9am-4:30pm
Monday-Thursday
540.433.7942
Staff
Susannah Lepley is the CWS Virginia director, based in Harrisonburg. Susannah grew up in Brazil and speaks Portuguese and Spanish.
Nadezhda Mazur is the Refugee Program Coordinator. She grew up in Ukraine and speaks Russian, Ukrainian, and English. nmazur@cwsglobal.org
Arsalan Syan is our Arabic/Kurdish speaking caseworker. Asyan@cwsglobal.org
Rodrigue Makelele is our French/Swahili speaking caseworker. He also speaks Lingala, Kinyarwanda, and Tshiluba, rmakelele@cwsglobal.org
Lucia Canizares is our Immigration Counselor, accredited by the Department of Justice to practice immigration law. She speaks Spanish, English, and French and works to assist clients with applications for legal services such as citizenship, green card applications, and family reunifications.
Rebecca Sprague is the Community Program Coordinator for CWS Harrisonburg. rsprague@cwsglobal.org
Frey Assefa is the Health Liaison for CWS Harrisonburg. fassefa@cwsglobal.org
Sarah Alice Coleman is the School Liaison & ELT Coordinator. She helps connect children and adults to educational opportunities and coordinates volunteers. .
Mission
Our primary goal is to help the refugee form long lasting relationships in the community which become the basis of self-sufficiency. In order to reach this goal a family must be able to maintain their own basic needs in a sustainable lifestyle. Our program provides a bridge from their former life in their home country to a new set of cultural, linguistic, and practical skills that will enable them to be successful in Harrisonburg.
Services
What are your main services of your organization?
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Safe, clean, and affordable housing
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Essential furnishings for their new home
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Food and food allowance
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Necessary clothing
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Assistance in health screening and appropriate health programs
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Assistance in applying for Social Security Cards
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Registering the children in school
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Employment training and employment services
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Cultural Orientation
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English language training or referral
Integration Assistance: WIthin the first week of two of arrival, new refugees are invited to attend the four week cultural orentiation class whcih meets three times a week and covers englsh and other cutrual information. It also covers housing, health, education, finances, jobs, etc and includes field trips.
There is also a partnership with Skyline Literacy to help eligable candidtes prepare for their citizenship naturalization test and compelete imigration paperwork.
Immigration Services: Legal service advice,citizenship, green card, work authorization, family reunification and other legal immigrant applications
Refugee Employment: Job skills readiness training, assitance with applications, interviewing skills, connections to english classes, and job finding assistance.
Who we primarily serve
Immigrants and Refugees resettling in the Harrisonburg Area
Teen Opportunities
Fostering
- Fostering for the RHSPCA means temporarily opening your home to an animal (or animals) in need of extra time and attention. Foster homes are mostly used as a quiet place for pets to recover from illness or injury, or to simply grow big enough to be placed up for adoption.
Volunteering.
- Requires one hours in person orientation. Volunteers can be there in order to gain experience working with animals, in order to work with animals more, through a club at the local university, or even for court ordered community service hours.
Unique Information
CWS is a global organization that provides services to immigrants and refugees.
Activities
Trvia Nights, Naturalization information sessions
Cultural orientation for new arrivals, media and advocacy trainings, volunteer trainings, annual refugee photo shows, community info sessions, community conversations (Check out he facebooj for more current info)
Referral for Services
Some services require going through the official office of refugee resettlement for services.
Family Services
Yes. Many immigrants and refugees come over together. We can also help with providing he apporpriate resources in finding educational opportunties for students as well as helping with family reunifciation