2023 Displacement Today Lecture Series at The College of Wooster
University and college campuses are often lively centers of positive community action. That’s why when Their Story is Our Story (TSOS) was invited to present our Displacement Today lecture series at The College of Wooster in Ohio, we jumped at the chance to connect with their faculty and students. Hosted by Wooster’s English, Digital and Visual Storytelling, Music, and Political Science departments, the campus visit provided a number of opportunities for future academic collaboration and research-based contributions to TSOS’s Think Tank.
In 2022, Ohio welcomed over 1,000 newly displaced refugees with the largest population coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of those who are resettled in Ohio are supported by the cities of Cleveland and Columbus. TSOS hopes to launch a Community Programs team in Ohio soon.
Speaking about the challenges faced by over 100 million displaced persons, co-presenters Dr. Liz Jevtic-Somlaii, TSOS Associate Director, and Brandi Kilmer, Director of Community Programs were joined by former refugee and recent George Mason University neuroscience graduate, Mahsa Ahmadi. Ahmadi, who spoke both from her own lived experience and undergraduate studies focusing on the brain, attested to how stories can overcome cultural barriers in ways that data can’t. “Neurons that fire together are wired together,” she said.
Other lecture topics included integration and advocacy solutions culminating with a live multi-media performance of “The Story of Our Journey” composed by Wooster Music Professor, Dr. Dylan Findley and performed by clarinetist Dr. Csaba Jevtic-Somlai.
If you are a resident of Ohio and would like to get involved in supporting those in your community, we encourage you to seek out a resettlement agency or non-profit organization near you.
If you are interested in hosting a TSOS Displacement Today lecture series or starting a TSOS Changemaker Campus Chapter at your University, please reach out:
Contact USPartner Profile: No One Left Behind
Their Story is Our Story and No One Left Behind (NOLB) joined forces in 2025 to launch the StoryShield program.
We spoke with Matthew Marcellus, Director of Communications with NOLB, and asked what the partnership with TSOS has meant for his organization and their Afghan clients.
Context with Layma
Social media presents us with an endless scroll of headlines and ‘hot takes’. What’s often missing is context. What is the history that led up to an event? Whose interests are served by a certain policy? What effects is that policy having on people’s lives? Layma Murtaza produces and hosts the video series “Context with Layma”, featured on Their Story is Our Story’s social media channels. We spoke to her about the context of her own life, as an Afghan-American and a professional in humanitarian aid, that led her to use storytelling to illuminate the personal and political context behind the headlines.
De-skilling and the Mental Health Effects Among Refugee Physicians
Discussions of physician workforce policy tend to organize themselves around numbers. Shortage projections, residency slot allocations, and licensing timelines dominate the literature, and for understandable reasons. More than 83 million people in the United States currently live in areas without sufficient access to a primary care physician, and projections suggest the country could face a shortage of as many as 120,000 physicians by 2030.