Michel and Ababele are trapped in a bind that is not of their making.

They need $500 each so they can be admitted to the RISSE special school for a month and learn enough English to be able to go to the public schools in Albany, where they live.

You met Sifa here a couple of weeks ago, she came to the United States four months ago, chosen by a U.N. lottery to come to America with her eight children. None of them had time to learn English or speak it, and they cannot be admitted to any American schools without knowing at least some.

This is urgent for them. Other than RISSE and its devoted teachers, hey have no way to advance into the American experience. RISSE, battered by federal aid funding cuts, is struggling to help children like Michel and Ababele, who our country has admitted but then abandoned, perhaps hoping to discourage others who are from what some call troubled “shithole” countries.

The options available to them at the public schools are not what they need for a number of reasons. They need to be in the RISSE after school program to get the instructions they need.

As you can see, they are not “shithole” people, they are quite love and hard-working, they are no threat to us.

They came to the United States from a United Nations Refugee Camp in Tanzania.

Sifa was in the camp (we brought them groceries a couple of weeks ago)  for 22 years. Her first husband was killed in the camp, her second husband was left behind when they came to the United States, he is struggling to get a visa to join his family in the United States.

The boys left their father behind, he may no be able to follow them to America now, He is precisely the kind of refugee the government says we don’t wish to admit to our country any longer.

Sifa is in a hard place. She has three small children at home, so she can’t go out and work. When you have more than two children, U.S. welfare programs cut off many benefits Last week, we brought the family $300 worth of groceries, and also got them snow boots and some sweaters and winter jackets.

But Sifa told us the most urgent need she faces is the need to get her two sons into the RISSE after school where they can begin learning English and assimilating to American life. She is determined they will have a better life that their parents.

Sifa’s children need to learn English and go to the public schoolsl, they have begun attending the after school program at RISSE, they hope to learn English there so they can attend public schools. (They have not been denied entry into the public schools, and do attend some public school classes, it is not enough for them now for a number of reasons.

Until last year the federal government subsidized after school tuition at RISSE as part of their refugee resettlement program, those funds have been eliminated, leaving RISSE with a staggering shortfall in tuition, more than $75,000.

RISSE is not the kind of place that kicks people out over money, but the lost funding has been brutal, for them and many children. They can’t afford to keep all of the refugee kids there without some money for supplies and teachers.

We can’t help all of those kids, but we can  help these two. Small acts of great kindness.

I’d like to take it on a month by month basis, hopefully getting them enough English language and other instruction so that they can enter the public school system. One month at a time.

I’d like to raise $1,000 for a month of school at RISSE, they have experienced and dedicated teachers there. I think we should be able to do that. That would pay the tuition for both boys, Michel and Ababela

The program offers classes in English, computing and also hot and nutritious meals. It brings students into a community, where they can find much of the support that will sustain them. It’s difficult to imagine these two boys in the public schools now, they would not be admitted.

My idea is to try to raise the money gradually, and over the course of the school year if we can. If these boys don’t get into RISSE, and can’t get the instruction they need,  their lives will be stalled, and ever more difficult and challenging.

It will take about $10,000 to keep these boys in school for a year, and give them the skills they need to start their new life. That’s a lot of money, I think it wisest to think one month at a time. It might not take them that long to learn what they need to know to move forward.

We raised nearly that much for Devota, the African refugee who owed a lot of money for loans she didn’t understand,  and she is immensely grateful.

Lottery refugees have no advance warning when their numbers are called, they simply get on a plane and come. They really have no time to prepare.

Let’s do the best we can for as long as we can.

If you wish to help Michel and Ababele with a months’ tuition at RISSE, please send your donations to me, Jon Katz. c/o P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].  Please mark the donations “tuitions.” And thanks.