will one local organization is rolling out the welcome mat for refugees in the area offering a hiring event in Jersey City as part of a resettlement program as those who've been displaced from Afghanistan Ukraine and elsewhere around the world rebuild their lives and search for work to do so Ted Goldberg has the story more than a hundred refugees crammed into this hiring event looking for jobs after resettling here in New Jersey the situation in Afghanistan was critical and that's that's why we moved here and I face direct threat so that's why we came here Syed atifi moved his family from Afghanistan to Bayonne almost two years ago while he appreciates all this job fair has to offer he's hoping to be hired as a case manager I'm so happy and I meet a lot of people so I'm happy and I'm trying to get this job I'm excited and I'm trying and I think this is a good job for me maybe I get some more experience in this for many of these refugees these careers can be wildly different from their jobs back home in my own country I was a musician singer and musician our clients are people who have had to uproot their lives they've been Professionals in their own countries and when they come here a lot of that those certificates and those things don't transfer over and so you know there's a lot of people are having to restart their lives two organizations are hoping to cushion the blow of settling in a new country Church World Service Jersey City and the tent partnership for refugees co-hosted this event in Jersey City trying to make it easier for refugees to not only find a job but also keep it we work with our employers to help them create welcoming environments for refugees who are still learning the local language and really train them on both an application process and once post hire what they can do to make sure that they can still hire somebody who might not speak English yet proficiently and who will really be able to learn the language on the job one of the employers looking to hire is the fashion company Uniqlo no strangers to hiring refugees Uniqlo has been employing Refugee since 2011. we've had a long-standing great relationship with the tent organization but they've connected us with a lot of the local agencies around the area and recently we just opened the one store in Newport Center Mall in Jersey City like many companies that hire refugees Uniqlo has programs to help their new employees acclimate amid the wide range of challenges that refugees might face we do have like a peer mentor buddy system so any Refugee hires that we employ we have like our own internal tracking system so we like to partner them up with other Refugee hires so they can always have someone to lean on refugees might have access to a car when they're first arriving in the United States and to really making sure that employers are thinking about how can they help Refugee applicants and employees actually get to work by offering public transportation guidance carpooling or other options refugees in America are eligible for jobs right after they arrive one year later they can apply for a green card and five years later they can go for citizenship so getting that first job is a crucial step and job fairs like this make it more likely that these refugees can settle in more permanently in Jersey City I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news