Yesterday (June 21st) I was invited to speak at the first-of-its-kind conference in the City of Brotherly Love. The Philadelphia-held conference was an open-borders event between the newly arrived Iraqi refugees to the Philadelphia area and their new American friends and neighbors.
The conference coincided with the June 20th World Refugee Day and was held by one of Philadelphia’s oldest non-profit organization, the Nationalities Service Center. Since it was founded in 1921, NSC made great achievements in terms of helping refugees from all over the world. It provides legal, social and educational services to immigrants, refugees, limited and/or non-English speakers.
The conference which was called “Welcoming Iraqi Families, Celebrating Iraqi Culture” was a step a great step NSC chose to take in order to build bridges between the American and Iraqi cultures. People from the two countries interacted and shared stories about their homelands. One of the Iraqi refugees, an artist, donated two paintings representing images from his home country, attracting a great admiration by the American Philadelphians who rarely get a chance to see Iraqi art. Others expressed their feelings about finding a new and safe home, and how they lived in their homeland before, during and after the war. Read More...
blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
