March marks 3 important dates for RWN
It is Women's History Month. March 8th is International Women's Day. March 2010 is also the 30th anniversary of the US Refugee Act that established the Refugee Program in the US.
The significance of this all is embodied in the story of Ms. Clara Saeni Hart, RWN's board chair.
Ms. Clara Hart is a powerful force to be reckoned with. She ran for State Senator in South Dakota in 2008 and is currently running for City Council of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She has worked with numerous families as the Home-School Liaison for immigrant families helping them reestablish in their new home.
Clara's own personal story is not to be missed either. When Clara was 8 years old, she, her parents, and 5 siblings left Mozambique to walk through the revolutionary war to the neighboring country of Malawi. It was only the first of many nations they walked through. They lived in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Zaire, living in refugee camps for three years. Her parents had joined the 'FRELIMO'Liberation Movement and her father had been arrested for aiding the rebels, escaped, then, advised to surrender, was tried in court. He again escaped, this time with the whole family. Clara took it upon herself to learn all the languages of the countries they passed through.
As an adult, Clara left Kenya, resettled in the USA in 1988 and moved to South Dakota in 1989.Like every refugee and immigrant woman, she's traveled a long way by now, and she's not finished yet.
Clara knows what it really means to be a community leader. She is a founding mother of Refugee and Immigrant Women's Network of Sioux Falls. Clara is a long standing friend of the RWN since her participation in RWN's leadership program, many moons ago. She says 'Some may see my story and think I am extraordinary. In reality, I am only one of the more visible examples of the strength, skills, and courage that are in every refugee and immigrant woman in the US.'
Clara provides strategic direction and leadership to RWN and it's programs, in effect guiding hundreds of refugee and immigrant women to become civic leaders and bicultural bridges between their culture and the American culture.
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