Working Group on Refugees, Europe, and Service Learning

Please join our next event on December 2 at 2:30pm ET. We will hear from two TAM graduates, one in Greece and one in Maine, who work with refugees. This will be a zoom event.

Stylianos Kelaiditis ‘10

Project Assistant for IOM in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Tobin Williamson ‘13

Senior Partnerships & Policy Manager for The Refugee Advocacy Lab, Refugees International in Portland, Maine

On Monday, November 18th at 2pm ET we heard from two undergraduate students, one from Elon University and one from UNC-CH, who volunteered in a refugee camp in Jordan recently.

WRESL hosted a panel discussion focused on volunteer work in the Za’ateri Refugee Camp in Jordan. Home to 80,000 Syrian refugees, this is the largest refugee camp of its kind. An undergraduate student from Elon University, Maya Abousaab, and one from UNC-CH, Guy Butler-Felton, spoke about their experiences working in this camp. Maya was there this past summer for a week, and Guy spent five weeks there in the summer of 2023. Since Maya is American and Guy is British, we were eager to hear how their sense of their own national identity/ies shaped their experiences. Maya talked about her Syrian roots, and Guy discussed Britain’s historical legacy in the Middle East. While in the camp, Maya played soccer with children and shadowed surgeons. Guy played soccer and chess and taught geography lessons. He was also involved with a youth club which focused on anger management and anti-bullying sessions. Both Guy and Maya discussed the ways in which this volunteer work has shaped their thinking and has impacted their plans for the future.

Now in its seventh year, WRESL – the Working Group on Refugees, Europe, and Service Learning – provides an informal space in which some of the Center for European Studies’ undergraduates, Excel EURO-TAM students, can discuss the circumstances of refugees in Europe and the US. This group actively seeks out opportunities to learn about the immigrant experience on both sides of the Atlantic and to engage with those involved in integration processes. Thus far, we have focused attention on the efforts of refugee assistance programs (Church World Service), community partnerships (Transplanting Traditions), student volunteer tutors, as well as international photographers and film makers. As the name suggests, we are interested in wrestling with the challenges and successes of migrants and the ways in which non-migrants contribute to the immigrant experience.

I want to…

• …know about who puts on these events. Check out our Staff!

• …learn more about engagement efforts. Check out our Past Events!

• …find volunteering/internship opportunities. Check out our Past Partners!

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