WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (WGHP) — Imagine moving your entire family to a country where you don’t speak the language, don’t have a job, and don’t have a place to stay.
That is the frightening reality for many immigrants who choose to make the Piedmont Triad their new home. They come here to leave a life of poverty and sometimes war behind in the hope of finding a better life.
“People that came from the war from Ukraine, I remember that little girl. She was crying. I mean she still hears the bombs. That is the kind of immigrants we see here,” says Connie Trejo.
She is the CEO of Hogar del Inmigrante, a nonprofit devoted to assisting immigrants regardless of where they’re from as they make a new life here. Trejo says many immigrants arrive traumatized. The agency uses its resources, including help from the Winston-Salem Foundation, to make the transition a little easier.
“What we try to do is basically give them a little bit of hope that everything is going to be okay,” says Denise Trejo Velez, Operational Manager at Hogar del Inmigrante. She says that help comes in the form of three main programs.
Happy Youth supports children who suffer from sexual abuse or domestic violence. Fenix helps victims of abuse, domestic violence and human trafficking. The third program is called SOL and focuses on older adults. Trejo Velez says they’re the group the nonprofit tries to help the most.
“The senior ones aren’t going to receive any social security, they won’t receive nothing as they age. We have this client who’s 80 and he’s still working. What else he can do?”
Hogar del Inmigrante serves any immigrant who reaches out for help, but the nonprofit needs help too to make that happen.
“Please if you have a good heart, and if you have empathy, put your eye on us. We really need you. We are a small nonprofit organization,” Trejo says.
Most of the programs at Hogar del Inmigrante are free thanks to donations.
The office is located at Vest Mill Road in Winston-Salem.
