Only 1% of refugees worldwide ever leave refugee camps and an estimated 65,000 refugees have relocated to Utah.  In Utah, refugees come from more than 40 countries, speaking more than 20 languages. Globally, 40% of refugees are under the age of 18 and of those, 51% have no access to education. 

These and other statistics shared by Brighton High seniors AJ Stanfield and Alex Williams during an after-school presentation gave the Brighton community a sobering look into the global refugee crisis and it inspired them to take action. 

“We’re wanting to help the refugees be safe, seen and supported,” Williams said.

The presentation, held for students and staff, focused on educating the school community about who refugees are, the challenges they face and how they can help. As part of the event, attendees assembled 60 developmental kits for refugee children. The kits were to be delivered to the Utah Refugee Connection, a nonprofit that supports refugee families as they resettle in the area.

The project is part of the Brighton High teens’ DECA community awareness project for the state competition this February. DECA is an organization that prepares students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship.

“I love that they’re doing this,” said teacher Kevin Elzey, who is the school’s business club adviser. “It’s topical and they’re passionate about it. They’re educating and getting people involved; it’s a cool project they’re doing.”

Elzey said this is the first year Stanfield and Williams have worked together on a DECA project.

“I've loved seeing how they figure each other out. It hasn't always the smoothest sailing, which is a good thing, because then they figure out how to work with each other and solve problems and be able to manage projects. These are important lessons for high school kids to learn,” he said. “My favorite thing about being a teacher is hearing kids say, they learned something and how they want to be part of something bigger. We had almost 100 kids show up and wanted to help; that’s huge.”

Williams said first learning about refugees lead them to act.

“We were driven by this feeling to support the refugees of Utah. The more that we learned about refugees, the more we realized how in need of support they were. So we turned our drive into our focus, which was educating our local community on refugees, their needs, their statuses and empowering the members of our community to be able to support refugees, first by creating these kits, and now, they have the knowledge and the tools necessary to pursue their own path in supporting refugees in need,” she said.

Williams said the educational portion was important as well.

“They were able to hear refugees and listen and that's our hope for our project. After our school presentation earlier in the day, we had a student come up and said, like, ‘I'm from South Africa, and it wasn't safe there, so my family left. Am I a refugee?’ I don’t personally know refugees, but I loved our presentation opened her mind to asking questions to her parents and being more curious about her own story,” she said.

Stanfield, the school’s business club president, helped link them with the Utah Refugee Connection through its executive director, Amy Dott Harmer, who she met through neighborhood refugee support efforts.

“She supported us from our initial planning to providing us with all these development kit supplies,” Stanfield said. “Our emphasis of the project is to learn, serve and give.”

She said the project required extensive coordination from working with school and district administration to managing their schedules to ensure the project as well as their schoolwork and other responsibilities got done on time. Their efforts will be documented in a 20-page DECA paper, which they will orally present at state.

“It’s been awesome to see everybody in the school want to be part of something and to do good, to see how much people cared,” Stanfield said.

Williams agreed: “I have spent every waking moment thinking about our presentation. This project has taken everything out of me, but it was worth it. Looking at the involvement and caring of everyone, it was freaking worth it.”

Brighton High seniors Alex Williams and AJ Stanfield give their classmates instructions on how to create child development kits for Utah refugees. (Julie Slama/City Journals)