ENCOUNTERS THIRD ISSUEAndrea Cramer is the founder of Neighbor to Neighbor, a local organization that supports St. Joe county’s refugee and immigrant population.
Andrea has a background in English as a second language (ESL), but came to realize her passions lie in forming relationships with people rather than lesson planning and teaching. She is particularly interested in cross cultural relationships and how language runs deeply into culture.
While living in Waco, Texas, her family volunteered with Catholic Charities at the border to welcome asylum seekers.
Seeing her four year old son interacting and empathizing with people sparked desire to continue her work when she moved back to South Bend. Therese and David Cory are a couple in the South Bend community and professors at the University of Notre Dame that are sponsoring a refugee from Uganda named Max.
While living in Germany during the refugee wave, they witnessed first-hand the difficulties that refugees face integrating into their new communities and began to wonder how they could help.
Motivated by their Catholic faith, when presented with the opportunity to sponsor a refugee after mass one day at the Bizantine Community at Notre Dame, they quickly agreed, saying “We grabbed [the opportunity] and never looked back.” Theme |
Related news December 11, 2021 ENCOUNTERS SECOND ISSUECho Too, a refugee, who arrived from Burma in 1988, has been at the forefront for more than thirty years
to help, those like him, who have had to face the many and often disheartening problems related to integration into American society
Text and interview by Grant Otte and Natalie Armbuster November 17, 2021 ENCOUNTERS FIRST ISSUELet's to know the story of Muguleta Haybano through his direct telling of the challenges he had to face in order to integrate into American society and what his desire is, once he graduated from the master's degree.
Interview by Abigail Helme and Theresa Salazar | |
