We recently held a volunteer appreciation event at IIB to express our heartfelt gratitude to our volunteers and interns. Their dedicated work has significantly made Western New York a more welcoming place for immigrants and refugees.

In my remarks to the approximately 50 attendees, I invoked Winston Churchill's words, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Our volunteers are the backbone of IIB, contributing their time and skills in various roles. From home set-ups to event support, donation drives to administrative assistance, and even providing a safe and fun environment for kids during IIB events, their efforts are invaluable.

If you want to give the gift of time to our mission, there are plenty of ways to help! Click here to learn more.

PS-- Remember to head to the Taste of Diversity festival on Saturday, June 29. IIB is a sponsor, and it's a great time filled with music, dance, and food. Speaking of food, we will also be hosting the Community Table at the Taste of Buffalo on the weekend of July 13-14.

We’ve released crucial life-saving information in many languages on our website to help more people prepare for the coming summer weather. Summer weather safety preparedness information flyers in many of the top languages spoken in Western New York, including Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Dari, English, Karen, Pashto, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Ukrainian.

The URL is iibuffalo.org/news/summer-safety-info.

While we are always working on behalf of refugees, June 20 was designated World Refugee Day by the United Nations as a time to reflect on the 36.4 million refugees worldwide and the almost 400,000 children born as refugees each year. Consider asylum seekers, internally displaced people, or others who need international protection, and that number climbs to a mind-boggling 110,000 million people.

Thanks also to the Muslim Student Association, the Spanish Club, and the Cultural Awareness Club at Williamsville North High School for banding together to donate various household goods, including cookware, pillows, bedding, and toys. A special thanks to volunteer Sue Bartle, who coordinated the contribution. 

A special thanks to the 12 United Way Day of Caring volunteers who joined us to work on neighborhood beautification and clean up in communities on Buffalo’s Westside, where many of our clients live.

As the song goes, “It’s too darn hot”! That’s why we are asking the community to donate electric fans to help make the dog days of summer more bearable for our New American clients.

Kudos to Wheels for Workers 716! The organization donated another ten bicycles, along with helmets and locks. Since September, they’ve given us 55 bikes to distribute to our newly arrived refugee clients.

If your student group, civic organization, church, or workplace wants to coordinate a donation drive on our behalf, please do so by contacting us!

Every month, we are honored to join the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services for its Naturalization Ceremony in Buffalo. In June, we welcomed 33 New Americans from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, China, Eritrea, Jamaica, Jordan, Lebanon, Congo, Mexico, Mongolia, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

In the Media

Executive Director Jenifer Rizzo-Choi appeared on the radio program On Target with Penny Wolfgang, discussing how immigrants and refugees help the local economy while making the business case for their inclusion into our community. 

Following the Biden administration’s recent executive order on immigration, Rizzo-Choi discussed the order’s potential impact with WIVB.

Employment Services

The Employment Services team recently organized a highly successful job fair, bringing together job seekers and 11 prominent employers from various industries, including healthcare, social services, finance, and manufacturing.

The day of networking and opportunity bridged the gap between employers looking for skilled professionals and individuals seeking rewarding career paths. Attendees had face-to-face meetings with recruiters, learned about different companies, and discussed potential job openings.

While at the job fair, one Afghan client was asked to go for an onsite interview at a local restaurant and was hired that day! Two others, one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another from Colombia, were just hired as personal care aides, and a local social services agency recently interviewed six others.  

Employment Services is committed to facilitating such events to support IIB clients. Based on the positive feedback, plans for future job fairs are already underway, promising even more opportunities for our community. Learn more about how we connect workers with potential employers.

Working behind the scenes is our small but mighty legal services team. In 2022, Congress authorized federal funding to provide immigration-related legal assistance to eligible Afghans who were evacuated from their country in August 2021 from Afghanistan after the fall of the Afghan government and the subsequent occupation of Taliban forces.

Thanks to federal funding, the IIB legal team has not only been assisting Afghans but has also expanded its services to Ukrainians in the wake of Russia’s invasion. These services include support for Ukrainians seeking Temporary Protective Status, work authorizations, and parole extensions.

Thanks to funding from New York State, the IIB legal team can now assist refugees and asylees from various populations worldwide. This includes supporting asylum applications, green card petitions, and travel document processing.

However, IIB staff attorney Mary Moran says that helping foreign-born people navigate our immigration system is challenging. She adds, “We have an amazing network of legal service providers in the area; however, everyone’s capacity is limited, and cases can take years to resolve.”

Learn about all the ways we help New Americans by clicking on this link.

International Exchanges and Education

This month, we hosted 11 visitors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Kosovo, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine as they studied “Approaches to Trauma-informed Support for Victims of Violence, Atrocities, and Conflict.” They focused on refugees’ mental health and supporting children after traumatic events. Among the local resources they met with were the JFS Refugee & Immigrant Center for Healing, the Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care at UB’s Center for Social Research, the Erie County Department of Mental Health, Lafayette International High School, and BestSelf’s Child Advocacy Center. They also gathered with community members at the Dnipro Ukrainian Cultural Center.

If your home school, summer school, library, or other program is looking for a fun and educational way for kids to understand the world beyond our borders through summer activities, our Global Kids programs can teach them about cultures and countries worldwide through dance, crafts, music, stories, and other interactive activities. Sessions run from 45 to 60 minutes, depending on availability. To learn more, please contact mshogan@iibuff.org.

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

New American Integration

June was a busy month for the New American Integration. We welcomed 11 cases, 33 people, to Buffalo. Most were Afghans who helped the US government. They arrived with little or no notice, and the team worked hard to find and furnish their first American home before their arrival.

Our Preferred Communities medical case management program helps New Americans with disabilities or other special needs and has a wonderful success story. A client who arrived two years ago and for whom our program manager has tirelessly advocated finally received his custom-made motorized scooter. This state-of-the-art piece of equipment can travel up to 15 miles on one charge and will open up so many opportunities for this handicapped and paralyzed New American who is also an amputee and who has missed having freedom of movement for over 24 years.

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

Interpreting & Translation

Recently, the Interpreting team received fulfilled 1,812 requests to provide interpreting services in 52 different languages. As a Buffalo Public School System partner, we provided language access to the area's diverse Limited English Proficient (LEP) student population during state exam time.

Our Interpreting team continues to offer onsite interpretation, on-demand phone, and audio/video remote services in over 90 different languages to individuals and organizations of all types. These invaluable services provide comprehensive language access to limited English speakers. To request interpreting services, email interpretation@iibuff.org.

During the same period, our Translation team completed 112 individual projects. Most of these projects were translated so individual community members could re-enter the workforce, continue their education, or for other personal reasons. For questions about document translation projects of any size, email translation@iibuff.org.  

We are always looking for enthusiastic, talented linguists to improve our ability to provide first-rate language access to our community. Are you multilingual and interested in joining our team? Click here to apply!

If you're already a linguist and are interested in professional development, click here. If you're curious about the importance of language access, learn more at our website.

Survivor Support Services 

As we reported, our board of directors decided to reduce our survivor support programming. Our survivor services department will close on Monday, July 1. For more details, please refer to our update in the May 2024 newsletter.

Come Work with Us!

If you want to make a difference in the community and are considering a career change, please take a look at our careers page.