After four years working as a translator for the U.S. armed forces in his home country of Afghanistan, Muhammad Daad Serweri’s life in a notoriously unsafe province of the country had become untenable. He’d become a target for death threats from people likely associated with the Taliban, who opposed the work of the U.S. Armed Forces. No longer able to safely stay in the country with his wife and son, it became clear to Serweri they’d have to seek refuge elsewhere. With his brother already settled in New Haven, Connecticut, the U.S. seemed like the best option, so in 2017 Serweri and his family arrived in the country on a Special Immigrant Visa. Once he and his family were approved to travel to the U.S., they were connected with CWS, one of the country’s nine refugee resettlement agencies, which in turn placed them with a local affiliate in New Haven: Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), an organization that’s come to play a central role in Serweri’s life.
“When we came to New Haven, one of the first people that we encountered was from IRIS,” said Serweri. Established in 1982 as a program of Episcopal Social Service of the Diocese of Connecticut, IRIS provides soup to nuts transition assistance, including case management, employee assistance, educational support, as well as other basic needs for incoming refugee families.
“It was their staff members who welcomed us warmly,” Serweri said. “Before we arrived they had secured housing for us in an apartment with all the furniture and household supplies that we needed.”
IRIS also helped Serweri with wrap-around refugee transition services beyond housing, which included helping him secure employment, getting his wife into English classes, and introducing the family to the local food pantry. As a local affiliate of one of the nine federally funded U.S. settlement agencies, IRIS acts as a community sponsor of refugees, where local residents volunteer and provide services and other contributions to help refugees get on their feet both socially and financially.
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Dominique “Peak” Johnson is a North Philadelphia journalist and is one of the founding editors of the North Philly Metropolis. Currently, Peak practices kickboxing, freelances for Generocity.org, and occasionally tweets about “The Walking Dead.” Click here to learn more about Peak.
