Journey's End

ALF MABROUK! #Congratulations!This month we want to recognize Journey's End Arabic interpreter Nada Al-Batshan. Nada has been an interpreter with Journey’s End since 2017 and has proven herself to be extremely dependable, communicative, caring, and kind. Nada has taken over 600 appointments as a Journey’s End interpreter, covering a wide range of appointments - from OT/PT appointments, parent teacher conferences, and regents exams, to home visits with the VNA, and appointm...ents to help LEP clients with mental health counseling, neurology, fertility, hearing and speech, and #COVID19 vaccine education. Nada is level-headed, #patient, and responsive. She is always willing to help out at the drop of a hat and has taken several urgent appointments when needed ASAP. She takes her role as an interpreter seriously, knowing she is helping members of her community access critical services. We’ve received some very kind words about Nada from customers that demonstrate her professionalism. Teresa from Person Centered Services said, "She is so patient with us and with the family. She takes her time with explaining all of the topics we cover. She will stop the conversation at times, because she is catching up with the translation. She makes sure she is giving the family the correct information and I am so #thankful for that. She has a way of being motherly and understanding with this family and that goes a long way. She makes them feel comfortable and safe. She has been a part of this team for almost a year and I appreciate anytime she is able to translate for us. Mackenzie from Journey’s End said, Nada is #Great and takes her job very seriously. Nada, #thankyou from all of us in the Interpreting and Translation Department at Journey’s End for your service and for exemplifying the skills and qualities of a professional interpreter. #GreaterAs1 #refugees #welcome #withrefugees #love #blessed #buffalove #buffalony welcomes refugees!

A WARM Journey's End THANKS to Subhi Nahas & director Tom Shepard, who graced us with their presence at our screening of the phenomenal film, Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America! What a treat.Journey's End is proud to serve LGBTQ #refugees & proud to elevate their voices & experiences thru our WNY Refugee Film Festival. Join us for our May 20 screening of Sundance award winner Sonita. Register here: www.tinyurl.com/Sonita5 #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #withrefugees #unity #solidarity #love is love #empathy Journey's End

LAST SUNDAY Pope Francis held a mass of #mercy for #refugees, prisoners & health care workers. He said in his homily: "Sister, brother, do you want proof that God has touched your life? See if you can stoop to bind the wounds of others....Let us not remain indifferent. Let us not live a one-way faith, a faith that receives but does not give... Having received mercy, let us now become merciful." #Amen to that! #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #WithRefugees #blessed #solidarity #unity #Love Journey's End

The flip-flop by the Biden Admin. is making us dizzy, but there is a good update to report (but we still need to be extra-vigilant & peacefully pounce again if the Prez reneges. NPR: https://tinyurl.com/wt6k5twm (#thankyou , #thesquad, among many others, for keeping up the pressure!) Excerpt:" The White House has walked back its announcement that it will keep this year's historically low refugee ceiling of 15,000 set by the Trump administration, saying its earlier statement Friday, which was panned by fellow Democrats, was meant only to ease restrictions from countries from which refugees are currently banned....The White House said President Biden would raise the cap by May 15." #TheWholeWorldIsWatching #GreaterAs1 #refugees #welcome #withrefugees #solidarity #unity Journey's End

OUR HEARTS are with Mayor Mike Elliott, a refugee from Liberia & the mayor of Brooklyn Center (which has a large population of #refugees!), as he navigates a crisis due to the police shooting of yet another unarmed Black man, Daunte Wright. NBC News: https://tinyurl.com/4us73yne Excerpt: "Elliott was part of the second wave of refugees who arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1990s from Liberia, which was founded by former American slaves who had returned to Africa. About 35,000 Liberians live in Minnesota, according to the International Institute of Minnesota. Most of them migrated to Brooklyn Center & nearby Brooklyn Park, once all-white suburbs that have also become home to Hmong, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants." #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #BLM #withrefugees #unity #solidarity Journey's End

A STATEMENT FROM CWS, of which Journey's End is an affiliate, on Biden's decision not to lift the 15,000 refugee arrivals cap: "Church World Service today expressed outrage with today’s announcement that the Biden administration plans to keep the historic-low refugee admissions goal for FY 2021 in place for the remainder of this fiscal year. This follows a significant delay in signing a revised Presidential Determination on refugee resettlement, which has caused irreparable d...amage to many #refugees who were already approved for resettlement. Although CWS is encouraged by the restoration of regional allocations that undo the previous administration’s harmfully restrictive resettlement categories, leaving the current admissions goal in place keeps thousands in harm’s way. This amounts to a broken promise to the American public and prevents the United States from meaningfully rebuilding this vital humanitarian program. There is no moral reason to keep the historic-low refugee admissions goal of 15,000 in place for the rest of this year, nor was there any morality in the significant delay in restoring regional allocations. The harm caused by the delay cannot be overstatedthousands of refugees who were ready for travel to the United States last month have seen their medical and security checks start to expire. This means that they will have to wait monthsif not yearsto actually be resettled in the United States and reunited with loved ones, said Meredith Owen, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Church World Service. The United States can and should be resettling refugeesand welcoming asylum seekers and unaccompanied childrenas it seeks to retake the mantle of moral leadership around the world. If the president is true to his word, then he will take immediate steps to welcome as many refugees this fiscal year as possible and truly rebuild the resettlement program to resettle 125,000 in FY 2022. CWS is deeply concerned that the Biden administration had proposed a revised admissions goal of 62,500 for this fiscal yearand complied with U.S. law to consult with Congress ahead of formalizing that planonly to back away from that proposal. Since the inception of the modern resettlement program through the Refugee Act of 1980, the annual bipartisan-supported admissions goal averaged 95,000. Yet, under the Trump administration, that goal plummeted, culminating in a FY 2021 goal of 15,000an historic low. #Shame #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #withrefugees #unity #solidarity #empathy #LetThemIn

BREAKING NEWS! BUT NOT GREAT: President Joe Biden has signed an emergency determination that officials said would speed refugee admissions to the U.S., but he did not lift his predecessor’s historically low cap of 15,000 refugees for this year. U.S. News and World Report: https://tinyurl.com/vvdj6dbk Excerpt: "Biden, instead, is adjusting the allocation limits set by former President Donald Trump, which officials said have been the driving factor in limiting refugee admissions. The new allocations provide more slots for refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central America, and lift Trump's restrictions on resettlements from Somalia, Syria and Yemen." #babysteps #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #withrefugees Journey's End

WHATEVER our opinions on Biden's announcement to pull remaining US troops from Afghanistan by 9/11, we can all agree we need to offer safe refuge post haste to those who served US forces there. Too many have already died or been forced to flee while waiting for the US to fulfill its promises to them. (Pic of Afghan interpreter Janis Shinwari, taking the oath of US citizenship last year. He is credited w/saving the lives of 5 US troops. He had to wait 3 yrs. for his visa & was on a Taliban kill list.) #GreaterAs1 SIVs #welcome #RefugeesWelcome #WithRefugees #dotherightthing #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees Journey's End

It takes a kind of courage most of us can't even fathom to be out as an LGBTQ refugee. Come learn more this evening at 7pm EST: Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America - Film Screening & Director Talkback (Pic of Lucky & John, Ugandan refugees in Kenya. Their faith has kept them strong: "God knows us, God loves us, so he managed to protect us all the way from Uganda up to here, we are together.) #GreaterAs1 #Refugees #welcome #withrefugees #solidarity #empathy #love is love Journey's End

A BIG Journey's End thank you to Response to Love Center for donating a huge load of nutritious vegan beans & peanut butter to our monthly mobile food pantry, which serves #refugees & our neighbors who live in food deserts in Buffalo. We are #blessed that Sister Johnice & Kathleen always think of JERS & our clients. (Pic of Volunteer Coordinator Kathleen and RTL staff member Ruben.) #GreaterAs1 #Refugees #welcome #WithRefugees #love #empathy #solidarity #buffalove

JOIN US tomorrow evening at 7pm EST! Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America - Film Screening & Director Talkback. Register at the link! www.tinyurl.com/UNSETTLED4 #GreaterAs1 #Refugees #welcome #withrefugees #love #pride #lgbtqia refugees welcome! Journey's End

After a little #holiday hiatus Journey's End is doing our monthly mobile food pantry w/partner FeedMore WNY at Tri-Main Center! Last week our refugee clients, & neighbors who live in our food desert, received 150 bountiful food boxes loaded w/veggies & fruit, as well as eggs, apples & apple cider. #awesome! #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #WithRefugees #lovewins #unity w - #ScottRosenheck Paige Kelschenbach #LaurenDawes #AndyNashCammarata #QureshoMohamed #MosabSaideen Victoire Shalamba #FaroukMajeed Bhim Dhungana #GherezghiherGhebreyesus

We urge President Joe Biden to restore our nation’s history of #welcome & return refugee resettlement to its honored place in the US by signing the revised refugee admissions goal for FY21. Call your Reps today & ask them politely what they are doing to urge Pres. Biden to keep his promise to #refugees! If #WeThePeople don't keep up the pressure, then they won't either! (Pic of Nga Vu'o'ng-Sandoval, one of our fabulous past speakers for our WNY Refugee Film Festival!) #GreaterAs1 #solidarity #RefugeesWelcome #WithRefugees #unity #hope #RestoringWelcome Journey's End

THIS IS Dr. Timnit Gebru. She fled #Eritrea as a refugee to #europe, to join her family eventually in the US. Dr. Gebru, one of the most prominent Black women in her field & a powerful, brilliant voice on fairness & bias in #AI, was a research scientist at Google on its ethical AI team and a co-founder of "Black in AI." She was recently fired from Google for doing the job they hired her to do. https://tinyurl.com/y64sv3df Excerpt: "Two months ago, Google promoted Timnit Gebru..., co-lead of a group focused on ethical artificial intelligence, after she earned a high score on her annual employee appraisal.... In an email thanking Dean for his review, Gebru let him know that her team was already working on a paper about the ethical risks around the same language models, which are essential to understanding the complexity of language in search queries. On Oct. 20, Dean wrote that he wanted to see a draft, adding, definitely not my area of expertise, but would definitely learn from reading it. AD Six weeks later, Google fired Gebru while she was on vacation. I can’t imagine anybody else who would be safer than me, Gebru, 37, said. I was super visible. I’m well known in the research community, but also the regulatory space. I have a lot of grass-roots support and this is what happened. In an internal memo that he later posted online explaining Gebru’s departure, Dean told employees that the paper didn’t meet our bar for publication and ignored too much relevant research on recent positive improvements to the technology. Gebru’s superiors had insisted that she and the other Google co-authors either retract the paper or remove their names. Employees in Google Research, the department that houses the ethical AI team, say authors who make claims about the benefits of large language models have not received the same scrutiny during the approval process as those who highlight the shortcomings. Her abrupt firing shows that Google is pushing back on the kind of scrutiny that it claims to welcome, according to interviews with Gebru, current Google employees, and emails and documents viewed by The Post. It raises doubts about Silicon Valley’s ability to self-police, especially when it comes to advanced technology that is largely unregulated and being deployed in the real world despite demonstrable bias toward marginalized groups. Already, AI systems shape decision-making in law enforcement, employment opportunity and access to health care worldwide. That made Gebru’s perspective essential in a field that is predominantly White, Asian and male. Women made up only 15 percent of the AI research staff at Facebook and 10 percent at Google, according to a 2018 report in Wired magazine. At Google, Black women make up 1.6 percent of the workforce."#GreaterAs1 #unity #solidarity #justice #racism #refugees #welcome #Refugeenius #WithRefugees Journey's End

Journey's End is closed today to honor the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. #GreaterAs1 #unity #peace #solidarity #love #nohate #refugees #welcome #WithRefugees #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees #BLM #accountability #truth #RestInPower

The Journey's End Western New York Refugee Film Festival begins Jan. 28 & is virtual & FREE this season! Register for all 8 fantastic films here: https://tinyurl.com/WNYRFF2021 Check out the films, schedule & trailers here: www.wnyrff.org Thank you for sharing! #GreaterAs1 #solidarity #unity #love #refugees #welcome #WithRefugees #buffalove (Stills from 4 of our feature films: "The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe; "Capernaum;" "We Are Not Princesses;" "Seadrift")

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va) & fmr. VP candidate has powerful oped in National Catholic Reporter imploring fellow Catholics to get on board with welcoming #refugees & other #immigrants in 2021. Excerpt: "To seek a better life for one's family is genuinely human. To flee violence, persecution or starvation is an affliction. If we are to follow Christ, we must act as if the griefs of today's refugees and #Asylum seekers are our own. We must offer them the hopes and the joys we wish for ourselves. We must make America their island of #mercy." #GreaterAs1 #RefugeesWelcome #love #unity #solidarity #WithRefugees Journey's End

BREAKING! CNN just reported that Biden has promised to sign an executive order to rescind the #muslimban his first day in office! #yay #GreaterAs1 #withrefugees #MuslimsWelcome #refugees #welcome #withrefugees #nomuslimban #unity #solidarity #love #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees Journey's End

SQUEE!Adorbs #refugee students sitting in their home school desks donated to Journey's End by Historic St. John Kanty Church Buffalo! We are so proud of our RSIP academic coaches serving refugee students & their families during the #pandemic! #GreaterAs1 #refugees #welcome #WithRefugees #unity #solidarity #love #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees

10 COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #9 - Iran. The Western Asian country of Iran hosts 979,400 refugees, with more than 950,000 Afghan refugees & more than 28,000 from Iraq. Since #Iran is on the travel ban list, Iranian citizens fleeing religious persecution are prohibited from resettling in the US - for now. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

LOVEthis video of #refugees & other #immigrants who are now US citizens telling all of us us why it is important to #vote in one week! #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #amplifymelanatedvoices #Unity #solidarity #love #Welcome95k #WithRefugees #inspiration #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees

(Wall painting by #bansky of #Paddington Bear) Journey's End thanks our neighbor Canisius College New Buffalo Institute for including us in their Oct. Virtual Service Week! We were proud to be paired with Kino Border Initiative / Iniciativa Kino para la Frontera a bi-national #NGO which works with #migrants & promote #solidarity on migration issues, b/c no human is illegal, ever, & #asylum is a basic human & legal right. Check out the cool webpage they did on us & Kino: https://tinyurl.com/y49bygeh #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #love #WithRefugees #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees

COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #8 - Sudan. Sudan hosts more than 1 million refugees. The 3rd largest country in #africa has a long-standing tradition of hosting refugees from #Eritrea, Yemen, Syria, Chad, and in recent years, in a terrible twist of historic irony, South Sudan. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

TODAY IS NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY: Tell Congress to Pressure the Administration to Restore Refugee Resettlement Program and #welcome #refugees. So easy to do & takes minutes! Click link for easy access & script https://tinyurl.com/y3hkdq7z #GreaterAs1 #Welcome95k #unity #solidarity #love #refugeeswelcome #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees

COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #7 - Germany. We jump to #7, since poor countries #Lebanon, #Pakistan & #Uganda tie for 4th place. Germany hosts more than 1.1 million refugees, the greatest numbers coming in recent years from Syria, Afghanistan & #Iraq, but also from East Africa. No Western country comes close to this number. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

We have a momentous moral decision to make on Nov. 3. The choice is ours. We can never say we didn't know. The Guardian: https://tinyurl.com/y3gk88vz "Many of the Cameroonian migrants in a #mississippi detention centre refused to sign, fearing death at the hands of Cameroonian government forces responsible for widespread civilian killings, and because they had asylum hearings pending.... Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that ICE could soon be under new management." #refugees #Shame

COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #4 (tie) - Lebanon. Three countries tie for overall fourth in hosting the largest numbers of refugees 1.4 million led by Lebanon. #Syrians and #Palestinians make up most of the others in a crisis-wracked country of 4 million, not counting the refugees. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

Don't let the title put you off! This is the most concise round-up of 4 years of mayhem wreaked on our immigration system. https://www.ilrc.org/immigration-attacks Preventing entry; denying status; taking away status; destroying due process; detaining, deporting, terrorizing; retaliation - it's all there in short, clear sentences with links for further reading. #GreaterAs1 #refugees #welcome #asylum #unity #solidarity Journey's End

10 COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #4 (tie) - Uganda. Uganda ties #Lebanon and #Pakistan by hosting 1.4 million refugees, with most coming from neighboring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda, although poverty-stricken, provides rights to refugees such as the right to education, work, private property, health care & other basic social services. Which is pretty amazing. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

VERY HAPPY FRIDAY POST! Our friends at Jericho Road Community Health Center & International Institute of Buffalo are hosting FREE #COVID19 testing tomorrow 1-5pm where you'll get immediate results (no waiting for days) & no insurance necessary! #wearamask! Deets below. #GreaterAs1 #refugees #welcome #unity #love #goodhealth Journey's End

10 COUNTRIES that host the most #refugees: #4 (tie) - Pakistan. Pakistan hosts more than 1.4 million refugees primarily from neighboring Afghanistan. It ties with #Lebanon & #Uganda. #GreaterAs1 #refugeeswelcome #unity #solidarity Journey's End

The Journey's End Brewster Street Farm - Journey's End Refugee Agricultural Program is like the energizer bunny! Our refugee farmers never slow down! They'll be in the lobby at Tri-Main Center today from 1-5pm w/their fall bounty for sale. Cards accepted. #GreaterAs1 #refugees #unity #solidarity #refugeeswelcome #love #Refugeenius #BuffaloWelcomesRefugees