Diya Abdo, founder of ‘Every Campus A Refuge,’ to visit Wake Forest

Diya Abdo, founder of Every Campus a Refuge (ECAR), will participate in a panel discussion at Wake Forest on Wednesday, March 6 at 6 p.m. in Pugh Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Abdo, an English professor at Guilford College, founded ECAR in 2015. The initiative advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campuses and assisting them in resettlement.

Panelists will discuss how their programs work to welcome and support local refugee families.

Participants include politics and international affairs professor Michaelle Browers, and communication professor Alessandra Von Burg – co-founders of Wake Forest’s ECAR. Student members from the Student Association for the Advancement of Refugees (SAFAR) will also participate.

“Wake Forest’s ECAR model, Incubator@Wake, assists refugees and asylees who are highly skilled professionals, who after resettling in Winston-Salem, cannot work in their trained professions,” said Von Burg. “We focus on pairing individuals and families with students, faculty, community members and professionals who can help them advance their educational or professional training.”

Wake Forest will be presenting the University’s ECAR incubator model at the ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival at the National Museum of American History in Washington on April 5-7.