Blog

Durre Sharif | June 27, 2024

CWS Harrisburg is a dynamic and enthusiastic office, having completed our first full fiscal year in 2023. Initially, we planned to resettle 110 refugees, but ultimately resettled 135. We began the next year with a stated capacity of 250, increased it to 440 by January, and approximately four weeks ago, raised it again to 567. For this upcoming fiscal year, …

Jessica Rivas | June 24, 2024

As an American daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, I am dedicated to creating meaningful opportunities for immigrant children and youth in the United States. My advocacy work is deeply rooted in personal experiences and heritage. This heritage includes my parents’ journey escaping the civil war in El Salvador during the 1980s, my father’s solo journey as an unaccompanied minor at 15 …

June 20, 2024

My mom always said she would join me in Grand Rapids. After decades of waiting in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania, she promised to join me and my siblings, our families, and the new home we built, here in Michigan.  We buried her last year. Not here, with our community, but in the camp. She never left Nyarugusu. Her …

Murtaza Jalali | June 18, 2024

World Refugee Day is crucial for me because it recognizes the strength of my fellow refugees who have fled their country’s conflict and persecution in the hope of finding and living a better life. World Refugee Day aims to promote understanding of the refugee plight, showcase refugee resilience and courage in rebuilding their future and offer an opportunity for everyone to comprehend …

Jovana Savic and Stevan Tatalovic | June 17, 2024

In all of CWS’ programs, there is an element that allows us to thrive: our partnerships. We recently took the time to appreciate one of these partnerships when our PCUSA friends and colleagues Ellen Smith, Regional Liaison for Central & Eastern Europe, and Luciano Kovacs, Middle East and Europe Area Coordinator, visited our programs in Bihac in Bosnia and Herzegovina …