MARLBORO — Marlboro College will host a five-part series of talks, from July 5 to Aug, 2, providing facts and understanding on the current refugee situation in the U.S.
The series, “Refugees in the USA Today: Gaining Some Perspective,” runs concurrently with Marlboro's MAT in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages summer residency, but is open to the public.
“There are more than 65 million displaced people in the world today, yet only a small percentage of these are 'resettled,'” Beverley Burkett, chair of Marlboro's MATESOL program, said in a news release. “Although the refugee crisis is a global problem, very few Americans know about refugees in their own country, their status, the resettlement process, the joys and the challenges of building a new life.”
Marlboro College recently entered a partnership with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, creating an English for Refugees Fellowship, making this speaker series particularly apt. The fellowship enables MATESOL students to serve at one of six resettlement centers in the U.S., and to teach English to refugees and immigrants while completing their graduate degree.
The series starts July 5 with Clare Gillis, journalist and visiting Marlboro faculty member, who will discuss “Refugeehood from World War II until the present.”
In addition to having a doctorate in history, Gillis spent five years as a journalist in the Middle East, including in Israel, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Mali, Turkey, and Iraq.
In 2014, she also worked as a researcher for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, reporting on the ordeals of Syrian women refugees living in exile in neighboring countries. In the U.S., she has been reporting on refugee resettlement and its effect on local communities.
On July 12, Amila Merdzanovic and Ashraf Alamatouri will speak about “Resettling Refugees: The inside story.”
Merdzanovic came to Vermont in 1995 as a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina and is the first former refugee leading the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Vermont field office. She has an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and brings over 10 years of experience working in refugee resettlement providing direct services, program management, and advocacy in Vermont.
Alamatouri is the English language learning coordinator at the USCRI Vermont field office. He taught English at Kalamoon University, Syria, conducted teacher-training courses throughout that country, and was the director of the language department at the International Center for Human Construction before joining USCRI.
On July 19, Connie Woodberry, a retired senior program officer at World Education, will discuss “Transitions: From camp to community.”
As a consultant and caseworker for Southeast Asian refugees in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine, Woodberry provided translation, cross-cultural consultation, and job orientation. She went on to be senior program officer for World Education, where she coordinated programs for Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Burmese refugees living in the Thai refugee camps.
On July 26, Ana Rawson, will speak about “students dealing with trauma or interrupted schooling.”
A teacher with 30 years of experience, Rawson established the English for Speakers of Other Languages program for Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, where she currently directs the program.
Rawson has also taught at the School for International Training in the MATESOL program, and has taught Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol classes for St. Michael's College. She will be joined by Jennifer Course, who has 15 years experience as an ESOL teacher in the Supervisory Union.
On Aug. 2, Lloyd Dakin, retired senior officer for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, will give a talk titled “Refugees: Never ending story?”
Dakin has held several positions in the UNHCR, part of an international career stretching overfour decades. These included program officer in Thailand, deputy representative in Tanzania, desk officer for Central Asia, representative in Armenia and Hungary, regional representative for Central Europe, and interim director of the Division of External Relations.