BRATTLEBORO — During the June 3 Gallery Walk, Compassionate Brattleboro presented its 2022 Brattleboro Area Unsung Hero Award to the volunteers and staff members of the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) Multicultural Community Center and other local organizations who are facilitating the resettlement of refugees from Afghanistan in our area.
The ECDC Multicultural Community Center was created last fall through partnerships with the ECDC, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) and the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP).
Accepting the award on behalf of these persons were ECDC case managers Nebras Attia and Jessica Rose.
Attia moved to the United States to study at the School for International Training, but then became a refugee herself from her home country of Libya. As a refugee, coming from a Muslim family background and raising her own son in the Brattleboro area, she has been ideally qualified to serve our new Afghan families as ECDC's family case manager.
Rose moved to Vermont to help develop ECDC's office, drawing on her humanitarian education and her experience serving refugees around the country and around the world. She has taken on the equally daunting task of welcoming our new Afghan unaccompanied adult men and women.
For more information on Compassionate Brattleboro, contact Jim Levinson at james.levinson@gmail.com or 802-254-2652.