A New Year

In November I had the privilege of attending a media training in Chicago focused on immigration reform.  I got the chance to enhance my technology skills by learning how to use a flip camera (they’re so fun!) to capture people’s stories.  At the training we talked a lot about the importance of sharing people’s stories through media, attempting to keep up with ever changing trends in how humans are communicating with one another.  When I arrived at the training I was informed that we would each be tasked with coming up with our own stories about our experience with the  immigration system and a New Year’s resolution of how we could work for immigration reform…and that we would be filmed while doing so.  When they asked if anyone was opposed to being filmed it took a lot of self control to keep my hand from flying up and saying “not me!”  And so, I quickly lost my chance to back out and had to come up with a story to share.  Since I work closely with refugees I wanted my story to reflect experiences that all immigrants or refugees might face and a resolution that would work towards bringing diverse communities together.  One minor change I would make to my video is that my New Year’s Resolution says that I want to recruit at least ten co-sponsors this year.  Really, ten isn’t very many, so I think twenty is a more appropriate and optimistic goal.  I don’t want to give it all away, so I’ll let you watch the video and see why I think it’s important to welcome refugees to Columbus- enjoy![youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdFq5_bwBZQ]Charis Steffel has been the Sponsorship Developer at CRIS for over a year now.  Her primary role is to work with groups in the community, educating and training them to welcome newly arriving refugee families.