Podcast appearances and mentions of iris integrated refugee

You can help honor the ultimate sacrifice of one brave 9/11 responder by being part of the 2022 Tunnel to Towers Run & Walk on June 26. So we'll help reinforce what it's all about and how to get involved as we chat with the race organizer at the Bethel High School event site. Then we'll bring you Part 2 of our CT League of Conservation Voters discussion about critical environmental legislation that didn't make it through the 2022 statehouse session, and learn how you can play a key role in helping ensure issues related to things like waste management and toxic chemicals are dealt with in 2023. And we're closing with our partners from IRIS - Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services - as our state gets ready to celebrate World Refugee Day with events featuring stories, music poems, and exhibits coming up next weekend in New Haven and Hartford. 

Chris George, executive director of IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services) discusses the Afghan resettlement program in Connecticut. Interview by Richard Hi;;

#017 - Today’s guest, Ann O’Brien, is the Director of Community Engagement at IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services) in New Haven, Connecticut, since 2016. IRIS has resettled more than 1,300 refugees in the last four years and annually assists over 2,000 refugees and immigrants as they strive for family self-sufficiency. Ann talks to us about the impact IRIS has in the community and its annual Run for Refugees 5K.Topics Covered:History of Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS)Services offered for refugees and immigrantsAnnual Run for Refugees 5K raceToday's GuestAnn O'BrienAnn O’Brien has over 20 years of experience in non-profit operations and financial management, as well as grassroots organizing and fundraising. Ann has worked in hospitals, the performing arts, and with immigrant populations in Missouri, Illinois, New York and Connecticut. She co-chaired a refugee resettlement group in Ridgefield, Connecticut that resettled a Syrian family in 2016.Ann has been the Director of Community Engagement at IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services) in New Haven, Connecticut, since 2016. IRIS has resettled more than 1,300 refugees in the last four years and annually assists over 2,000 refugees and immigrants as they strive for family self-sufficiency. Follow IRISWebsite - https://irisct.org/Facebook - IRIS_Twitter - @IRISCTInstagram - irisct_YouTube - IRIS Additional Resources:Run for Refugees 5KFor more information, visit Inspire Virtual Runs.Join the community and click the subscribe button!

We're connecting with the nation's highest medical authority - U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams to unveil the first new national report on smoking cessation since 1990 - along with all kinds of ways to help you kick the habit in 2020. Then, if you're looking for a job - or career - with great pay and security we'll connect with the Workforce Alliance to talk about state manufacturing job training, and where Connecticut's manufacturing industries are headed.  And we'll Close with IRIS - Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. We'll learn about the latest challenges facing refugees here in the state - and invite you to the Run for Refugees Feb. 2 in New Haven.

Our guest today is the Rev. Canon Nicholas T. Porter.   Nicholas, former rector of Trinity Church in Southport. He is the Executive Director and Founder of Jerusalem Peacebuilders: jerusalempeacebuilders.org.   He is the re-founder and past director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem as well as the founder of Anastasia Pilgrimages in France.    Nicholas holds advanced degrees in Middle East Studies, Theology, War Studies, and Conflict Transformation. A two-time graduate from Yale University, he served on the board of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, initiating key projects in theology and in Jerusalem. In 2016 Dwight Hall at Yale awarded him the Curran Prize for distinguished public service.   Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB) is an interfaith, non-profit organization with a mission to create a better future for humanity across religions, cultures, and nationalities. Integral to that mission is the belief that the future of Jerusalem is the future of the world.  To that end, JPB promotes transformational, person-to-person encounters among the peoples of Jerusalem, the United States, and the Holy Land.   JPB’s interfaith programs focus on uniting Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans and providing them with the opportunities, relationships, and skills they need to become future leaders for peace in the global community.  A passion for peace drives our mission and partnerships power our program.   Welcome Nicholas!    Alli asks in Nicolas’ own words to describe what the Jerusalem Peacebuilders is. Nicholas says the primary mission is to promote peace through education. The first session started with 11 people, and this summer it’ll be over 100 young people.    JPB started off with offering summer programs focused on leadership.   While there are fun camp things like canoeing and ropes courses, these young people also focus on hard conversations and interfaith dialogue. Next step was to introduce experimental-learning courses in school in Israel, Palestine, and the United States (especially in Houston, TX and in CT, VT, MA) which became a 4-year curriculum. These courses are geared to four areas: understanding their identity, communication skills, recognizing conflict, and conflict management. JPB uses Critical Youth Empowerment, a program to work closer with young people to become instruments of change. This focuses on providing three specifics things to flourish the growth of young people: providing a safe environment, a low-power asymmetry, and working towards a realistic contribution by the group. This final part usually results in a project the young people work towards in their community.    Alli asks where JPB receive the funding for these programs and how are the young people able to participate. JPB receive fund from individual donors, Episcopal Diocese in Jerusalem, and mission funds in ECCT. It costs about $3,000 to being over a young person from the Middle East to participate in the peace-building programs.    Nicholas says that what is fundamental for change is the removal of oneself from the environment they are in. Therefore it is essential to peace-building to gather together outside of their current environment and community, and return back.    Nicholas shares one particularly spectacular story of a young person that has gone through the JPB program.    Nicholas stopped by The Commons on his way to New Haven and then on to New York. One of the five programs JPB offers is based in New Haven and hosted by Christ Church, New Haven. The group of 20 young people spend the first half of August working with IRIS - Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, visiting the United Nations, meeting with Ambassadors.    An exciting new initiative the group in New Haven will be doing this year is happening on Thursday, August 8 a service learning program. JPB with the Muslim community in New Haven, the Mishkan Israel in Hamden, and Christ Church, New Haven are hosting a city-wide interfaith service day. All day long there will be groups working in parks, a feeding station, working at IRIS, and with Habitat for Humanity. This event is open to anyone who is interested and would like to attend.    To wrap up, Alli asks how this work has been spiritually for Nicholas. He said both the conflict and peace-building reside within his family history and within himself, which he didn’t realize would take hold until he went to Jerusalem himself. Nicholas said that his faith and life were traumatized by 9/11. On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Nicholas and his wife decided to work towards the future — peace.   

This week host John Voket and the award-winning For the People open with IRIS - Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services. We'll hear about the realities and challenges being faced by displaced, often desperate refugees and immigrants - families, children, even military liaisons who served and saved the lives of many U.S. service members during foreign conflicts. Then we'll head to Simsbury to learn about an ongoing project being handled primarily by high school students and supporters at the Simsbury Free Library - promoting the little know details of two summers that Dr Martin Luther King Jr spent in Connecticut. And we'll close wishing the 2019 class of Connecticut's Parent Leadership Training Institute good luck as their significantly pared down PLTI launches with extremely limited funding - in the hope aspiring participants in this proven community-building program for parents, grandparents, and caregivers will see it fully restored in 2020.

Executive Editor, New England News Collaborative's John Dankosky leads a lively discussion about the changing demographics of New England and the impact of immigration on our economy. Recorded for broadcast on WNPR, this lecture is part of our close partnership with the New England News Collaborative. Panelists: Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Professor of Economics at Yale Shannon Dooling, Immigration Reporter, WBUR/New England News Collaborative Will Kneerim, Director of Employment and Education Services at IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services)

This week host John Voket opens with the CT Coalition to End Homelessness - talking about how you can help the agency with two upcoming census programs whose data can help the state get more funding to underwrite shelter and housing. Then we engage the state's Consumer Council to learn why she is so fired up about the recent federal repeal of net neutrality - and why it could be harmful to Connecticut consumers, businesses, and future innovation. And we'll close with IRIS - Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services - hearing about the work our state's largest refugee resettlement network, and inviting you to join thousands of others in the agency's 2018 Run for Refugees on Super Bowl morning.