Bhutanese Immigrant Co-Founds Community Association in Pittsburgh that Supports All Newcomers
When Timsina arrived in New York City at 39 years old, he’d never driven a car, let alone navigated a massive subway system. As a member of Bhutan’s ethnic Nepali minority, which has experienced persecution for decades, Khara Timsina’s family was prevented from receiving an education or working in the country. In 1992, they left their small village and spent 17 years in a Bhutanese refugee camp in Nepal before they were approved for resettlement in the United States.
Timsina found work with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), greeting incoming refugees at JFK Airport and walking them through the port-of-entry process, but it was only a four-hour shift that required a two-hour commute on public transportation. “I enjoyed the work, but it wasn’t enough hours or pay to support my family,” Timsina says.
Timsina and his wife, whom he met at the refugee camp, began looking for areas that reminded them of mountainous Bhutan. Then, a Bhutanese refugee acquaintance from Nepal who was resettled in Pittsburgh invited the couple to visit his new home in Pittsburgh. The city didn’t exactly have mountains, but they could see hills in the distance. They moved there in late 2009, with their son. A year and a half later, a daughter was born to them.
After a stint preparing and packaging produce, Timsina was hired by the payment processing center at BNY Mellon. He also began volunteering with the local Bhutanese community, helping seniors study for their citizenship tests. In 2010, he co-founded the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh (BCAP) and has since expanded the organization to serve refugees from Myanmar, Africa, and the Middle East. “We didn’t want people to feel so isolated,” he says. “We wanted them to feel comfortable practicing their religion and celebrating their culture in the U.S.”
Last year, BCAP celebrated its 10th anniversary, and it now has five full-time employees, including Timsina. He represents BCAP at the Pittsburgh City's Office of Immigrants and Refugee Affairs and at the Allegheny County DHS Immigrants and Internationals Initiative Advisory Council. He has established relationships with local municipalities in resolving cultural differences between US born long term residents and newly arrived refugees. For example, some refugees didn’t realize walking across someone’s yard could be viewed as trespassing, or that compost piles and burn pits could be a nuisance to neighbors or regulated by local laws. “We want to educate people about our culture and ask them to understand the differences,” he says.