Have an interview with Dr. Barbara Eiswerth

Dr. Barbara Eiswerth is founding executive director of ISKASHITAA refugee network in Tucson,Arizona.

She started the organization back in 2003, 17 years ago. The first group she work with refugees, which is ethnical minority from Samaritan, and that’s where we got our name. ISKASHITAA means working corporately together.

She said ” We are addressing two issues at ISKASHITAA. First, social isolation that all immigrants, but in particular, refugees, suffered from war, genocide and persecution, the social isolation that many people faced, the prevent from community integration.”

“The second issue that we are dressing is the overall lack of fresh local produce that one in four people in southern Arizona, that suffer from hunger. “

She said “We found that, we believe that community integration is a strong path to self engagement and self sufficiency and in our case, we are very concerned about food security. We went to help refugees adapt to life in Arizona and more specifically to present many opportunities for them to engage in the community so we through our programs,refugees learnt to speak English, developed job skills.”

She said ” I think the only way we’re going to get to world peace is by interacting with our neighbors and incorporating with them in the communities and breath their cultures, empowering refugees to teach their languages about, in our case, specifically is about their food, it’s about their culture and their faith and so important humanitarian relief for the millions of refugees. The US used to be the world leader in refugees resettlement. And it is unfortunately that we are lower our quotas and have reduced the numbers in the time of greatest need for humanitarian relief and it’s not just about relocating people. It’s certainly not about giving, it’s not about giving a hand out here. It’s more giving a hand up and and giving them opportunity to embrace their new culture and get back to the community that has given them so much.”