When the opportunity to lobby for refugees in Washington D.C. arose, Habiba Rashid jumped at the chance. MCC’s former Executive Director, Peg Chemberlin, was collaborating with Oxfam on a World Refugee Day advocacy day, and turned to MCC Refugee Services to see if any former refugees on our staff would be willing to travel to D.C. and share their story on the Hill.
This January, Mohamed Ibrahim, MCC’s former Community Health Worker, visited Mariam and her family to talk about her son’s asthma. While there, he noticed that Said (age 6) was hiding his hands behind his back.
Ever since she was a young child, Maggie remembers paying attention to the news and then going to the family atlas to look up the areas of the world that were referenced.
Mary Kelso, MCC’s Team Coordinator for Intensive Case Management, accompanied Said to a doctor appointment, knowing from previous conversations that he was dealing with a tremendous amount of back pain.
Ten years ago, Mohamed graduated from Medical School in Somalia. He completed training with the International Committee of the Red Cross and began to work in hospitals in Somalia and East Africa.
Members of the co-sponsorship team from Holy Trinity Lutheran in Minneapolis worked diligently for weeks collecting furniture, household goods, school supplies, personal hygiene items, and car seats for a Karen family of 9.
During a recent Teen Tapestry session about home, Amina showed the class a sketch of the tent that had been her family’s home during their refugee years in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.
After 12 years as MCC’s Controller, Lisa Bennett and her family are relocating to a new state. In parting, she was kind enough to share this reflection on her work with the Refugee Services program.
For the first time in many years, MCC Refugee Services is excited to host a Lutheran Volunteer Corps member, and we are excited to welcome Theresa Milazzo to our team.
Refugee Services’ newest staff member isn’t really new to Refugee Services at all! Ami Armstrong came to Refugee Services last fall as a senior Social Work intern from Bethel University.
Can you picture yourself in this scene? It’s a warm summer day, but dark clouds are rolling in. Outside, Somali kids are playing a game of soccer when the tornado sirens go off.
The Church of St. Leonard of Port Maurice and the Church of the Holy Name share a priest, but are otherwise quite different Roman Catholic parishes in Minneapolis, with their own memberships, cultures, worship spaces, and histories.
When Colonial Church of Edina and Upper Room volunteers took the call from MCC Refugee Services last summer inviting them to welcome a 7 member family who had fled Afghanistan as refugees, they could hardly have imagined the bond they wo
