Saint Mary’s Belles Unite Borders (BUBs) hosted Andrea Cramer, the founder of Neighbor to Neighbor, a local nonprofit organization that seeks to raise awareness for immigrants and refugees, on Thursday evening at Haggar College Center. Cramer highlighted the organization’s mission and urged her audience to advocate for immigrants in the talk.
“We’re trying to mitigate isolation for newcomers while also growing empathy and understanding among the community about what the newcomer experience is,” she said.
She further went on to explain that Neighbor to Neighbor tries to create organic friendships between volunteers and newcomers by offering hospitality in ways that limit power dynamics.
“A lot of times [in] service organizations there can be a real big power imbalance, it's like we're here to be a charity. Volunteers can, whether they would say it or not, sort of have a savior mentality, and we're really trying to keep that from happening. So we really want these relationships to be mutual,” she said.
Lisa Oglesbee, the organization’s program director, explained different features of the programs that they have between members and volunteers.
“Our main program is the Welcome Project, and that is where we actively take households with newcomers and pair them with teams of local community members to introduce them to each other and say ‘Okay, go be friends,’” Oglesbee said.
She further explained that there are two other programs: Craft’n’Chat and the Driving Education Program. The Craft’n’Chat program offers Afghan women a place to have community while also learning English and the Driving Education Program helps those who do not have a license by providing a driving simulator with volunteers providing supervision for required hours.
Oglesbee stated that there are three ways to help out at Neighbor to Neighbor, including through volunteering, donations and advocacy. She provided an emphasis on the advocacy portion by using social media to share the organization’s mission to interested family members and friends and to keep learning about the issue.
“Add your own little two cents of why you think it’s important to engage in those actions and maybe even contact your representatives,” she said. “Oftentimes, in our action alerts, we give a little script or a link to some other organization that has a script that you can use for the phone or for an email. So it doesn't have to be super hard, we try to make it as easy as possible, to make your voice heard in our government.”
Junior Natalie Ortiz, president of BUBs, said she hopes that this talk would help students learn to use their voice and be more aware of what is going on in the world.
“It is important to advocate for those who need it the most, especially [in] immigrant communi[ties]... so please raise your voice if you can," she said.
