Posts by bclark

“I grew up in a community of immigrants. Sometimes those immigrants were refugees that had to flee for various reasons, so I’ve always been interested in it,” said Madiha, one of our spring 2021 interns.  

A daughter of Pakistani immigrants, Madiha knows what it’s like to grow up with two cultures, or, as she would put it, the best of both worlds. Yet she also knows what it’s like to adjust to a new culture, and to feel like an outsider, thanks to her own experience and that of her parents.  

“I’ve never been back to Pakistan, which is where my parents are from, but I’ve heard a lot about the differences in culture and the way that they had to navigate that,” she explained. “There are ways that we have adapted to American life, which has been very interesting, but we do also celebrate all the holidays that go with being Pakistani, and we do get super excited and dressed up to do all the fun things there too.” 

Although she gets to experience the American tradition of Christmas trees alongside those of Pakistan, her own beliefs and traditions, in addition to her travels, have allowed her to see firsthand how it may feel for a refugee just arriving who feels displaced.  

“I think that growing up as a Muslim in a post 9/11 society, I’ve also been able to see how it feels to be an outsider in your own home and when you get out somewhere,” said the twenty-year-old. “Those experiences have helped me interact with people from different backgrounds better, and even have more empathy for what’s happening in their lives.” 

Thanks to experiences such as this one, Madiha decided to pursue a degree in international relations with a focus on international migration at Georgetown University in the school of foreign service. When she came back to Memphis to complete her classes online in the midst of the pandemic, she took advantage of the opportunity to work directly with those affected by mass displacement through an internship at World Relief Memphis.  

Despite only being a month into her internship, she can already attest to how much she has learned thanks to coworkers such as Vaughan Meiss who have taken the time to explain the refugee resettlement process to her.  

“I was just hoping to learn more about the entire process, from the time that a person gets off at the airport all the way through to being deemed as resettled in the community,” Madiha said. “I haven’t known a lot of things about the whole process, so I definitely appreciate the way they’ve been very open to explaining everything.”  

After this experience, Madiha feels inspired by the stories she has heard, and she knows that she will have many career options available to her—whether it be in policy, migrant students and education, or even a refugee resettlement agency such as World Relief.  

“I’ve loved talking to the people that we work with and hearing what they’ve gone through, seeing their attitude towards the challenges they have faced has been very uplifting,” stated Madiha, who speaks not only English but also Urdu and Hindi. “When we do talk to them, their willingness to work and figure out how they can settle into life is very inspiring.” 

With only a few months left, she is hoping to learn as much as possible before returning to Georgetown and continuing her studies. Yet thanks to her time at World Relief Memphis and to her own experiences thus far, Madiha is going back knowing that “there’s a lot more in common when it comes to the source of our traditions than [we] realize, and it all just depends on how you display them that’s different.” 

With that in mind, Madiha urges future interns to act with empathy and understanding, as a friend. 

“Don’t have the perspective of someone who comes in and saves them, that savior complex,” said Madiha after highlighting the resiliency of refugees. “Be someone who just works with them, and gets to know them and is their friend.” 

Already, she has begun to do the same in just her short month with us by listening to different stories and coming alongside our newest neighbors in their road to integration, and we know that she will continue to do so in her future endeavors as well, whether they be in Memphis, Washington, D.C. or elsewhere.  

And this summer, we will be welcoming more interns who want to learn and make a difference in the lives of our refugee and immigrant community. If that sounds like you or someone you know, fill out an application by April 6, 2023. Hopefully, we’ll be welcoming you in June alongside our new neighbors. 

Bailey Clark served as the Communications Coordinator for World Relief Memphis. With a background in journalism and advertising, she is passionate about storytelling and its power to make a difference. 

As an immigrant, I know how it is to feel overwhelmed in a new place with no guidance. I have watched my parents come back home frustrated because they did not understand the system, and it was no fun at all. I eventually got used to going to school, relearning how to write, and learning various subjects that I had never even heard of, and, still to this day, I am often confused. During my junior year in high school, I started to get engaged in the community, and I felt happy that I was able to do things that made people’s lives easier. During my senior year, I found an immigrant community and was very happy to be a part of it. They made my life better and helped me understand the college process since I would be the first person to attend a university in the U.S. in my family. I realized that I wanted to give back to that same community, so my interest in service grew, specifically in immigrant communities. I was not confident in my ability to tutor students, so I decided to volunteer each time they needed me to talk about the organization at social justice panels. I started working towards more service, and I applied to the Bonner program at Rhodes College, a program for students that want to be active in the community.

I got accepted, and this was where I first heard of World Relief Memphis. I got a remote internship and began to work immediately. Due to the current pandemic, I am not able do in-person service, but I feel very helpful and happy with my duties. I am responsible for doing research and contacting local organizations that might help us at World Relief Memphis serve our clients better. The research that I do helps with community orientation for our clients and helps establish partnerships with other communities and organization willing to work together with WRM to build a stronger community and home for all.

As a Christian, my faith encourages me to help and serve others the way that God wants us to, and recently, I have started using this faith to guide me as I continue my service and education. This internship has opened my eyes to a new dimension of the church that I do not often consider: service and giving. We are called to give and serve just as Jesus did while He was on earth, and I plan on doing just that in whatever way I can, and to the best of my ability.  I am currently a biology major at Rhodes College on the Pre-Med track, hoping to use my education to combat the health disparity issues that immigrants and refugees face in the United States.

While that is currently a long-term goal, I look forward to being physically engaged at World Relief Memphis, and I hope to be a part of new beginnings in the lives of my fellow immigrants.

If you want to get involved in the local immigrant community and help make a difference as well, we are currently looking for interns to join us this summer! Just click here and fill out an application, and we’ll be in touch with you to discuss the next steps.

Peace Abhieyghan is our Spring 2021 intern within the Mobilization department with a passion for giving back to the immigrant community. 

Kara Spencer’s experience at World Relief was a little different from that of most other interns since her mother, Karen, was the Mobilization Director in the Memphis office. She was in high school when her mom started the job at WRM, and, almost immediately, she started volunteering with special events and spending time in the office. Although their family often discussed global issues, Kara did not know much more about refugees than the typical high schooler.

Over time, Kara’s volunteer work developed into a passion for helping and welcoming refugees. She accepted an internship in 2019 and devoted attention to creating databases, spreadsheets, and improved record-keeping of volunteer and intern history. But her favorite part of the experience was going to airport arrivals, where she loved being able to witness resettled refugees finally arriving in their new home, often being reunited with friends or family members already in the United States. These arrivals underscored the importance of all of the work that World Relief does in the local community. For her, getting to see the emotional arrivals made the more mundane, clerical work she was doing worth the effort.

Since part of her mother’s role was visiting churches to raise awareness for World Relief’s mission, Kara also experienced first-hand the varying reactions to World Relief’s work and purpose. During non-COVID times, her mother explained the mission of World Relief to churches, asking them to come alongside World Relief to work together in the Memphis community. Many people understood how this work fit into the mission of the global church, but others would view refugee and immigration as solely a political issue. 

Despite seeing such opposing reactions, Kara was and still is encouraged by the curiosity people showed toward World Relief’s mission, and she hopes a seed will be planted that will encourage others to get involved as well—whether that’s learning more about the topic, volunteering or even donating.

Kara’s own reaction to the work of World Relief has inspired her future plans to create a business, hopefully a coffee shop, which employs recently resettled refugees in order to provide avenues for training and soft skills development. Many refugees’ job experience from their home countries does not transfer into the American economy without additional training, or their experience is more informal than the American job market typically requires. Other times, development-related jobs are needed in order to help refugees build a self-sufficient life in the United States.

Through her business, however, Kara would be empowering refugees by providing job training and English practice. Hopefully, she would also be able to raise awareness among other Americans about immigration and diversity in their community. To make this dream a reality, she is pursuing a degree in Business Administration with a minor in entrepreneurship at Harding University. Her vision is to develop a creative and welcoming environment that is more than just a coffee shop, adding significance to her work by finding additional avenues for refugee integration.

Until then, Kara is encouraging fellow college students to get involved because they have the time to dedicate to this important work. By donating their time to these organizations, real change can be created in individual lives and in the community as a whole.  The opportunity to learn about such an important topic and area of work is vital as this area will likely only grow in its importance in the coming years under the Biden administration. Volunteering or interning with World Relief is just the beginning of a life-long commitment to learning about refugees and both the challenges and opportunities they face as they transition to life in the United States.

Interested in learning more? Volunteer, intern, or donate to World Relief’s mission here!  

Sarah Barnett was the former Mobilization Intern for World Relief Memphis and is a senior at Furman University in South Carolina. She majors in Political Science and Spanish and is passionate about influencing where people and policies collide.

Bailey Clark serves as the Communications Coordinator for World Relief Memphis. With a background in journalism and advertising, she is passionate about storytelling and its power to make a difference. 

Photo by Emily Frazier