"The Syrian Refugee Crisis, the U.S. Resettlement Program, and Our National Response"

8 December 2015
@ the Rattlesnake
Join us for Theology on Tap on a special night this December!

Tuesday Dec. 8 @ 7p @ the Rattlesnake Bar on Boylston

Isis rises. Syria: 12 million displaced persons. In America, Facebook pages erupt. What is an appropriate response from the church?

In today's worldwide refugee crisis - in which 4.1 million Syrians are displaced by civil war and the rise of ISIS - Heather Salfrank Joseph joins us to provide some historical context and suggestions about response strategies and durable solutions, including third country resettlement.  In the current political climate, and with efforts to restrict the resettlement of Syrians, Iraqis, and Muslims in the U.S., what is our role in what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has called "the world's worst refugee crisis since WWII"?

Heather Salfrank Joseph (B.A., International Studies, Univ. of Washington) has worked with refugees and immigrants since she first started teaching English to Mexican migrant workers' children in the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1998. Since then, she's worked with refugees and immigrants in Philadelphia, PA, Washington, DC, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), and New York, NY.  Heather worked with the International Organization for Migration in Vienna, Austria and Almaty, Kazakhstan, and managed a refugee and migrant rights' project in Central Asia in collaboration with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Danish Refugee Council, conducting research on internally displaced persons in the region. After moving back to the States, Heather worked with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of nine national agencies that resettle refugees in the U.S. in collaboration with the Department of State and the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Health and Human Services Department.  In 2011, she moved to Brooklyn, NY to take a job with Episcopal Migration Ministries, another national refugee resettlement service provider.

Join us (and bring a friend!) @ the  Rattlesnake on Boylston to give Heather a huge Theology on Tap welcome on November 8 @ 7p!

Go to www.bostontheologyontap.com and follow  @adventboston for more info.

~ Sammy