MARQUETTE — Northern Michigan University’s new Refugee Outreach Collective chapter showed off an exhibit on Friday of powerful stories and photos from refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border.

NMU’s ROC chapter President Cole Edgcombe said the national chapter’s president traveled to the border, interviewed people seeking asylum and brought the pictures back, with faces blurred for privacy, to show the impact the refugee crisis has on a personal level.

ROC members spoke with passing students, faculty and staff about the exhibit while in John X. Jamrich Hall’s common area. Its future home is currently undecided.

“We want to make sure that wherever it goes, it’s to a place that’s respectable,” Edgcombe said. “We want to make sure it is displayed … because I can guarantee that today, tomorrow, next week and in 10 years, the refugee crisis will not be solved and these pictures will be just as relevant then as they are right this very second.”

In tandem with the educational exhibit, ROC was hosting a bake sale to raise money for its Global Classroom effort in the African country of Malawi. Global Classroom provides free education to displaced peoples through a myriad of nonprofit organizations, including the Kalamazoo-founded and Central Michigan University-based organization ROC.

Funds raised by ROC go to the Malawi classroom with efforts currently being organized to potentially build a dedicated center for ROC-affiliated students.

One of the problems with the center, Edgcombe said, is that it’s shared.

“It’s not that we’re unwilling to share, of course, it’s the fact that our students only get a certain amount of allotted time to be there,” he said. ” … we can only get them in there for a few hours a day. Say there’s a few hours a day, there’s a rolling blackout, where there are many. ‘Tough.’ That’s what they say. ‘Tough. Sorry. That was your time slot.’ You know?”

Edgcombe also said NMU’s ROC chapter will be participating in Marquette’s annual Haunted Hayride as workers to raise funds for the classroom effort.

“If we could get them so much as a single box with one computer that they can all just use whenever they wanted, I’m sure that would make a world of difference,” he said. “Obviously, that isn’t the plan, we want a lot bigger and better for them always, but anything we can get them that can really just be theirs to use, I think it would make a huge difference in their education. Their education is the backbone of how they can be successful and resettle.”

One more educational event is in the early stages of planning: a panel discussion featuring actual refugees. Students will be able to “talk to refugees, get real stories, understand them, ask them questions,” Edgcombe said. “I think a big issue is some people are afraid to ask questions about refugees because it’s very sensitive and people don’t want to come across as crass, rude, whatever the case is.”

By asking questions in person, he hopes to humanize these displaced peoples in the eyes of residents of the Upper Peninsula who are so far removed from the center of the refugee crisis.

“These are human beings and they are to be seen as human beings,” Edgcombe said. “They are like you, like me, like anybody else who is reading this … and they deserve our respect, they deserve to be treated as human beings, but they also struggle like us because I think a lot of the time people see a refugee and they almost pity them and that’s not what you should do in the situation. You shouldn’t pity a refugee, you should respect them as a person and make sure they are treated like people, not put in cages, not separated from their families.”

Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.