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Welcome Home Jersey City Celebrates World Refugee Day!

Welcome Home Jersey City, an all-volunteer non-profit organization founded in 2016, has helped over 250 refugees and asylees begin their lives in the greater Jersey City area with educational, housing, and job support. Welcome Home works with clients from Eritrea, Nigeria, Chad, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria.

World Refugee Day is a call to action to raise our collective voices in support of refugees at a time when there has never been a greater need. As the most diverse community in the country we implore all to continue to serve, and to push back against the obstacles put forth by the administration. We have the power to inspire change!

Our presentation will feature a panel of refugees to speak about their immigration experience, and a keynote speaker from HIAS. The panel will include the following:

A translator for the US Army in Afghanistan who came here through the State Department's Special Immigration Visa program in 2018, and who was resettled by Church World Service; a woman whose family fled Eritrea to the Sudan, where she grew up, and who came to the US as a minor without her parents--she is now an engineering student at a local college; a woman who fled Boko Haram in Nigeria and came here as an asylum-seeker last year, receiving support from Catholic Charities of NY--Welcome Home helped her and her three children relocate to Jersey City as she completes her training as a cook at Emma's Torch culinary program.

Our keynote speaker will be Naomi Steinberg, HIAS Vice President, Policy & Advocacy. HIAS is the oldest of the refugee resettlement agencies, which historically played a major role in helping Jews escape the pogroms in Eastern Europe, and which continues to resettle and advocate for refugees around the world. Ms. Steinberg will discuss current policy around the Refugee Admissions Program and other programs, and what we can do as advocates.

The event will include a potluck dinner with a sampling of cuisines from the families we serve and from volunteers, and the opportunity to meet our guests and clients. Children are encouraged to attend, and we will have many activities to keep them busy and entertained throughout the presentation.

Join us to hear the stories of refugees and learn how to advocate for them, to make new friends, and to have some fun!