Home, WBFO's Kyle Mackie reports on what those changes mean for Buffalo and Western New York.

Two University at Buffalo students are spending their winter break volunteering at a remote school in Nepal—and it’s not just a service trip. For Pemba Sherpa and Hemanta Adhikari, it’s a homecoming 10 years in the making.

A group of Buffalo Public Schools students singing in English, Spanish and Swahili premiered a music video Wednesday of an original song they wrote and recorded with the support of local artists.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is sending a clear message to the Trump administration: Send more refugees here. Poloncarz and other county executives across the country are now required to opt-in to allow future refugee resettlement in their districts.

Older refugees in Buffalo face challenges that younger refugees circumvent. Although services are prolific for this community, they are not always as accessible due to certain barriers. Those barriers make it sometimes impossible for them to utilize the available resources.

The labor movement says it is going all in on helping immigrants, who are joining unions in increasing numbers. It is part of a national program involving the AFL-CIO, headed by Richard Trumka.

Buffalo's popular West Side Bazaar, an incubator for immigrant and refugee-run businesses, is moving from its current home on Grant Street to a larger space on Niagara Street.

Fort Niagara has been a lot of things throughout its 300-plus-year history.

It was a crucial military post for France, Great Britain and eventually the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a training ground for Polish soldiers during World War I, as well as an induction site for the U.S. Army and even a camp for German prisoners of war during World War II.

On Wednesday morning, it was also the beginning for 20 of the United States’ newest citizens, as Old Fort Niagara hosted its first naturalization ceremony in nearly three decades.

Making Buffalo Home is a WNED | WBFO multiyear project looking at the impact immigrants and refugees are making in our community. As WBFO's Kyle Mackie reports, one group of Karen teenagers who came to Buffalo from Thailand are spending their summer working at an urban farm on the city’s West Side.

It might still be more than a month away for kids, but some adults went back to school this week. It was the start of the Buffalo Public Schools’ summer semester of English classes for individuals aged 21 and older.

While the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border continues to make headlines, the City of Good Neighbors continues to live up to its nickname.

The International Institute of Buffalo held a naturalization ceremony Wednesday in conjunction with World Refugee Day. 25 candidates from 15 different countries officially became citizens of the United States. WBFO’s Nick Lippa was there and spoke with a few immigrants on what brought them to this country.

One hundred immigrants from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are here to seek asylum in the United States.

With a combination of guest artists, Indonesian immigrants and Buffalo-born residents, Buffalo Gamelan Club put on a four-hour show Thursday night at Kleinhans Music Hall that featured shadow puppets. As the group continues to tackle more ambitious performances, WBFO’s Nick Lippa reports on their growth in the community.

In her latest non-fiction book, Wearing the Letter P, Grand Island resident Sophie Knab tells the story of her mother and other Polish women who were taken from their homes, their families and their country and sent away to forced labor camps in Nazi Germany during World War II.

He was born in Germany in 1925. Stephan Lewy and his Jewish family were able to flee that nation just after Kristallnacht in 1938, but he eventually returned to Europe as part of the U.S. Army, serving under General Patton's command and liberating many of his fellow Jews. Lewy, who now shares his life experiences with local students, was honored this week as Erie County's Senior of the Year.

Much of the current focus on immigration into the United States remains on the country’s southern border. But in Buffalo, a local organization continues to serve as a beacon of hope for individuals and families fleeing war-torn and unstable nations.

Friday evening from 5:30 to 8 p.m., WNED | WBFO's Making Buffalo Home is collaborating with a new exhibit, Finding Refuge in Buffalo, opening at the Horizons Gallery. WBFO's Mark Wozniak spoke with Jody K. Biehl, the director of the Universiaty at Buffalo Journalism Program who is in charge of the project, about the event.

Making Buffalo Home is a WNED|WBFO multi-year project looking at the impact immigrants and refugees are having in our community. As WBFO's Nick Lippa reports, Dr. Peilun Vicky Chang has played pipe organ at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lancaster for 16 years now. The internationally renowned musician and composer has come a long way since leaving Taiwan.

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo is hosting a visiting exhibit created by a Burmese artist who, along with hundreds of subjects he has met through his project, are former political prisoners in their homeland. His exhibit, a Show of Hands, features plaster casts of each former prisoner's hand. Some of them are of individuals who have since settled in Buffalo after spending years as refugees.