Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, helps refugees and other displaced people establish a fresh start in Connecticut. Soon there will be new leadership at the New Haven-based nonprofit.
“There's a theme of human migration that I think runs through my life. And through my career,” Maggie Mitchell Salem, IRIS incoming executive director, said.
Mitchell Salem, born in Long Island, is the grandchild of immigrants. A former teacher, she spent much of her career in the Middle East and living in other parts of the world at the crossroads of migration.
Right now, she is in Tunisia, working to build up civil governance.
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However, come January, Mitchell Salem will be in Connecticut, and the incoming executive director at IRIS.
One key issue she plans to tackle: bolstering education programs.
“Especially catch-up education for a lot of the young people that come to Connecticut and that need extra support, and to help them better integrate and succeed,” Mitchell Salem said.
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She looks forward to learning from outgoing executive director, Chris George, who is headed to retirement, and expanding an initiative he spearheaded: community-based sponsorship of refugees.
“Connecticut is such a fantastic model as a state, and the communities within Connecticut, and finding more ways to augment what they're already doing,” Mitchell Salem said.
The concept of empowering groups of community members to become refugee sponsors became the national model, when IRIS was chosen earlier this year to train people all over the country to become members of The Welcome Corps.
“We are definitely looking into the evolution of how we work with refugees in terms of welcoming, welcoming them, and having more private individuals involved,” Michael Van Leesten, IRIS Board of Directors chair, said.
Van Leesten said the hallmark model of resettlement in Connecticut is key to meeting the needs of an ever growing refugee population.
“We're going to have a lot more refugees in the next 10 or 20 years,” Van Leesten said. “IRIS was started as a small, humble organization. And now, it's almost hard to imagine, but, you know, conceivably it could be significantly larger, we have to prepare for that. And not because we want to be a large organization, but because the need is so great.”
It is something the nonprofit will zero-in on, with Mitchell Salem at the helm, ready to find new pathways to successful futures.
“Issues of refugees have been at the heart of so much that I have worked on either indirectly or directly,” Mitchell Salem said. “ So I'm just honored to be part of this community.”
An IRIS spokesperson said as George heads into retirement, he looks forward to spending time with his grandchildren, exercising, and he hopes to run his first marathon.
