Avondale Resident Helps Refugees Put Down Roots In Georgia Soil

Susan Pavlin admires the international refugees she's paid to help, like the women from the east African nation of Burundi who grow vegetables on a plot of land near the Avondale Marta Station.

"People have found their way here from around the world and faced some of the most incredible challenges they could face," Pavlin said. "They're very strong. To have these incredibly strong people and have them part of the community is really exciting to me."

That admiration helps her do her job. Pavlin runs Global Growers Network, an umbrella group that helps refugees farmers find gardens and farm projects in metro Atlanta.

Pavlin is one of the people who brings together the refugees with landowners and local governments. That's not always an easy mix to accomplish.

"Susan Pavlin is an amazing organizer," said Patti Garrett, a Decatur City Commissioner and local food advocate. "She really gets things done in a way that involves the stakeholders. That's important in something as new as this."

The Burundi Women's Farm is Global Growers' big success so far (you may have seen the women selling produce at the Grant Park Farmer's Market) but Pavlin has other projects coming up, including a two-acre garden at the outside Decatur.

-- and in some cases money -- from the city, DeKalb County, and the children's home.

This garden will be more than a garden for refugrees. It will used for teaching purposes through the Oakhurst Community Garden and also be worked by low-income, non-refugee residents.

Ground will be broken mid-March and the first seeds planted April 21, Pavlin said.

Pavlin, a resident of Avondale Estates, is a local food advocate but didn't grow up on a farm. She's from Libertyville, Ill., "about as Midwestern as you could get."

She went to Vanderbilt, studied Russian, and then went to law school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She got to know Atlanta during an internship at King and Spalding.

She left practicing law and went to work for Refugee Family Services, a Stone Mountain-based nonprofit that helps women and children become self-sufficient in the United States.

About two and a half years ago, RFS saw the need to help refugee farmers and created Global Growers Network.

"Susan was the person who really introduced this concept to Refugee Family Services," said Emily Pelton, RFS executive director. "She's always been the kind of person who works hard to engage at the community level."

Many of these refugees don't know how to do anything but farm. They faced genocide or lived for years in refugee camps. When they arrive in the United States, they are often bewildered by the interstates and fast food lifestyle of metro Atlanta.

Global Growers Network gives the refugees a comfort zone and provides a chance for them to make money and learn new skills and the American way of farming.

Making the refugees self-sufficient is one of Global Growers' and Pavlin sees that steadily happening. For instance, the Burundi women used to wait for somebody to carry them by car from Clarkston to Decatur.

"By the end of the first year they said, 'We're tired of waiting around for people to pick us up. We want to learn how to use Marta,' " Pavlin said.

Now some of the women want to learn how to drive.

Raman Dahal, who moved here a few years ago from Bhutan, a small landlocked nation northeast of India, said Global Growers makes a huge difference in the lives of refugees who become involved.

"They need a place to do something, keep mentally fit and Global Growers Network is one place they can do that," he said. "That helps them to feel happy and learn something and even make some income."

Global Growers is also giving back to the community by adding a new wrinkle to the local food movement that seems to have penetrated every restaurant in Decatur.

"I see these newcomers as experts in local food," Pavlin said. "We're trying to go back to that and that's what they do."