Memorial Day was the unofficial start of summer! Like you, I’m looking forward to a season of sunshine and warm weather with family and friends. As you plan your activities for the season, know that IIB will be in the community, too!

Again, this year, we’ll sponsor the Taste of Diversity festival on Saturday, June 29. If you've never been, it occurs at the corner of Grant and Lafayette in Buffalo. There will be music, dance, and food in one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods.

We’ll also be hosting the Community Table at the Taste of Buffalo this year on Friday, July 13, and Saturday, July 14. So, as you walk through the event, find the tent and sit down to enjoy your food with some fabulous IIB volunteers.

If there is an event that you think we should be a part of, please let us know!

Who doesn’t love a rollicking night of international trivia?! This month, our fundraiser, which supports our education efforts such as Model UN and other programs that bring global perspectives to WNY, educate local people about global affairs, and lead to a more culturally sensitive community, brought in more than $5,000!

It also continued the tradition of finding “Buffalo’s Most Globally Smart.” The group calling itself Sherlock Homies took home the title for the second year in a row! See what else you missed?

Thanks to this year’s participants and sponsors, Rigidized Metals Corporation, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Buffalo Limousine.

We received just over $5,500 worth of physical goods in April, so it was a very successful month overall! 

A highlight for April was the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo partnered with us to sponsor a newly arrived family of seven New Americans from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The church group obtained all the household goods for the family (valued at about $2,000), donated multiple dressers, miscellaneous furniture, $400 worth of gift cards, and a $1,500 donation to support our resettlement needs further! The church volunteers (pictured above) also cleaned and prepared the new home entirely and expressed interest in doing the same for us at least once a year. 

In April, we turned eight dwellings into homes for our New American families. In May, we did eleven!

Also this month, Crowley Webb kindly made a bulk donation of household goods, predominantly kitchen items, valued at $730.

The Zontas of Kenmore wanted to provide donations to support the children in our clients' families. They dropped off stuffed animals, backpacks, and art supplies, valued at $688!

With the assistance of three volunteers, we cleared out and reorganized our storage area to make it more efficient.   

Eleven volunteers came into IIB to provide childcare so clients could attend Job Club meetings. This is a wonderful volunteer opportunity and a great way to meet new people, if your church, workplace, student group, or civic organization would like to support us in these or other ways, please contact us!

During May, we highlighted the stories of Asian American Pacific Islanders to celebrate their accomplishments. The list includes:

May was also designated as a time to celebrate the accomplishments of Jewish Americans. The list includes:

Every month, we are honored to join the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services for its Naturalization Ceremony in Buffalo. In May, we helped welcome 47 New Americans from 25 countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Liberia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

In the Media

Recently, WBFO interviewed Jérémie Boroy, advisor to the Mayor of Paris on people with disabilities and chairperson of France’s National Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities. He and his colleagues visited Western New York as part of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). This was facilitated by our International Exchanges and Education Department in collaboration with Rochester Global Connections.

If you’ve eaten at any local restaurant, it is likely that some or all of it was prepared by New Americans. Buffalo Spree recently published an article about the contributions they make to the restaurant business, specifically how IIB helps restaurants find employees.

Employment Services

We are thrilled to announce that one of our clients has successfully secured a job placement at KeyBank, two clients are working at IIB's New American Integration department, and eight other clients have embarked on their professional journeys with entry-level jobs in May. These placements are not just numbers but life-changing opportunities for our clients, and we are proud to have played a part in their success. 

Twenty newly arrived clients recently graduated from our Job Club, which offers New Americans classes on how work works in the USA. This is helpful because job searching and employment can vary greatly depending on the country you come from. Job Club gives the participants a better understanding of what they need to know to get off to a productive start.

For professionals and other highly skilled and educated people who were born in another country, our Career Club Pathways Program offers sessions to help them return to their fields of work. Seven clients attended the Career Club in May.

Other highlights for the month include opportunities for our clients to attend a:

We're always looking for employers in the banking, technology, and engineering sectors. Please email pathways@iibuff.org for more information.

Learn more about how we connect workers with potential employers.

Survivor Support Services 

Last year, our board of directors decided to scale back our survivor support programming. This decision was made because, in our efforts to meet the community’s needs over the past three years of extraordinary change and challenge, we extended beyond our historic mission and institutional capacities in certain areas. The decision to provide services outside our mission and charter put a significant strain on our organization and our ability to deliver on our mission to meet the needs of the immigrant and refugee communities that we were founded to serve. The federal grants that fund our survivor work are nearing their contractual end date, and we have elected not to pursue renewals as part of our decision to step out of this line of service work.

We’ve been linking our remaining clients in this program to other local agencies, depending on each client’s particular needs. Those calling us for services are being called back with referrals to other agencies and/or other information to support their informed decision-making on how to access community services. To ensure a smooth transition, IIB has extended the last day of operation of survivor services to Monday, July 1.

New American Integration

Our resettlement team has welcomed 80% of our clients for the year—that's 296 refugees. Many resettled this month are Afghans who assisted the USA’s democracy-building efforts before the country’s Taliban overthrow.  

UPDATE: 

A few weeks ago, we told you of a Rohingya family of seven forced to flee their village in Burma for Malaysia in 2013. After ten years in a refugee camp, the US permitted them to resettle in Buffalo. 

Since arriving, the family has worked with their IIB case manager to establish themselves and connect with the larger Rohingya community. The parents (pictured above) completed our Job Club Work Readiness training and continue working with our Employment Team to secure jobs. 

The children enrolled in 198 International Prep School in Buffalo. They recalled how limited schooling was in Malaysia. To get there, they had to take several buses for a trip that lasted over an hour each way. When their case manager asked about their first day, they answered, "Perfect!"

Our Preferred Communities Coordinator helps New Americans with disabilities or other special needs. This month, she helped a refugee family of four who are deaf get their driver's licenses and buy a car!

Learn more about the great work done by our New American Integration team.  

International Exchanges and Education

In addition to the Community World Trivia event you read about above, our director, May Shogan, participated in a leadership conference for secondary students at Jamestown Community College this month, conducting three interactive sessions on diversity.

We also conducted a refugee health session on mental health for IIB’s Job Club. These sessions support the integration of our refugee clients by providing information and resources to navigate the American health system and encourage wellness in everyday life.

Through the end of this month, we are hosting nine visitors from North Africa and the Near East on the topic of “Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development,” (pictured above at The Foundry). While in Buffalo, they will focus on diversifying startup spaces, higher education and public-private partnerships, and innovation and entrepreneurial spaces. They will also attend a workshop tht City of Light Creative and Consulting facilitated.

Learn more about how our International Exchanges and Education team increases knowledge and understanding in our community.   

Interpreting & Translation

We are excited to announce a wide range of opportunities for multilingual individuals. Right now, we have many openings for speakers of Dari, Pashto, and Farsi, while ongoing recruitment efforts continue for speakers of Karen, Karenni, Kinyarwanda, Nepali, Portuguese, Rohingya, and Somali. If you are multilingual and interested in joining our teams, we invite you to apply!

To view our workshop calendar for training for interpreters and translators, follow this link. 

Our Interpreting team recently received 1,833 requests to provide interpreting services in 46 languages. Last month, our on-demand interpreting phone line provided 154 hours of language support to customers and their clients across WNY. To get your PIN and communicate more effectively with your neighbors, email interpretation@iibuff.org today.

The Translation team completed 119 translation projects last month. Most involved individual community members translating personal documents such as birth or marriage certificates. Translate your school transcripts in time for September school enrollment. Reach out with any questions about document translation projects of any size at translation@iibuff.org.  

To learn more about our mission to improve language access for our community, head to our website to discover more of what we do.

Come Work with Us!

If you’re considering making a career change, please take a look at our careers page.