Last week, President Obama announced that the United States would accept up to 10,000 Syrian refugees.

However, many criticize the United States for not taking in more.

Anne Richard, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, explained in an interview with NPR that the process of accepting migrants is more complicated than it may seem.

“We can make a home for many, many refugees in the United States,” she said. “The tricky part is running a process that scrutinizes the backgrounds of the refugees.” This is necessary in order to insure the people we are bringing in are “legitimate refugees,” who “do not pose any kind of security threat.”

Whatever the number of refugees the U.S. ultimately accepts, they will need to be settled in local communities. Nonprofits and community groups will need to help.

Here in Cleveland, we have the Refugee Services Collaborative of Greater Cleveland, a group of local organizations that have joined together to better serve the rising numbers of refugees resettling in Northeast Ohio.

There are fourteen organizations involved, one being U.S. Together, Inc., a mutual assistance agency founded in Columbus in 2003 in response to the growing needs of refugees and immigrants in central Ohio. They opened their Cleveland office in 2008.

In the news, the Syrians have been highlighted as a population struggling to escape the dangers of their country. However, Danielle Drake, the Community Relations Manager at US Together, emphasizes that there are migrants from many other countries that also need assistance.

“We have resettled some of the Rohingyas, which are the Burmese Muslim minority group,” she said. “They’re not recognized as citizens in the country of Myanmar due to their religious beliefs, so they are tortured and often times don’t have access to jobs or land.”

US Together has already resettled a number of those families in Cleveland.

Drake expects to see more Syrians coming in the near future. In fact, she shared, “Cleveland resettled their first Syrian family last week.”

The week of Sept. 18 was national welcoming week, and US Together hosted free welcoming events for the incoming refugees. There was an art gallery showcasing refugee artwork and film screenings at Capitol Theater.

Drake emphasizes that an important way to get involved is simply to be educated. She offered to have a speaker come to our school.

“The more educated people are, the more welcoming they will be,” she said.

It is up to us to educate ourselves and do whatever we can to welcome the refugees into our community. We have the resources, so now it is time to act.

For more information on US Together, the Refugee Services Collaborative of Greater Cleveland, and what you can do to help, visit http://rsccleveland.org/ and http://ustogether.us/.