By Rita McInerney

Migration and Refuge Services of Catholic Social Services, Inc., has relocated from three small offices on the crowded second floor of the Catholic Center on West Peachtree Street to formerly leased space on the first floor.

Helping to make this move possible, according to Bui Van Tam, executive director, was the office's acceptance in to the match grant program of the Migration and Refugee Services of the United States Catholic Conference.

This good news came to Mr. Tam in a letter dated June 19 from Monsignor Nicolas DiMarzio, executive director. It said that the Atlanta program had been approved to receive $43,702 for the period June 1 through Sept. 30, 1990. Total grant for the fiscal year will be $131,107.

The Atlanta service becomes one of 26 affiliates of the USCC to receive match grants. Funding is made possible, says Robert Schooler, of the MRS/USCC office in New York City, through a grant of $3.6 million from the Office of Refugee Resettlement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources.

MRS/USCC is one of five voluntary agencies through which the federal government channels funds for refugees. It has participated in this grant program since 1980.

Mr. Tam shows off the new space with enthusiasm. The program has earned its new stature. Over eight thousand people, from every corner of the globe, have been helped to reclaim their lives since he joined the fledgling program in 1979. Four years earlier he had reached haven in the U.S. after a harrowing escape from Saigon via U.S. helicopter.

An officer in the South Vietnam navy, Tam, his wife Anh Le, and employee of the U.S. Embassy, were able to leave with their son and daughter and Mr. Tam's mother.

In Atlanta, the city that became their home, the couple began helping other Vietnamese refugees desolate over forced separation from homes and family. They greeted them at the airport, helped them with apartments, furniture and work, and encouraged them to worship together as a Catholic Vietnamese community.

This compassionate care continues in 1990 on a professional level. Working with Mr. Tam are three job counselors, three resettlement workers, an immigration worker and bookkeeper. There is also Hoang Phan, five-day-a-week volunteer, who offers expertise gained in 27 years employment with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement both in the U.S. and Vietnam.

They befriend and assist newcomers newly fled from oppression, civil war and starvation to new life in Atlanta. These frightened people come from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Czechoslovakia, Laos, Vietnam, Pakistan, Poland. They're Catholics, Baptists, Buddhist, Ba'hai, Moslem. Migration and Refugee Services tries to help them all.

For the first 120 days, Mr. Tam explains, "We support them with everything: job, clothing, housing, furniture. We motivate them. We explain the importance of early employment, discourage them from thinking of public assistance. We talk about the disadvantages of being on public assistance."

"If you have strong hands you can work," staff members impress upon new arrivals. "You need to be proud of yourself and be a productive member of society."

If a young man wants to go to school, "he needs to show me his willingness," Mr. Tam says. If he is able to save money for a car and pay the insurance, and demonstrates an ability to pay his bills, the program will pay for schooling.

Many are discouraged and homesick the first few months. It's a new culture and there are role changes to accept, Mr. Tam says.

"Wives must work for the family to survive, children have more freedom," there is homesickness, yearning for those left behind, including spouses, children, parents.

Counselors work together to help the newly arrived make the transition. Many come from refugee camps where they have stayed for anywhere from one or two years to as many as 14 years.

Refugees are processed under different programs, Mr. Tam says. They are the regular resettlement program, the Amerasian program through which Vietnamese women and their children by former American soldiers or government employees were welcomed, and a new program which resettles former political prisoners, either Vietnamese military or others who have been associated with the Americans.

The latter program came about because the Communist government doesn't want such people in Vietnamese society and will release them to the United States.

Mr. Tam says that the U.S. intends to take 100,000 people in this category. Already there are three or four brought to Atlanta by the Catholic program, including an army officer who had been in charge of a district and his family.

Resettled Amerasians are offered job coaching. Eligible for such assistance from the program are not only clients from the Catholic program, but others throughout north Georgia. Counseling is also available to refugees seeking to bring families left behind to Atlanta. Paperwork can be extremely frustrating for newcomers.

Volunteers are important to helping strangers adapt to their new homes. Mary Sidlowski, volunteer with Catholic Social Services, and Marti Loring, in charge of volunteers for CSS, befriended the first two Amerasian families brought to Atlanta by Migration and Refugee Services in June, 1989.

They still visit the families regularly. Mrs. Sidlowski reports they are working or going to school and adjusting well to their new lives. She has become like a grandmother to them, Mr. Tam adds.

Rhoda Donnelly, caseworker and volunteer coordinator on Mr. Tam's staff, says there is a need for volunteers to teach English transport newcomers to appointments and "be a friend" to them. There is always a need for donations of clothing, furniture and bed linens.

One newcomer finding Atlanta a welcoming place is Phue Vo, 53, a lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army when the war ended. He saw combat duty before being appointed a district administrator.

Because he was an officer in the South Vietnamese army, the victorious Communists forced him to spend 13 years in labor camps. The communists prefer to call them reeducation camps. He endured seven years in an isolated jungle camp in the north, six years at another in the south. The prisoners were not allowed visitors and had no contact with the outside world.

During his long imprisonment, his wife and seven children, now 34 to 16 years old, survived as street vendors in East Saigon.

The Vos, parents and six sons and daughters, came to Atlanta five months ago. They are among the first families to be resettled by the CSS office under the program for former political prisoners. They live now in two, two-bedroom apartments near the stadium.

Five of the six children have jobs. The youngest, 16 is in school. The wage earners, all single, are proud to be able to give their father their support. After his long imprisonment he badly needs to regain strength of mind and body. There is much adjustment needed after enduring years of backbreaking labor, little food or medical care and the deaths of fellow prisoners.

Mr. Vo weighed 85 pounds when he was released from the camp. He has regained 15 pounds. His normal weight is 130. The Catholic office will pay for dental work he badly needs because of poor diet and neglect.

The former officer likes Atlanta; it's a friendly place to him. He is eager to help new arrivals coming from oppressed situations. He has the experience, Mr. Tam says, to give support to others, to help motivate and reorient them to new lives.

Another Vietnamese, one of the first to be resettled under the match grant program, is Vu Nhat Tan, 22. He arrived a few weeks ago and is living with his brother, also named Vu Nhat Tan, 30, his wife Nguyen Thi Trang, and their small son, 13 months. The lively toddler answers readily to "Cubi."

The young couple are expecting their second child in about 10 weeks. They are living the American dream. They've acquired, by hard work and thrift, an attractive three-bedroom in a pleasant development. Both work and there is a reliable day care person for "Cubi."

Younger brother Tan is just the age his brother was when he finally made it to Atlanta in February, 1982. His was a hard road. As his brother's sponsor, he will be able to save the younger man some of the hardships he knew.

The first brother to arrive spent three years at forced labor before he left a camp without permission. He couldn't go back to his mother's home because the police came looking for him every night with an arrest warrant. He had good friends who often gave him a place to sleep. There were other times he slept in a cemetery.

Finally, he fled Vietnam. "Everyone would go if they could," he says in his quiet way.

He made his way to Malaysia where he spent six months being processed. From there he was sent to the Philippines for vocational training and English instruction. He flew to the U.S. from a refugee processing center on Bataan.

"I didn't know anything about the U.S.," he said. "But I looked at my map and thought the climate in the South would be better, more like Saigon." Atlanta didn't disappoint him. His future, because of the Catholic refugee service and his own determination and industry, became a reality.

It was hard for a long time. He first lived in Cabbagetown and had to walk miles to a carpentry job each day on Northside Drive. Eventually he acquired a second-hand bike. That was better than walking until the brakes gave out and he ran into a wall.

Before long he was working in a restaurant at night and going to DeKalb Vocational Institute during the day. He studied drafting but couldn't get a job that paid well enough, took a few other jobs before being hired by a property management company, his present employer.

"Before he married me he was working 16 hours a day," Trang recalls.

They married in October, 1986, and lived with her parents while they worked and saved their money to buy a home. Their romance began after they met at Sunday Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hapeville.

After five years of study he became a U.S. citizen in February, 1989. That was a big day. The young couple celebrated by going out to dinner. Trang, busy with her home, family and job in data processing, finds little time to study for the citizenship test. But she is proud that her children become American citizens through their father.

The newly arrived younger brother is fortunate. "They had an opening for a day porter at my building," his older brother says. Asked if he is maintenance boss at the 20-floor building on Peachtree Street, he smiles. "I'm not the boss, because I don't sign the checks."

The younger brother, quiet and polite and with limited English will work and save his money, then attend vocational school, his brother explains.

The older Tan is hopeful his mother will soon join the family here. "She has her visa from the Viet Cong and is waiting for the U.S. to clear her," he says. She waits in Saigon, where another brother and sister live with her.

Trang's family, parents, four brothers and one sister, arrived together in 1984. They live nearby and "Cubi," so far the only grandchild, gets more than enough love and attention. The older says they "like best the freedom here. We can do anything we want as long as we don't hurt anybody. In Vietnam, everybody works hard but the government taxes you to death. They inventory your property. If you have 10 acres they take nine and leave you one. They appropriate houses, jewelry."