60 area refugee advocates met for another zoom meeting to exchange information and support each other in preparation for the arrival of more families. Robust conversations took pace about ELL, bus training, technology, employment, holidays, child safety and mental health awareness . Notes from meeting are available.

Another successful zoom meeting for refugee volunteers. We had 48 people from an assortment of Hartford based groups. Four groups have already settled Afghan families and were a great source of information. We barely scratched the surface of our list of topics to discuss. We’ll meet again next month to discuss/compare cultural differences & similarities and English acquisition.

SAWA has been busy working with our community to help the resettlement of Afghan refugees/evacuees. On Monday December 6th, SAWA convened the first Greater Hartford Afghan Resettlement zoom meeting. We had overt fifty participants from a variety of IRIS co-sponsorship groups. We discussed a variety of topics, including a Q&A with two young Afghan women, one a former refugee herself and veteran refugee advocates.

In the fall of 2020, The Education Studies department at Wesleyan University partnered with SAWA to provide much needed tutoring in English and Math…