New YSPH grad helps refugee girls and women find their voices

The photos rested on easels around Luce Hall, taken by teenage girls and adult women who came to America from strife-torn countries – Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Collectively, they told stories of arriving and finding their way in a land quite unlike their own.

Three of the girls shared their written stories as well. Malak Al-Saadi, 13, who came from Iraq when she was 6, read a poem about missing her father and one about high school. Tasneem Musa, 15, from Syria and Jordan, who arrived when she was 8, read a short story about moving to the U.S., learning a language, and persevering.

Hashima Moradi, 18, read two pieces, “My Happiness” and “Goodbye” (excerpts from which you can read below). They detailed the chaos of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan — her family’s overnight flight to the U.S. in 2021, the trauma of seeing her parents break down, and the pain of having to leave friends and family behind at a moment’s notice.

“Her piece had the entire audience in tears,” said Devina Buckshee, MPH ’23, a recent Yale School of Public Health grad who organized the May 29 event – The Many Stories We Have – as part of her practicum. “The emotion of her story floored me when I read it first in May, and I knew I had to create a showcase to present her work and have her stand up and read it to an audience. I'm so proud of her and all of the participants for sharing their writings and personal stories.”

Buckshee, who focused on health policy, global health, and maternal and child health during her time at YSPH, is also a journalist, so she knows something about finding a voice and having one. And now she’s working to help refugee girls and women find theirs.

“As a journalist, I know everyone has a story, but only some people get to tell it,” she said. “Everyone has a voice, and I wanted to help people who have been silenced recognize the power of their own voices.”

For her practicum for her MPH degree, Buckshee teamed with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS), a New Haven-based organization that supports refugees and immigrants as they find their footing in America. She started Project ReClaim: Refugee Storytelling and Advocacy to help displaced girls and women tell their tales, through words and photos.

“Too often, the broad construct of ‘the refugee’ has been demonized and stigmatized in public; refugees’ voices are one of the most underrepresented voices in media discourse and media narratives,” Buckshee explained. “Refugee women are particularly underrepresented in all spheres of life and largely absent as an independent voice in the media. Project ReClaim puts the camera in their hands, and makes them the teller of their own stories.”

Buckshee had worked on a similar project in 2016 as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh during the Syrian civil war. She wanted to create a safe space for refugees to claim their narratives.

Buckshee wanted to do the same in New Haven. Assistant Professor Kaveh Khoshnood, PhD ’95, MPH, 89, suggested she pursue it as an internship last summer, but she already had one lined up. Public Health Law Professor Shelley Diehl Geballe, JD ’76, MPH ’95, proposed that she create Project ReClaim as an independent project through her practicum last semester. Geballe then introduced Buckshee to IRIS.

“She loved the idea of highlighting untold stories and gave me the space of the practicum to develop my own curriculum and agenda and to work with IRIS,” Buckshee said.

The two biggest challenges, Buckshee said, were gathering the girls and women together, and convincing people of the benefits of storytelling as a tool for advocacy.

“Refugees especially have busy lives, and so we had to shift gears and work with children,” she said.

But the end results, Buckshee said, “have been so wonderful. Seeing them read out their work in front of an audience was so special, seeing them take ownership of their stories, be brave, and read their work aloud was wonderful.”

Hashima, for example, was nervous about her English and her speaking ability, Buckshee said, “but her work was powerful not in spite of but precisely because English was her second language – because her expression was a translation from Dari and gave rise to poetic phrases in her writing.

“Besides, their experiences – from living in a refugee camp in the U.S. to adjusting to high school in New Haven – are so unique but also universal in many ways, and seeing them write about their lives so honestly was wonderful. I am so incredibly proud of them for putting in the hours, being honest in their art, and showing up for each other in a supportive way as well.”

Buckshee is moving to New York this summer, where she plans to work in the refugee and global health space. She also hopes to continue working with IRIS to develop the storytelling project. Kaveh Khoshnood, associate professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases) and faculty director of InnovateHealth Yale, has put her in touch with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (Tsai CITY) to try to figure out how to make the IRIS storytelling initiative sustainable.

It was around 1 pm when we got to the plane. Nobody seemed happy - they were scared, worried or relieved that they could go somewhere safe. But not happy. There is no word that can describe the feeling, I didn't even know what I was feeling. It wasn't a happy feeling. Inside of me was worried about where we were going, they didn't tell us anything. They just said “somewhere safe”. My parents were also worried about what was going to happen next. My mom called her family to say goodbye. During the call, tears flowed from her eyes. God knows how much that hurts - seeing your mom crying in front of you, your dad doesn’t want to show his emotion and your brother is scared. I wish I could do something for those tears, mom. It hurts when you can’t do anything besides leaving. Leaving your life, your family and friends that you even didn’t say goodbye to, leaving everything behind and saying goodbye.

The first day at Marvelwood [a boarding school] started with my roommate. I opened the door, there was a white American girl, her name was Mali. She was my roommate. It was so strange for me to see her in the same room, sleeping or doing anything, I didn’t know what to say to her! I had no idea what an American teenager could be like, I had never met any of them before. In my mind, I was thinking about how different we were from each other and how we couldn't connect at all. It was so hard for me to talk to her, or make any friends. I could see friend groups everywhere on campus, and it reminded me of my friend group in Afghanistan. It was hard seeing them because I missed my friends. I wanted to be happy. I really needed my friends and being able to talk to them and share my feeling I was broken from war from not being able to see my grandma, people that I love and not being able to be in my country, my home. My heart can’t handle it. It was too much for me.