An Idea That’s Quietly Changing How America Welcomes Refugees

What if essentially the most radical act of welcome wasn’t a coverage or a program — however a dorm room sitting empty all summer season? Diya Abdo, a second-generation refugee turned English professor turned social entrepreneur, has spent a decade asking schools a deceptively easy query: what sources do you might have, and who do you suppose they’re for? The solutions have housed over 1,000 refugees throughout 24 campuses — eating halls, well being clinics, pupil volunteers, and all. Ashoka’s Maria Merola sat down with Abdo to study extra.

Maria Merola: Diya, you began Every Campus A Refuge in 2015. How did this concept come collectively?

Diya Adbo, founder

Each Campus A Refuge

Diya Abdo: I’ve to begin with my background. I am a second-generation refugee, born to oldsters displaced from Palestine to Jordan. I grew up with my grandmother, who raised me and always advised me about Palestine and the way a lot she missed it. Regardless that she moved to a rustic that spoke her language and had her favourite meals on the market, she had a relentless craving for her dwelling. To me, being a refugee meant being eternally lonely.

I carried that with me after I got here to the U.S. on a pupil visa, and later as a naturalized citizen. Then in 2015, I heard Pope Francis name on each parish to host a refugee household. I beloved that decision to radical hospitality — to not nations, however to small communities: a neighborhood, a church, a congregation. And I believed, could not each campus reply that decision? I went to the president of my school, Guilford Faculty, and requested to make use of campus housing for refugees arriving in Greensboro, North Carolina, from camps overseas. She stated sure, and we began internet hosting households in January 2016.

Merola: What’s ECAR’s attain in the present day?

Abdo: Over 24 campuses throughout the U.S. take part — non-public and public, city and rural, giant and small, two-year and four-year, on each coasts and in all places in between. Collectively they’ve hosted over 1,000 refugees and labored with lots of, if not hundreds, extra in surrounding communities.

However the scope goes past these numbers. Consider the scholars who notice they wish to work in public well being after spending time with refugee households. Consider the amenities employee whose job is to repair the air-con — somebody who would possibly by no means in any other case have the chance to fulfill a refugee — and who develops an actual relationship with a hosted household. That proximity, that joyful act of neighboring, is what opens hearts and minds. We attempt to measure these concentric circles of affect, not simply the headline figures.

Merola: Are you able to share a narrative that captures how these circles work?

Abdo: Washington State College in Pullman — a small city of 20,000 individuals — hosted their first Afghan household in 2021, then one other in 2022, after which one other. Now there is a small, thriving Afghan group in Pullman. The final household they hosted really requested to go there by identify. That circle of care had reached outward throughout the Afghan group.

One other story I really like: we hosted an Iraqi refugee, Ali al-Khazraji, at Guilford years in the past. He is a calligraphist. As a result of he lived on campus, he had free entry to an artwork studio and provides. He created art work that has allowed him to complement his earnings ever since. That is what occurs whenever you cease fascinated about what a refugee must survive and begin fascinated about who they really are — an artist, a mom, a cook dinner, somebody with passions price nurturing.

Merola: You describe your self as a “hacker” of establishments. What do you imply by that?

Abdo: We are likely to tie establishments to a single perform: a college offers levels, a church gathers individuals for worship, a resort supplies rooms. We get caught in calcified methods of fascinated about what a corporation does.

However should you cease asking “what does this establishment do?” and ask as an alternative “what sources does this establishment have?” — a very totally different street opens up. Consider all of the campus housing that sits empty over the summer season. Consider companies and companies with sources used solely a part of the yr, or for a slim group of individuals. After which ask the extra vital query: why can we consider some sources are just for some individuals?

I believe each human being is entitled to each useful resource. That is the spirit I would like everybody to embody. I walked into my president’s workplace and stated, that is my campus, these are my sources, and I wish to use them for my group. No person is an unlikely accomplice to me. Each entity is unactivated — the query is find out how to activate it.

Merola: Each refugee resettlement and better training face political headwinds within the U.S. proper now. How is that this touchdown for ECAR?

Abdo: I wish to say one thing vital: what’s loud just isn’t the identical as what’s dominant. Once I go to communities throughout this nation, I see pockets full of affection, compassion, and resistance. In our fast analysis of ECAR chapters over the previous yr, we discovered campuses did not simply maintain regular — they pivoted, introduced in new volunteers, and in some instances expanded to tackle work beforehand executed by resettlement companies which have shut down. These are resilient ecosystems.

For me personally, this local weather feels acquainted. As a Palestinian, I do know this divide-and-conquer mentality. I do know that any struggle for freedom is multi-generational. The antidote to hate is connection — should you meet a refugee and get to know them, it turns into very arduous to consider the rhetoric that claims they are a menace. So my technique is to maintain creating alternatives for proximity, and to play the lengthy sport.

Merola: What recommendation do you might have for somebody who desires to carry this mannequin to their group? How ought to they begin?

Abdo: Begin with asset mapping — take a look at your group and work out who has what and who can do what. Not simply organizations, however people and their expertise, their connections, their networks. Suppose in concentric circles: not simply what’s accessible in your fast neighborhood, however who , and who they know.

And see individuals as your most vital useful resource. We have a tendency to think about college campuses as locations of fabric abundance, however what issues most is the individuals and the abilities they carry. The mannequin is not about having every part — it is about activating what’s already there.

Merola: What framework are you leaving individuals with proper now?

Abdo: Three radicals. Radical hospitality: act in ways in which make individuals really feel welcomed and like they belong. Radical accountability: maintain your self, your establishment, and your authorities accountable to treating each individual justly and sharing sources equitably. And radical hope — not naive optimism, however hope that lives in creativeness. The power to visualise a future the place we rely on one another in ways in which maintain us, free from the whims of whoever is in energy. An creativeness that lets us resolve, for ourselves, who we’re to one another.

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Diya Abdo is a social entrepreneur and Ashoka Fellow. Watch her TEDx Talk and examine her ebook American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience (Penguin Random Home, 2022).

Maria Merola co-leads Ashoka’s work to floor, assist, and join improvements in migration worldwide. Maria spoke with Diya in Could 2026 (watch) as a part of Ashoka’s Welcome Change dialog sequence.