Courtesy Photo.
“This is the day we celebrate the strength of women, particularly women of different backgrounds but who have similar experiences and face similar challenges. This is a special day for women like me, who celebrate resilience and overcoming challenges as a mother, wife, a sister and a friend to many.”
This is Sifa Bulankay, a Congolese-American woman who lives in North Carolina and a close friend of Church World Service (CWS). Sifa divides her days between working as a Caseworker, taking care of her family and her home, and helping immigrants and refugees in her community.
Sifa identified major challenges that her community faces—these are the same challenges that she had experienced herself in 2003 when she moved to the United States. She understands how psychologically challenging it can be at first without the support of members of the community in helping with issues such as housing, creating resources in different languages, application for schools and jobs, etc. In recent months Sifa had seen a new challenge in her community: the arrival of the Afghan refugees in North Carolina, which resulted in the urgent mobilization of her community.
“It does not matter the cultural and language differences; we support each other because what brings us together is the experience,” Sifa says about her new Afghan neighbors. She joined the Integration Working Group in Greensboro, which brings together immigrant leaders of different nationalities, including but not limited to immigrants from Mexico, Central African Republic, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Sudan and Senegal. The Integration Working Group was an initiative of immigrant leaders brought together by Church World Service Community Organizer Coordinator Adamou Mohamed, and is currently managed by Maria Cortez-Perez, current Greensboro Community Organizer for CWS. These immigrant leaders, including Sifa, work closely with the Church World Service team in Greensboro, and their partnership has helped their communities rally together in support of immigrants and refugees, and most recently of newly arrived Afghan refugees.
Courtesy photo.
As of early January, nearly 100 Afghans had arrived in Greensboro since the fall of Kabul in August. It would have been difficult to act swiftly and smoothly as possible without the help of former refugees like Sifa who joined CWS’s efforts to help the newly arrived members. “There are extra layers of obstacles women face as they navigate through the new lives,” Sifa says. It is hard to leave everything behind—home, friends, family—and start from scratch. Sifa described her early days of moving to the U.S. as a bittersweet period. She was hopeful, but she also knew she had a long way to go to feel at home.
Nothing can break Sifa’s faith. She is a woman strongly attached to her Christian faith and traditions. “My strength comes from God and then from my dad,” she says. “Growing up, I was taught to give back. To not only be the receiving hand, but to also be the giving hand. I had always been taught the principles of coexistence. My success depends on my community’s success and vice versa. I want all immigrants and refugees, especially women to remember that they each have something to offer to their communities; they just have to find it.”
As we celebrate International Women’s Day this year, it is critical to remember the resilience and strength of refugee and immigrant women who move into our communities. Their contributions are often underestimated, but immigrant women keep families together. They also break barriers by adapting into their new lives and offering their skills such as survival into their newly adopted country.