Indiana University students, faculty, and staff are stepping up and taking action to help the Afghan evacuees who are being housed right here in Indiana.

News of the Taliban takeover and thousands of Afghans fleeing to find refugee may seem like a remote issue.

But it’s not.

Around 7,000 Afghan refugees are under the care of the Indiana National Guard at Camp Atterbury.

With the camp just 50 miles from Bloomington, people on the IU campus and beyond are lending assistance to the Afghans.

Faculty and staff are organizing informational sessions, drives, donations, and even translation tools.

Dave Baer, the assistant director at the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region, or CelCAR, is tapping into a new communicative engine.

Baer, with the help of other university organizations, has created 60 pages of common Dari phrases to help soldiers better connect to the refugees that are in their care.

Around one thousand phrase books have been handed out to soldiers at the camp with the help of Joey Bradshaw at the Language Training Center.

“They can also use them and with the families themselves, who would use them in reverse and say,’Here’s what I’m trying to say.’ And so, it’s not just for the soldiers in the military, folks, but it also has benefit for the families that are there,” Dave Baer says.

The Language Training Center and CelCAR’s partnership has already allowed more meaningful connections to take root at the camp.

“So that was really, really good to see that it immediately brought them together a little bit, and created, you know, to where they’re talking about their language,” Joey Bradshaw says.

Bradshaw says the soldiers’ mission is no longer focused on a country thousands of miles away, but a place much closer…home.

“And we now have refugees in our country in less than ideal situations. But now, some of the people who have deployed there can now be a service to those people who have managed to make it over here, which I think is a really great way to close the loop on that,” Joey Bradshaw says.

He says that students can drop off donation items to his office or go through Team Rubicon.

Student organizations are organizing drives with Team Rubicon, in addition to other efforts on campus to raise awareness and support for those at Camp Atterbury.

One student, Leah Heneveld, is involved with one group called “Students Supporting Afghan Evacuees,” who gather supplies for Team Rubicon.

The group has also created welcome cards, held fundraisers, and engaged in informational sessions.

“I’m just really hoping that as the situation starts to be sort of cycled out of the news, and it becomes almost more of a day-to-day that we continue to see this enthusiasm and this caring for helping people because even beyond Camp Atterbury, there’s resettlement, there’s integrating people into the community, there’s helping people find schools and learn how to use the bus system. So, I’m really hoping that we sort of continue to see this momentum going even after it’s not brand new anymore,” Leah Heneveld says.