Teaching American Freedom 
Basically Satisfying

   Back to the basics. That's where Dorothy Oliver went when she retired. While employed at AT&T, she started a Junior Achievement program in an inner city school and taught the basics of math, merchandise and marketing to teens. 

   "I even taught them how to make lamps out of old phones," she said.
   
   When she retired after 31 years, she soon found herself working with basics at a whole new level. And I mean basic: food, clothing, and shelter.
  
    Now Oliver, of Stone Mountain, assists refugees who escape oppressive dictatorships and teaches them the basics of American life. Most of her refugees come from Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. Some are well educated and already speak English. But all have a lot to learn. Some basics are a matter of doing like operating a microwave or using deodorant. But some basics require a whole new way of thinking, like dealing with shelter.
   
   "We have some young men who saw trees outside their apartment windows. They asked why they couldn't just cut down the trees and build themselves a house."
   
   The idea of working to pay for a place to live when they could easily build a house for free with the trees around them is totally foreign.

   "They still don't understand the system, but they do understand that the rent is due at the first of the month and they do pay it on time," said Oliver. "But we're at a new level now. They're learning how to manage their money and buy houses of their own."

   But not all of Oliver's stories are so light-hearted. A month ago Americans were appalled by the seven Iraqi businessmen whose right hands were amputated for displeasing Saddam. For Oliver, that was nothing new. For years she's been helping a young woman from Sierra Leone who was a victim of a massacre. People in power came through her village and destroyed anything they didn't like. This woman's restaurant was an object of their displeasure. They cut off her right arm and gouged out her left eye. With the help of the American Red Cross, she escaped with her three children, but her husband still cannot get out of the country.

   "Just learning how to use a can opener was a challenge, but she is such an inspiration," said Oliver, the 2002 recipient of the Christian Council of Metro-Atlanta's Charles M. Watts Award granted to people or organizations that respond to the underprivileged. 

   Basics for Oliver's ministry also include basic rights, like the right of free speech and the right to pursue happiness. For example, the young men in the apartments have the right to ask their congressman to change the laws so they can cut down those trees to build a house. Their chance of success is pretty slim, but at least in America, they don't have to worry about losing an arm and a leg trying.

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