A case study of how change can start with the smallest thing: an American woman in Paris, inspired by Angela Merkel opening up the German boarders for refugees, invited her American woman’s group to meet and talk, and quickly these women found ways to help refugees flooding into Calais and Paris through the associations they belonged to and the schools their children attended.
A task force was formed to follow the rapidly changing situation and figure out what could be done. A newsletter was made, to help connect all the associations, with the idea of sharing needs, accomplishments, and upcoming opportunities “to assist and welcome those newly-arrived in our community.”
After just two years of work, The AAWE community-wide refugee task force was invited this March to speak at the international conference of the Federation of American Women’s Clubs Overseas (FAWCO “Networking to Support Refugees: FAWCO Clubs Creating Connections Across Borders, The Hague). Leveraging networks and creating a platform for cross-sector collaborations without knowing what it was called, is that power in proximity?
If you are in an organization working with refugees in the world, we invite you to join us to see if there are other synergies we can find together. We will briefly share the work of our community-wide task force, however our primary interest is to meet others and share our dreams for new efforts, all with the hope that we can identify concrete ways to support each other across borders.
Our latest newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/1e56f63872b7/connections-emergency-aid-to-migrants-in-paris-special-issue
Speaker: Catherine Keyes-Guichard