About Us

Staff

Majur Malou is the Executive Director of the Program and manages the day-to-day services. He works with recent arrivals to help them in their registration needs – medical, school enrollment, driving licenses, those in difficulty with official organizations and who do not understand their situation. He is a key figure in helping to explain the American Culture to the refugee community and in easing many of the misunderstandings that arise. As well as English, Majur speaks Arabic and two Sudanese languages.

 

Nadia is the lead family outreach
case-worker and makes home
visits to ensure that newly-arrived families have their basic housing
and food needs met. For longer-established families she seeks out problem areas such as: no food for the children during the fourth week of the month, the need to arrange for medical and other personal visits for women and children, and provides social and management counseling for family members. She is the “detector” for problems that have not surfaced. As well as English Nadia speaks Arabic and two Sudanese languages.

 

 

Hilda Moero and Moothaw Eh Paw
are family outreach workers to the Burmese refugee community and work closely with Nadia Agory.  Hilda spent 20 years in the Karen refugee camp in Thailand before coming to the U.S. A. a few months ago. Hilda is assisted part-time by Moothaw, also a Karen refugee who speaks good English. Both of these outreach workers are currently funded by a grant from the Ely Lily Foundation. As well as English Hilda speaks Karen and Thai.

Abdulhaim
is the driver. He takes clients to medical and other appointments and drives students to tutorial classes and home afterwards. He also collects household goods and furniture in the Network’s Toyota Tundra and delivers these items to the apartments where they are needed. As well as English, Abdulhaim speaks Arabic and Sudanese. All of these five staff members are themselves refugees.  

Two other people who perform staff roles for the Network are:
Marilyn Nahas, who is a part-time Coordinator for Volunteers under a grant from the United Thank Offering organization.  Dr. Elaine McLevie is volunteer Director of Community Relations.

 

 

Volunteers

A vital element of the work of The Episcopal Refugee Network is the devoted service of many volunteers. 
More than 50 volunteers work in the two tutoring programs where students learn individually and in small groups.  The children differ widely in their reading level and ages and we have found that they need small group attention.
 
New arrivals are placed in middle school and high school grades where they cannot understand their teacher,
cannot understand their text-book and are unable to do their homework assignments.  The Sudanese program
has run long enough for us to see the hugely beneficial impact that volunteers have on their school progress. 
We know that without these programs many of our young people would play truant and drop out because of
their failure to “make it” in regular school classrooms.  ESL programs have limited effect as they tend to be
geared to Hispanic-speaking children. 

There are rarely teachers in their classrooms who can lead them from their native Arabic, Burmese, Karen or
Chin languages to English at 8 the grade level or higher.  We have several times found our Sudanese children in classrooms trying to understand their mathematics as it is being described in Spanish!

Volunteers are also the backbone of the collection of clothing and household goods and furniture and of its subsequent distribution.  Weekly food supplies from the Food Bank and from The Gleaners is collected and distributed by volunteers.  The heart and soul of this Network lies with these volunteers, ably coordinated and supported by our staff members.  Volunteers report their hours monthly and the Network has averaged over 800 volunteer hours offered each month for the last year.

Two of the most important volunteers are our two Coordinators.  Marilyn Nahas is the half- time Coordinator for Volunteers and Elaine McLevie, PH.D is Coordinator for Community Relations. 

Send us an email to inquire about volunteering for The Episcopal Refugee Network

volunteer.refugeenetwork@gmail.com

Newsletter

The Episcopal Refugee Network Newsletter is a publication of The Episcopal Refugee Network.
See the Newsletter on-line and or print out a copy>>>